Excelling at Work

So I was pretty dissapointed with my drop in 'Solved on First Contact' metric at work.

I felt as though at Rio Tinto I had developed some great skills. To then have my SOFC metric drop from 97% to 70% was pretty disappointing.

Well disappointed I shall no longer be.

Todays Metrics for last week came out today:

Calls Taken - 178

Solved on First Contact - 172

97% Solved on First Contact

That means only 6 of my Service Calls had to be escalated to a Resolver Group where I could not resolve the problem.

Check out the big brain on Brad!

Brisbane, Australia to Birmingham, England

So things are booked and I actually have my schedule for returning home. As promised...

Itinerary:

8th May:

20:00 (GMT+10)

Train from Brisbane to Cooloongata Airport, Gold Coast

9th May:

8:40 (GMT+10) - 15:10 (GMT+6)

Flight from Cooloongata Airport, Gold Coast to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

15:10 (GMT+6) - 10th May

Stay in Kuala Lumpur for the evening

To Do:

• Petronas Twin Towers
  
• Kuala Lumpur Tower
  
• Petaling Street
• Temples and Mosques if I get time
• Times Square

10th May:

17:00 (GMT+6) - 23:59 (GMT)

Flight from Kuala Lumpur to Stansted Airport, London

11th May:

01:00 (GMT) - 04:00 (GMT)

Coach from Stansted Airport, London to , Birmingham

In the meantime I'm attempting to find a job for when I arrive back home. Things seem to be pretty desperate in Birmingham at the moment so any advice is appreciated.

See you all soon!

Hangover (Vol. 84939201)

So Danny, Jon, Nikko, Pascal, Henryk and I went out last night.

Eleven hours worth of drinking later, I'm dying in my room with the worst hangover ever.

Quotes of the night:

Random Girl: So are you all from England?

Me: Nope! We're English, he's Irish, he's Swiss, he's German and I have no idea where he's from...

Coming Home!

So yeah. Incase you don't have Facebook, don't read Danny's blog and haven't spoken to me recently... I'm coming home!

Australia has been great and working and living in Brisbane is a great experience and I've gained some invaluable experience, both work and social, but it's time to head home for various reasons.

By the time I get home, I'll have been away from home for around 13 months, bar the return visit to England during the summer of 2008. Australia is great and Brisbane really is a fantastic place to live and work but I am unfortunately working to live at the moment. I haven't got the financial cushion I've had in every other country where I can just jump on a bus/boat/plane/back of a pickup truck/long-boat and head for a new adventure.

My week days consist of getting up early, catching the train to work, working all day, arriving home at 6pm and then spending the evening relaxing, awaiting the next day. Now, I can imagine you're thinking 'welcome back to the 'real world'', but this isn't the real world to me. I've made friends here whilst working etc. and after the Rio team disbanded most of them have gone their own way, to other countries and cities and I'm still here. The return of Danny was a relief and our shared interest in alcohol, football and snooker made the 9-5 grind easier. However, due to Danny's exit from Glen Street (see his blog for details www.dannyhontour.blogspot.com) life is back to working 5 days a week, with only weekends left to relax.

So yes, I'm living the life everyone else does. So why leave? Well in Australia I don't have my family, I don't have my friends from back home, I can't watch Birmingham City whenever I want to, to watch the football I have to stay up until 2am, Australian's don't do Sunday Roasts, beer is over priced and the heat is finally getting to me. I miss my gran's Sunday dinners, my mom's mothering, my watered down beer in the pub and Birmingham City Centre (yes, really!).

I feel as though I have a life waiting for me in England which is being suspended by living the same life, without all of the home comforts, here in Australia. Australia has beaches, good weather and a laid back lifestyle. But it doesn't have the things I have at home that make me happy.

Also, if you do read Danny's blog, you will have noticed I've met someone I want to be with. Fortunately she is in England, where the rest of my life is. At this point I have no reason to continue traveling around, living the same life I would in England without the best bits of home.

So I'm coming back to you all!

Dates to follow once confirmed; but it looks as though it's going to be via. Malaysia which will be another tick on the 'To Do List'.

I was investigating the cost of flights and come across what I thought was a fantastic deal:

$1300 (£650) 1 way flight from Brisbane to Hong Kong to Zurich to Birmingham

Then I called Danny and mid conversation he popped in the brand 'Air Asia'...

