6th March

Another cold morning but at least its not as windy and its dry. The trains are screwed - overhead line problems and over running engineering works. They cancel my train. They then say that they're laying on a replacement coach but it won't be here for another 45 minutes. No good to me as I have a 10 o'clock  meeting. I jump on a bus. This literally goes all round the houses and I don't get to work until 9.30 anyway! Along the way we come across streets and streets on these houses. It was either a housing estate or a workers area from the days when the big textiles companies had their mills down here.

I meet with the guys doing the roofing work. We need specialists as some of the tiles have asbestos and we have to treat them all as if they have asbestos. The foreman has misgivings but has waited until now - when we start the programme and have committed teams available and on site to air his concerns. He pisses me off but I hear him out. I'm about to pull the plug on his company when Steve joins us, he pulls the rabbit out of the hat and persuades this guy to continue the programme and to get people on site now.

I get called to the training room where they have a course in session. The speakers aren't working. I have a look at it but am nor sure if all the connections are intact and they are in the middle of trying to run the course. Not exactly the best time for fiddling around with equipment. I figure out a way for them to get by without using the speakers and promise to go back later in the week when the room is empty to sort out the equipment.

Checking through emails I notice that Essex County Council have some questions about plans, drawings and services. Until these are addressed the lease for them to rent the top floor won't be signed. The guy in charge of this is on holiday in NZ for the next 3 weeks, I check with his team to see if they have the drawings that are needed. Luckily, they do.I pull the info together and get it off to the lawyer.

Jen has been working on the questionnaire we are going to send out to all the people in the council to find out what they think of the IT services, our team and what we might want to do to improve the service. She circulates it round the team so that we can try it out before we unleash it on our customers.

We are due to power down the building this weekend so that we can do some work on the electrical distribution board as part of the refurbishment. This is a major upheaval as the severs have to be shut down and our phone system won't be available. The council is closed on a weekend but we do have emergency phone support and some of the main internet pages link back to our systems run on the servers in the building. I put a note out to all in the council to warn them about this and to say what the plans are for the weekend.