I’m posting on two levels here – a note most days and adding posts about the holiday. So if you’d like to see our overseas adventure, scroll down.
Picking up at work was OK, no disasters to come home to. My team are supporting the implementation of a huge performance and learning management system, which involves us being tied into two American companies, one who make the system and another who host it. Up till now we’ve controlled our own house ourselves, down to the servers our sites are hosted on, so it’s quite scary to lose the instant response and control we once had (we had no choice about changing). Now if there’s a fault, and there are plenty, we’re supposed to log a call to the hosting company’s call centre, which is in India, wait for the call to be passed to someone in the US (which, given time zones, can be quite a wait), and then explain it all over again. The problem my colleagues have found is that, however well-intentioned the Indian call center staff are, they and the UK staff cannot understand each other. It’s a combination of accent, terminology and unfamiliarity with the system and the implementation. They’ve had to resort to email, which they wanted to use in the first place but were told they had to use the call centre. Globalisation.
Back here, I’m struck by how completely detached I’ve become in the last three weeks from what I laughingly refer to as my musical career. I haven’t the slightest urge to perform, watch a performance, rehearse or even pick up an instrument. The feeling of duty to promote my work and find audiences, which so drove me before I went, has all but evaporated. It’s an interesting feeling, a combination of relief and an undertone of panic at such an unexpected change.