Now that it’s the weekend I’ve finally got time to blog about the non-work related things I’ve been doing recently.
During the Easter weekend I had my belated birthday party. We had a meal at Old Orleans restaurant and then we went to the cinema to see The Boat That Rocked. The best thing was that all 4 of my closest friends could make it – we hadn’t been out all together for several years! It was just like the old days when we were still at high school.
In April I hosted my first IVC event of my own – I arranged a meal at Malaysian Delights and 9 people attended. I was really pleased as it all went well. I’ve got a nightclub evening coming up soon, so I’m looking forward to that. Last week I went to Quasar Elite (the laser-gun game) but I wasn’t very good at it – in fact my score was the lowest out of the whole group! I enjoyed it as it was a new experience for me, but I don’t think I’d be that bothered about going there again. At least I now know what it’s like, as I have been curious about it in the past. I didn’t really expect to be very good at it, but I wanted to give it a try.
2 weeks ago I was sick and I had to go home after being at work for just over half an hour. This was the second time I was ill in the space of a month. No-one else in my family caught this bug, so I’m not sure how I got it – it could’ve been something I ate. I felt very weak and lethargic for most of that weekend. I went to Felbrigg Hall Gardens with Terry, but we had to return home after less than an hour as I felt so tired and lacking in energy. There weren’t that many flowers in bloom anyway, but I did take a few photos.
On Wednesday it was Terry’s 65th birthday. We plan to go to Malaysian Delights (what yet again, I hear you cry!) tomorrow evening to celebrate.
On Thursday 28th May it will be my sister Suzanne and her fiance Paul’s wedding. Finding a dress to wear at the wedding is proving to be difficult so far; I rarely ever wear dresses these days, and the ones I tried on yesterday evening didn’t suit me. Suzanne has her hen night on 16th May, so I’m looking forward to that.
My new job has been going well, mostly. I’ve created several ad-hoc reports so far. This morning was very tense though – I completed a report to a very tight deadline. I wasn’t totally happy with the layout of it, but I thought I’d better send it out anyway in order to ensure I met the deadline. All the necessary data was there, although the report wasn’t very elegant or user-friendly. I had to create the report using a pivot table in Excel, and I’m not an expert in constructing pivot tables (yet), although I know enough to get by.
This morning, I received a phone call from the person to whom I sent the report. I wasn’t too worried about this, as I thought she was just going to ask me some questions about how to use the report. However, it actually turned out to be a complaint! 
The lady said that she wouldn’t be able to use the report to extract the figures she wanted, as the drop-down menus weren’t working correctly. All the figures were there, but it would be very time-consuming for her to get the high-level summaries with the report in its current format. She didn’t sound really angry, but she wasn’t very happy as she urgently needed the report to be ready for a meeting later in the afternoon.
She was quite senior – in fact she’s the head of a department. I was really nervous during the phone call and I could feel my voice was a bit shaky, and that made me feel embarrassed. I apologised for the problems with the report and told her that I would make it my top priority to put it right, and that I’d ask other co-workers for advice if necessary. She seemed a bit happier then, although she said she definitely needed the report by mid-day at the very latest.
Straight after the phone call, I told my manager what had happened, and he helped me to rebuild the report. He was very patient with me and he showed me exactly what to do, so I should be better at creating pivot tables in the future. The new version was a lot easier to use, as you can easily see the summarised data. I managed to get the revised version of the report sent out just after 11am. I felt so relieved!
When I came back from lunch, my inbox contained a thank-you email from the lady, and she said the new version of the report was much more user-friendly. I was very happy about that, and it helped to put my mind at rest.
On Tuesday and Wednesday morning I had a co-worker training me on how to do ad-hoc reports and I was “shadowing” her for most of the time. Unfortunately she had to go home at mid-day on Wednesday because she was ill, and she hasn’t been back since then. So I’ve been completing several ad-hoc reports on my own, although I have been asking other colleagues for advice on where to find the raw data when necessary. I probably haven’t had as much training as I should have done. I would’ve preferred to have had more training before I began handling actual customer requests on my own, but I don’t suppose there was much that could’ve been done about it. I do feel bad though, as I hate to feel that I’ve inconvenienced someone, especially someone who is quite senior within the company. In future when I’m creating a complex report, I think I’ll ask one of my co-workers to peer review it before I send it out, until I build up more experience. Maybe I’m being too harsh on myself, as I’ve only been in the job for a week so far.
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