It's all in the context

I know it's only my first week of work and everything, and that I shouldn't expect too much, but this new job is proving a bit of a challenge. Basically I've gone from heading up the cocoa and coffee research team for my previous company, having ten years experience and being the one people come to with questions knowing they will get answers, to the newbie, who can run a simple query or report but doesn't know if the data being extracted makes any sense at all. What is nitrophoska? What's it used for? Who are the merchants we sell it to? And what constitutes a significant quantity of it in terms of annual purchases? I don't know. Do you? The transition is proving tricky. I have a whole new industry to learn, and I'm not used to not understanding the context.

Joanne went over to look at the house tonight, the final check before we get the keys tomorrow, to make sure all the outstanding issues were resolved. It seems they are not. But it's not a problem. They have a thing here where we can withold a small proportion of the cash pending all the problems being fixed. The question is just how much to withold. We don't want to withold too much so that the builder and developer get annoyed with us, especially when they've still got stuff to finish, but on the other hand we don't want to withold too little and give them no incentive to finish the outstanding work.

We heard today that the vessel with our container on it has been delayed and now won't arrive for another too weeks. It was due to land today. That's a bit disappointing. It'll push back when we can realistically move into the house.

Oh, and we lost at footy tonight 9-8. The other team weren't better than us, just fitter, first to the ball, and with a better understanding of each other having played together for a while it seemed.

I've had better days.

Rural adventures

Today I spent the day out with a field officer seeing what goes on at one of the distribution stores and out in the field as he visits farmers. The weather was terrible as I left Christchurch, but half an hour down the road it cleared and suddenly the mountains came into view. I really do not get sick of living so close to the stunning mountains.

The Canterbury plains, in some ways, remind me of home. Lincolnshire is equally flat and equally rural. But perhaps a little more populated. And Lincolnshire doesn't have the eagles you see in Canterbury. There are definite similarities.

It was good to spend the day out in the field today, to see another part of how the company fits together. The first call we made was to see one farmer who had arranged for some soil samples to be taken from three of his paddocks. The samples, once taken, get sent off to the lab to be analysed and then when the results come back the field officer will visit the farmer again to work out a fertilisation plan for him based on his plans for the paddocks and the demands those plans will place on the current nutrient and mineral levels. The second call we made was for the second part of this process. A week or so back a farmer had all of his paddocks sampled and this was the follow-up visit to run through his plans with him and what inputs he'd need to make and when and hopefully get him to place some orders.

One thing I'm struggling to get my head around with the new company is the co-operative structure. The shareholders, the farmers, are also the clients. In this way the aim is to make enough to survive but ultimately the company's aim is to best serve the farmers and help them to get better production results and yields and stuff. Any profit made that is not used in improving the company, its assets and product lines, is given back to the shareholders at the end of the year in the form of a rebate, part as cash and part as further shares in the co-operative. There seems an intrinsic struggle within the company model, as I see it in my misunderstanding, not knowing enough, only working there two days sort of a way. There's a demand for commercial success and out-performing our competitor(s), but also the need not to "take advantage" of our clients. It is completely different to my experiences in the commodity trading world where margin and volume and profit and bottom line are all important, where you aim to get away with as much as you can without annoying your client so much that he no longer wants to do business with you.

Last night I was assured by my boss that the car would be refueled. As I pulled out of the store in Ashburton I noticed the low-fuel indicator was on. No problem, I thought, I'll just stop and stick some petrol in it. Only I didn't know if it took petrol or diesel. It was at that point that I discovered my work mobile no longer makes calls, even though it worked last night, the point when I tried to call my boss's PA to find out what fuel the car takes. No problem, I thought, I'll find her number in the contacts list on the phone and then call from my personal mobile. I called and found out it was petrol, and that there was a BP account card in the glove compartment too. But not where the nearest BP station was. No problem, I thought, I'll call the guy I'd spent the day with. I called and found out the BP station in Ashburton was on the way out of town so carried on driving and stopped there and filled up before wandering in to pay with the company account card. Which it turns out needs a PIN, a PIN I didn't know anything about. I explained the situation to the girl behind the desk and rushed out to the car to call the PA. Again from my personal mobile as my work one won't work, as I mentioned. I got the PIN, ran back in, and paid for the fuel. All sorted. And it only took me half an hour to eventually set off for Christchurch.

I got an email from my dad this morning. He's booked his tickets for February. I can't wait to show him around. I'm going to postpone the hot air balloon trip I really want to do until he arrives and do it with him. Joanne's not a fan of heights, you see. Also he's here when the England cricket team at playing an ODI here so we might get to the game too. It all depends what coach tours he organises for himself.

First impressions

Today flew by. Introductions, inductions, meetings with key staff to have their roles/departments explained. Before I knew it it was 5pm. It was all a bit of a blur. It seemed to go ok though. The people were all really friendly and welcoming, which was great. And a relief. The company seems in the middle of some exciting changes, with cultural changes, process changes, progressive changes. It's a company that seems to be going forward and looking to develop instead of standing still. It's going to be exciting to be part of it, I think, in this new role. I met so many people today it was overwhelming. I hope they're not insulted when I forget all their names by Wednesday. I say Wednesday as tomorrow I have a day out with one of the field officers (the salesmen out there meeting and dealing with the farmers). I have to drive to Ashburton to meet with the guy by 9am. I'm borrowing my boss's car too! That's a little daunting.

