All posts by Mike Meyers

I'm an Oracle developer living in London
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No life in Civic Square, Wellington

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As with many people, I take quite an interest in my local environment including the natural and man-made architecture that surrounds me. I like to live in a city that has a nice feel to it.

I’m not an architect or a designer. Maybe I don’t even have good taste. But sometimes it’s better to put an opinion out there to see if anyone shares it and hopefully improve things.

I’ve recently moved back to Wellington, New Zealand, and it’s a very nice place to live. It’s a vibrant city sitting on the edge of a beautiful natural harbour, surrounded by hills.

The point of this article isn’t really to gush about how nice Wellington is but to complain about where it is lacking. Continue reading No life in Civic Square, Wellington →

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Long time…..

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Well, I don’t really have any excuse. It has been six months since I last wrote a blog post here. I guess that’s what happens with many blogs. Write a few posts initially, get excited, then nothing…

It has been a bit of a difficult year for me and it still isn’t getting any better. I’m not going to go into much detail here because it’s not really the place. 

The short story is that I’m now no longer living in London or even in the UK and I still don’t have a job. I quit my job almost twelve months ago and have probably worked three months of this year is total.

It is all rather frustrating and it’s hard work to keep going day-by-day. I’ve written this post just to help me feel a bit more productive at the moment. Some days it’s hard to get out of bed and producing something like this blog post helps to reduce that feeling somewhat.

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Rejection

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I’ve been out of work for a while. This is the middle of a recession but still, I think I’m pretty good at what I do so this shouldn’t be much of a problem.

I got turned down for another job today. I guess this sort of thing happens and this rejection wasn’t any more difficult than the prior ones. But it’s all just starting to wear me down.

I’m definitely regretting quitting my job a few months ago. I know getting a new job would be hard but now it’s just annoying. I’m wasting my time at home sitting on job web sites when I could be improving database systems and solving problems. Instead I sit on my arse at home.

It does make me think that there really is a problem with employment. I guess a hundred or two hundred years ago you would talk to someone you know mac they would sort you out a job. Now, I’m living in a city of about twelve million people. I’ve got great skills but the people in this city who should know about me just don’t.

What I deal with are recruitment consultants. They haven’t written a line of code in their life and can’t tell the difference between decent coders and charlatans. I’m not a charity and don’t expect to be given a job that I don’t deserve but to be ignored by recruiters who don’t even really know how to find what they are looking for.

Maybe that is a bit of an unreasonable rant but it seems appropriate right now.

Comments would be appreciated. Especially from recruiters trying to prove that they aren’t entirely clueless.

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Jubilee weekend

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The most recent weekend in London had the celebrations for the Queen’s 60th Jubilee. 60 years is a long time to be doing any job.

Over the course of the weekend there were several major events. I tried to go along to the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant. So did several million other people! This event consisted of about a thousand boats travelling down the Thames between Battersea Park and the Tower of London.

After heading down to the Thames embankment a couple of hours before the event was supposed to start, there were already thousands and thousands of people there waiting. I couldn’t really get a riverfront view because the crowd was already at least ten deep in most places.

I got myself in front of a large television screen which helped. I got to watch everything that was going on as the boats went down the route and approached my position. Unfortunately when the boats arrived I still relied on the TV as I couldn’t see the river at all.

All in all, it was probably a bit of a waste of time heading down there but I enjoyed the atmosphere. I don’t think I was willing to get there at 9am or earlier just to get a prime spot so I probably got the view i deserved.

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Summer in London

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After several awful weeks of weather and even getting the heating back on, the weather in London has finally improved. It’s like it is the height of summer – in May.

The weather in London is often changeable but the past few weeks have been awful. I opened up the weather app on my phone and it told me to expect rain for the next 10 days at some point. And that was as far in the future as the app’s display went.

I’m hoping that the sun is here to stay. I am struggling with the heat a little, especially in the tube yesterday afternoon but it is nice to leave the house with only short sleeves on and not have to worry too much.

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Olympic ticketing woes (or why is Ticketmaster always so hopeless?)

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I’m finally starting to get excited by the Olympics and wanting to get involved. Some additional tickets went on sale yesterday and I got online to try and get some.

After hearing the complaints about people missing out on earlier rounds I wasn’t really expecting much to be available nor was I expecting the process to be much fun. Continue reading Olympic ticketing woes (or why is Ticketmaster always so hopeless?) →

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The Queen’s Jubilee Muster

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In the weekend, I took a trip out to Windsor to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Muster. This was an event held in honour of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and is the first event in a busy calendar of Jubilee events.

The event involved a parade of about 2,500 members of the armed services along with a flypast involving 78 planes. All pretty exciting. Continue reading The Queen’s Jubilee Muster →

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First!

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I’ve got a fair bit of time on my hands so thought it was time to start a blog or two. It looks to me like FaceBook is dying so it’s time to create additional content on the internet.

I’m living in London, living my life and currently trying to fill in a bit of down-time between jobs. I’m not really sure what I’m going to fill this space with but I’m sure I can manage something.