Possibly one of the most stressful weeks of my life

This is the first time in weeks I've had time in front of the computer to do something that's not work or house related. The title above refers to the confluence of the final stages of the house purchase, trying to organise Christmas, and a particularly difficult few days at work. Thankfully through a combination of sheer bloody mindedness, Dana's organisational prowess and some good teamwork around the office, it looks like things will come together for settlement tomorrow afternoon, or Friday morning at the latest and that we will meet a significant milestone at work.

In my previous posts about the arcane and entirely opaqe process involved in settlement, I indicated that I found it all quite confusing. Unfortunately, it seems to have proved quite confusing for the veteran players involved whose job it is supposed to be to make these things happen on a regular basis. As a first time homebuyer, it's been a truely signifcant challenge trying to get all these things together when we don't even know what they are and what has to be done, but if there's one thing to learn from it all, it's that you can't really rely on anyone else to make any of it happen. I hate being one of those people who has to push all the time for things to happen and harass people - after all, for the most part they're just doing their job - but that is what you must be in this process.

It's also one of the few times in my life where I've found it to be a real challenge to work through things calmly, where my emotional response has been so strong that I've had to really work to keep it under control and remain rational. Some aspects of it all still make me seethe a little bit just thinking about it, but as long as settlement occurs properly tomorrow or the day after, I think I'll be able to let go of it all. Plus I'll be off work for a couple of weeks, removing another annoyance, and it will be Christmas and I'm going to get to be around some of the people I love most in the world. This can only be a good thing.

I actually feel quite serene and positive about the whole thing at the moment. Things have quietened down at work, there is a beautiful view out of my window (see the picture below) the weather is finally better and I'm really enjoying Tame Impala's "Innerspeaker" album. The album really reminds me of the Beatles for some reason, and is excellent.

There's also been some really excellent things happening recently, in addition to all the annoying house stuff. We went to Melbourne for Dana's work Christmas party, which was super excellent, and also managed to catch some old friends while we were there and get all of our Christmas shopping done. I had a collection of excellent work Christmas parties as well (Team, Group and Department), one of which had some really excellent food.

Life is good. As soon as this house stuff is sorted, it will be super freaking excellent.

PS: OK, so this is going to sound super corny, but on re-reading this I feel I should add that one of the reasons that life is good is the Dana. This week would have been impossible without her, and I would probably not be getting keys to a house any time soon without her. Dana - you make things awesome.

The funniest thing I have seen today

I have a cold and feel horrible. Yet I am still at work - this does not compute.

We've seen a drop in all three measures of workforce engagement

Hello! Fancy seeing you here - it's been a while, and I bet you thought I'd forgotten all about you.

This is simply not the case - I've just been swamped at work and have been going through a massive reading phase recently. I've been averaging around 3 books a week since about mid-August. I blame this on the staycation and also Dana ordering a lot of books off the internets. I'm starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of books at home though, will need seek out other pursuits. Or buy more books...

The work side of it is a little bit interesting. By rights, working in a policy area that both sides of Parliament are swearing blue that they won't be active in, it should be really quiet and cruisey in the caretaker period. But unfortunately, this has not been the case, due to a couple of things. The first is that the time frames for the issue that I'm working on are really tight, and there's not that much room to stop and do nothing. In addition, the time frame is being set by Fair Work Australia, the federal industrial tribunal, which doesn't take that much notice of elections.

The second is that we had a re-structure, and my direct supervisor took a voluntary redundancy. As she wasn't replaced, I've had to take a few extra duties.

None of this is really that exciting to you, I'm sure. Suffice to say, I had a whole heap of work to do and now, I'm in post election limbo, with much less to do. It's actually pretty demoralising not knowing who I'm going to be working for, and not being able to get working on it. Don't get me wrong, we've done a lot of prep for either way, but there's not much more that I can do without actually having a Government.

The funny thing is, everyone else where I work reached this point weeks ago. A friend summarised it with a lol public servants:

Hopefully it will all be over soon, but to be honest, for the sake of the next three years, I think I'd rather just have them go back to the polls and someone get a full majority. You think this whole independents horse holding the power thing is bad now, wait until there's some essential bill that Parliament can't pass because Bob Katter's a nut bar in a cowboy hat. It'll be double dissolution before you can say "how's ya father" and we'll be right back where we are now.

Another six weeks of annoyance vs. three years (and probably less) of stagnation in the Parliament? Shit choices either way really. Although I guess if you go in for politics generally and it means the other side (which ever that is to you) doesn't get their way for another three years, there might be some consolation there.

Bleugh.

In other news, I'm going to Foreshore in November with Dana and kindred spirits Karla and Esa. It costs a mint, but I'm looking forward to a few bevvies in the sun in a nice location and some tuuuuunes. I'm also looking forward to laughing at Tiesto.

"OHAI2U RAVERS, I ARE NUMBER 1 DJ LOL!!!1!1"

To balance out the Tiesto, here's some Noisia and Phace. I've been listening to Phace and Misanthrop's 'From Deep Space' this afternoon, and it's keeping me positive.

The sample 20 seconds in to this till about a minute always makes me smile. Also making me smile in that particular clip are all the ravers caught making made nightclub faces. Somebody make some noise (or some such) for the DJ!

To round it all out, here's an absolutely awesome clip that was on Giz a little while back of some stop motion animation. I also dig the soundtrack. Hey Daver, this one's for you (no play dough though).

Taking care in caretaker

Now that the election has been called and Parliament has been dissolved, Canberra enters a special time called "caretaker" in which the public services continues day to day functions, but can no longer have ministerial or cabinet approval on more substantial issues. This means that policy directions, stakeholder consultation and major projects are all basically put on pause while the country works out who the Government is going to be for the next couple of years.

For a policy area like the one I work in, this means that things get very, very quiet for a while. This has already started, and the feeling on the floor is rather frivolous and festive.

The problem for me, is that because I'm on a temporary task force at the moment dealing with a very specific issue, and I've also just lost the only other member of my team to the restructure, I still have a metric butt load of work to do. I'm finding it really challenging not to get caught up in the relaxed mood of everyone around me when I still have a lot to do!

To this end, sound isolating canal phones and the music on YouTube are my best friends.

Here's what I'm listening to right now:

A little warning on that, the visuals are a bit whack. Plus, you know, it's dubstep so it won't appeal to all tastes.

The upshot of this for blog readers? The frequency of posts will probably bump up a little bit in the near future. We're also getting closer and closer to completion on the house, so there will probably be lots of things around that to blog about.

For example, the real estate agent has advised that she will be sending out an email about the estimated completion date today or tomorrow, which I'm really looking forward to. Hopefully this will inform the timing of any more furniture purchases!

Now, time to eat some lunch, and then make annoying phone calls that I don't want to make.