I learned a lot about the business today. As much as I could in one day at least. The first step on a long path. But at least I know what some of the business units do now, like Animal Health and AgChem and the marketing department (that I'm officially part of). Sadly I'm not sat with the rest of the marketing team at the moment though. Office space is at a bit of a premium and I think it took some major negotiation skills to get me a spot to call my own by the afternoon. Hopefully I won't be round there for too long though. There are re-furb plans afoot I've heard. Although I'm in the marketing department it sounds like I'm going to be working alongside lots of other departments. People in the past have all performed their little bits of analysis here and there but the aim is to try and pull some of that together into my role I gather.

In terms of house developments, I phoned Telecom today and arranged for an engineer to come out and set up our landline connection and also for our broadband to be set up. One more thing sorted for when we move in. Counting down the days until we get the keys now.

Time to sit down

It feels like the weekend has been a non-stop whirr of action and perpetual movement. Yesterday was spent at the house finalising furniture choices and ideas and positions before rushing to the shops to look at what we've chosen again. Still nothing ordered though, other than our bedroom suite, of course. And then today, after church, we went to the white-goods/electronics shop to buy a fridge, TV, washing machine etc. It cost a lot, but we needed it all. And it didn't feel so bad seeing that we got 20% off the store price on everything. It just shows what the mark-up is if they can give us 20% off without even blinking.

In a way it felt like such a waste, spending all weekend inside. The weather has been fantastic all yesterday and today. Blue skies and temperatures about 18 degrees or so. This is winter, remember! We should have been doing stuff, visiting places, looking at the view. But I guess we needed to get stuff sorted for the house.

Work tomorrow...

Almost there

We went unconditional on the house today. In UK terms that's equivalent to exchanging contracts. We settle next week, the NZ equivalent of completing in the UK. I still can't believe how smoothly it's all been. It's not like the solicitors and council and everyone have had less to do than for a UK sale, they just do it faster and more efficiently. We arrived in Chch on the 8th and will take possession of a house on the 31st. When did a property purchase in the UK ever happen in three weeks?

I'm getting a bit nervous about work on Monday now. It's silly, I know, but I've only ever worked for one company, doing cocoa (on the whole) that whole time. It's going to be strange meeting new colleagues, being the new boy, not knowing quite what to expect. I hope my first week goes as smoothly as Joanne's. She's settled in brilliantly it seems, is developing a good relationship with her boss, and seems to have a really friendly, welcoming team around her.

I spent some time today writing a newsletter for our Christian family in the UK and elsewhere, updating everyone on what's been happening with us during the past month, and have just emailed it out, blanket coverage scattergun style. Please do let me know if you would like a copy but haven't received one (although to be honest, if you're reading this on a daily basis you won't read anything new) as my email address book may well be out of date. Barge people, I've not emailed you. I mailed it to Marcus and he says he'll print copies for you to pick up. Thank you, Marcus :)

He shoots, he scores

The footy seemed to go well yesterday. It was great just to have a kick about really. And we won 10-9 too, which was a good way to start the league. They asked me to come back next week so I guess I didn't play too badly.

This morning I had my first golf lesson at the QEII golf park. The instructor, Craig, videoed my swing. Gees, it was ugly. He drew lines and circles and squares all over the screen to show where my swing was wrong. There were lots of lines and circles and squares by the end. I have room for improvement, let's put it that way.

I never get sick of the view

I decided I was going to make the most of today and get out and do something. I woke to another clear blue sky so, after walking down to hand in all my pre-employment forms, I took the car out towards the Port Hills, the northern rim of an ancient volcano cone. I'd heard that the gondola is one of the must-do things in Christchurch, and given the clear day, I thought I'd go and check it out.

I wasn't disappointed. The view was stunning, providing a 360 degree panorama of Christchurch, the Canterbury Plains and Lyttelton Harbour. As I've mentioned before, I love views, I never get sick of landscapes and views, and the one from the summit of the gondola was right up there. I love the way you can see both the sea and the snow-capped mountains at the same time.

There are several walking tracks from the gondola station. Given I had nothing else planned and the weather so beautiful I thought I'd take in a bit of nature. It really was just stunning. My vocabularly is nowhere near sufficient to fully explain how I felt up there. I can see me getting a gondola season ticket, to be honest, and getting to know all those walking tracks a lot better.

Along the length of the crest of the Port Hills runs the Summit Road. It was created after a long financial and political campaign by a bloke called Henry George Ell who wanted to share and preserve the natural beauty of the Banks Peninsula. After I came back down the gondola I wasn't ready to return to town so I decided to drive a bit along Summit Road. In the end, I drove the whole length of it. Around every corner was another amazing view and each road down back into town seemed too early to take. I can't wait to take Joanne up there and show her.