The Arrival

When have you truly arrived in a workplace? When you get your own office? When you get an award? When you get a pay rise? A promotion? Nope, it is none of the forementioned, it is when you get your own personal business card. It happened to me back when I was on placement. A client was in showing the managing partners a new add on to our office management software and exchanged business cards. He asked if I had a business card and of course being only an IP student, I did not. The partner replied in an approving tone that I would get some cards printed. Sure enough a few weeks later a three boxes of cards arrived on my desk and I was over the moon.

History has a strange way of repeating itself and on this occasion, following the client visit in Dublin, Ireland I handed over a complimentary business card to the MD, so he could scribble down a mobile number. The question was then asked if I had my own personal business card, which of course I did not. The urgency in his reply that if I was visiting clients I needed a business card with my name on, made me smile. The cards were ordered when I got back to the office and I expect to receive them in the next few weeks. I will of course upload an image as soon as they are in my hand.

Looking ahead, I have my first week away from the office, in the glorious Docklands and staying at the luxurious Premier Travel Inn Hotel in Beckton. My biggest fear was not how the software upgrade would go but actually not having internet access in the evenings. I have become so accustomed to my broadband that being without the internet cable will be like live without oxygen. I will have to fill my evening with something other than MSN, mp3 downloads and web surfing. This will be a real test of my willpower. People often say that my obsession with the internet is a psychological menace, purely developed in my head. I beg to differ, being without the internet, I feel disabled, cut off from the outside world, isolated, lonely and alone. When something becomes so much part of the routine, you no longer have to think about it, it becomes instinctive, second nature. When it is taken away from you, you feel like a part of your body has been cut off. Perhaps I am taking it too far and need to seek some medical help, urgently.

You know blogging is becoming mainstream (in a strange sense) when they are mentioned in the 10 o' clock news bulletin on Monday 3rd April. An equlivant prize to Booker but for internet blogs, which was won by a cook book or should that be blog? I personally think, a product or idea has only officially arrives when my Mum is aware of it. A few years to wait then.