We have a home!

This weekend I received the keys to our new home. The house is only a 5 minute walk to the office, a 2 minute walk from the center of town and also very near the Train Station. It is a 3 bedroom end-of-terrace with a garden out back.

Acid River, Virus Contamination and Bridges

The team building event was excellent; we had to go through exercises that would show how we work as a management team and learn from our experiences. We quickly learnt the importance of planning and assigning leadership and owners for specific tasks.

We had assignments where we had to use our skills in the above mentioned areas to solve a particular scenario such as how to get everyone accross an acid river with limited resources.

The event ended with the biggest task of all which was composed of multiple stages and ended with creating 2 bridges to get all of us and our water supply across a river. For each task completed we could win an amount and we had to reach a target of £ 23,000 at the end of day 2. We overachieved our target!

The only downpoint of the whole weekend was that on day 2 I woke up feeling a bit sick which stayed with me for most of the day and even the following days at work.

But looking back at the event I would say we learnt a lot and I got to meet my colleagues in the managment team in EMEA a lot better.

Offsite

This weekend is cut short with a Management Offsite on Sunday and Monday. We will be staying at near Oxford for 2 days of team building events.

I am looking forward to meeting more of my fellow managers in EMEA and it looks like it will be a very useful experience, although probably also an exhausting experience ;-)

Hamburg

So week 2 at work finds me in Hamburg for a World Wide Platinum Managers Meeting. Great meeting all my counterparts from around the globe. There were Platinum Support Managers from Japan, Sydney, Plano (Texas), Germany, The Netherlands, Brazil, Shanghai and of course from the UK...

It was an excellent opportunity to meet all my counterparts, we had very productive brainstorm sessions and workshops as well as an opportunity to get better acquainted during an evening activity to a miniature Wonderland http://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/ and to a local Micro Brewery where we had dinner, on the premises brewed beer and schnapps.

I got back to the UK last night, exhausted but enriched from the experience.

Business trips

So, only 3 days after joining the company I went on my first business trip.... to Amsterdam! I had to move to the UK only to be sent to The Netherlands after 3 days ;-)

I did get to spend some time with my manager and go through a lot of tools, processes and other things going on and I got a pretty good idea of what is going on with Platinum Technical Support. So far it has been great, both the company and the people...

Ready for week 2; which takes me on another business trip, this time a World Wide Platinum Manager's meeting in Hamburg.

No rest for the wicked ;-)

Work

I started work on Monday as Manager Platinum Technical Support for UK, Ireland, South Africa and Nordic region.

I have already booked business trips to Amsterdam (of all places!) and Hamburg. On the second day of work I also interviewed 2 people for a position as Technical Account Managers in my team so I can honestly say I dived right in.

The company and people here have been great so far and I feel good about moving to the UK.

Found a home?

Yes, we may have a home... it looks like the house I visited will be ours. Currently they are doing a reference check to see if we can rent this place. Interesting to see how they will do a reference check in the UK without a credit history here?

So in a day or so we should hear if the place is ours and then I can have the keys on the 15th of August. The house is a 3 bedroom semi-detached house with a garden. I can't wait to move out of the Hotel and into the house!

House Hunting

Now that I have been exploring the town I am getting a better idea of which areas would be good to live in and which to avoid. Places we would like are Friarscroft Way and Riley Close, Fairford Leys and Watermead. I visited some places through different agents and hopefully we will have a place soon.

A lot of the places I have seen were pretty small, some with very small bedrooms, some with no dining area and others with absolutely no storage space. Then on Saturday I visited a place on Riley Close that looks really nice and now the only thing we need to do is convince the 3 students that want to move in that life is better elsewhere.

The students will only be in the house for 6 months and then move, so the agent is now trying to switch this house with a similar one. Since the students don't need the place right away and I can move in immediately they are trying to convince the students to take a similar house around the corner which will come available next month. Sizewise the houses are the same but the location is just less. The one around the corner is also a bit cheaper so that should appeal to students, right?

Hopefully I will hear tomorrow that the house is ours and then I can plan moving in, call the moving company to get our things delivered from storage and find a washing machine and fridge.

Exploring Aylesbury

I arrived on Wednesday and started looking for a place to stay. This was easier said then done; it turns out there is a shortage of Hotel Rooms during the week. This meant I stayed in a neighboring town called Tring for 2 days before I could move into the Premier Travel Inn in Aylesbury. During those 2 days I would drive into town, find a parking place somewhere (also not the easiest in Town Center) and start exploring the town.

Aylesbury is a considerable Market town (Population is around 72,000) in Buckinghamshire, on the road from London to Warwick and Birmingham, thirty-eight miles from London, through Watford, Berkhampstead, and Tring. Aylesbury - the county town of Buckinghamshire, a lively market town steeped in history. Located at the foot of the Chiltern Hills and at the heart of the rich agricultural Vale of Aylesbury, a focal point in the English Civil War. As the popularity of the famous Aylesbury Duck grew in the 19th century, the town's livestock markets attracted visitors from far and wide. Nowadays, the award-winning Roald Dahl Children's Gallery set in the sleepy lanes of the Old Town, excellent town centre shopping including the thrice weekly markets in the historic cobbled square, and excellent new entertainment facilities provide the focus for visitors. For more information visit www.aylesburyvale.net/aylesbury

The Travel Inn is outside city center but only a 15 minute walk away. I have checked out where the office is and that is only a 10 minute walk from the hotel as well.