Gold Coast to Malaysia $249 (£122)

Malaysia to London $459 (£225)

Total = $708 (£347)

That's right. You can fly from London to Australia, via Malaysia, for £347!

As for my current situation...

I'm still working in Brisbane at Shared Information Solutions for The Queensland Government. My role is primarily providing technical support to Hewlett Packard technicians who are deploying around 8,000 new computers across the state. I have to make sure these guys install the PC's, get them up and running, assist with any problems encountered and then resolve any customer logged issues after the replacement. Pretty cool stuff. Additionally I still take regular Service Desk requests, resolving technical issues over the phone. Last week saw me take around 200 phone calls over 4 days (30 hours) with a 'Fix on First Contact' of 140. That means that 70% of the calls I take, I fix. This is a significant drop from Rio where as a team we were at 97% but considering the strict policies and restrictions in place at the government, it's still a very good metric.

Week day nights don't really offer to much at the moment, I chill out at home most of the time with the X-Box and Mac and watch movies etc. Normal life.

Weekends are still eventful, especially when alcohol fueled.

Last weekend saw Danny leave our home. Tonight... who knows?!

So we're all festivaled out as well. V and Future have been and gone and there are no more major events in the next month. I guess I'll just have to go to them all again when I'm back home in England!

I'll update once I have my route and timetable for returning home planned. My planned land date is the 8th May. I'll let you know!

So for now,

B-Rad Out!

V Festival 2009 - Gold Coast

So we told you we bought V Festival Tickets; here's the story:

So it was the day before V and Dan and I had a great idea (or so we thought): Lets get as drunk as possible the night before V so that we just have to top up our alcohol the next day and will be drunk in no time.

So we hit the Valley. We started off in the Elephant and Wheelbarrow, a fairly decent English pub, which had a live band and cheap beer. Several pints later, Jon (Danny's Irish mate from Thailand) turned up and we were on it! We ended up getting split up at some point whilst heading from the pub to a random club, as usual...

Well this is where the night became legendary. We had at some point agreed to go into a club call Mystique, so I queued up and headed in. After getting in I bought myself a 'Mother and Vodka' (which is basically a turbo charged Red-Bull and Vodka) and headed for the nearest balcony. Five seconds into leaning over the balcony, I spotted Danny, Danny spotted me and it was back on!

Many drinks later, a nap on a bench and no recollection of getting home, I woke up at 10am in my bed. V Fest. Day!

Urgh, a horrible hangover had developed and we ended up leaving home around 1 o'clock.

We headed for the station and caught the Gold Coast train to Robina at the Gold Coast. We had no idea where we were going and hadn't planned much at all. Bonus really, considering there was a shuttle bus taking people to V for free!

We landed at V and bought a great hangover cure: The Bloke's Burger.

I had in fact only wanted a burger with some cheese and onions, however this was called a 'Sheila's Burger'. I'd have swallowed my pride and taken it, had the guy not written SHEILA on the side of the box. A Bloke's Burger later my hangover was cured and we were back on the beer!

V Festival was so much more chilled out than Future. The stages were all close to each other and the line up for the day was incredible. We arrived around 3pm and left at 10:30pm. During that time we got to see, in order:

Duffy (well, we walked past)

Razorlight

The Madness

Kaiser Chiefs

Snow Patrol

The Killers

The Kaisers were by far the best performance at the festival. During their set Ricky Wilson (the vocalist) climbed up the side of the scaffolding holding the stage up, came into the crowd, right in front of me and Danny, decided he couldn't go any further so asked us to all lift him up and crowd surf him back to the stage. It was hilarious watching this guy pointing at the stage but heading sideways across the crowd! To end their set they finished with 'Oh My God'. 10,000 'Oh my god, I can't believe it, I've never been this far away from home' the set was over. Seriously it was the best performance ever. Un-polished, real music. The Killers were a come down after The Kaisers for me, they were just far too polished. It could have been a CD playing.

At some point during The Killers' set, the heavens opened and everyone was absolutely soaking. Honestly, I've had dryer showers. My brand new white Converse were ruined and we had a freezing 2 hour trek back to Moorooka, where we live.

Epic day out.

It's a tough one, but perhaps V Fest. > Future

Maybe. Just maybe. I'm not certain.

So there you go. V Festival done; in Australia!

You stay classy readers.