Thursday 18 November 2010

[x] it's been a week

So I promised that I'd update my blog in a few days.

As pads just skyped me:

[x] been a week

So I guess I should update.

Ok, what's happened this week?


Wait, first, how has poker gone over here so far?

Tournaments:
played two (£70 outlay), bubbled two (both shoving button with AK into AA in BB or similar)

Cash: one session -- up about £150. (a buy in) should be a lot more, but I'm just playing nitty poker working out who the retards are and such (hint: if they're Spanish. Retard. Gibraltarian: 50/50, international: 30% retard, 70% solid reg)

So, yeah, working for a gaming company I just don't want to play that much poker right now, not when I'm thinking about it and talking about it 13 hours a day anyway.

What am I doing?

Eating out. Like every night. I cba with washing up and eating out is possible to do for as little as £10 (in the casino) for 3 courses and a beer.

I'm also just hanging round the casino (it's a real focal point for the entire company, after hours because it's just pretty cool) and chatting to colleagues and talking to people.

Good Things:


I interviewed the best candidate I've ever (in prolly like....50+ interviews so good sample size) interviewed for Customer Service today. My boss then insta-said let's make him a Team Lead, so we found some more operational support which we really need.

I referred a really good friend for a position in our company which I think he's perfect for. If you read this blog, you probably know who I'm talking about, but you might not know he applied, so I'll not ruin that for him.

Bad Things:

I was ill at the start of the week and now it's gg weekend caus I have so much to catch up on.

There you go Pads, a short update ;)

No more bad things.

Sunday 7 November 2010

In which I don't post any photos because my phone is an arse....

So here we are then. Almost a week and a half after I left English shores, with, for the first time in my life, absolutely no idea of when I am going to return (hint: it won't be Christmas or New Year); I'm sitting in my room in my town centre apartment and reflecting on the time I've spent since I got out here to Gibraltar.

Firstly, let's recap the basics for those that don't know.

  • I've moved out to Gibraltar, a peninsula on Spain's southern tip and forms one half of (along with the Atlas mountains about 20km across the Med in Morocco) what the Greeks called the Pillars of Hercules on account of the big fucking rock here which is the focal point of the entire peninsula. 
  • I'm working for PokerStrategy.com in their Customer Service and Fraud Prevention Department. If you don't have an account, you really should check us out. We offer a unique value proposition to players and definitely worth a look. Ok, no more plugs. Promise.
  • I've lived abroad before but previously always had a definitive time frame of when I was coming back to the UK. Right now the plan is to stay here for 3 to 5 years, minimum, but beyond that, who knows.
The Day of the Flight

Obviously, I run super sick amazing and once again, just as it was for my interview, my flight is delayed by about 90minutes due to French twats striking again. So after I'm super tilted and a lot more travelling time than there needs to be I get picked up at Malaga Airport and we drive the 70 minutes or so to Gibraltar. I arrive to a really nice city centre apartment which I'm sharing with a guy from Hungary who is an intern in our editorial department but is also a coach for SnGs. On top of this, he's actually a cool guy too, although a little shy I guess.

At this point, I obv take some pictures but, and this is a theme throughout this blog entry, my phone has decided to delete them all. Which is awesome.


Very much a camera fail, obv. Anyway, I head to the casino and have some dinner in the evening and introduce myself to some of my new colleagues. Pretty nice evening and I head home just super excited.

The next couple of days:

Oh man oh man. Friday I spend the day basically exploring Gib and getting myself nice and orientated. It's pretty easy though when you're living in the centre of town and on one side you have a big fuck off rock and on the other you have the sea. This doesn't, however, stop me getting lost when I try and take a shortcut to the office on my second day. But we'll get to that, first though, it's the...

Halloween Party:

What can I say about this? Fucking hell, it was immense. These guys know how to party. I spent the day getting 'greened up' putting green make up all over my body and then adding my Frankenstein mask to complete the look. Basically we were halfway up the rock and we had a free bar all night. Thanks. I got absolutely battered and after about 12pm I have no idea what happened. I think I must have walked home. Down the mountain.  Pissed. In any event, I do know that when I got home my bedsheets (even post shower) were green, as were the walls in the hallway. Really need to get some paint to cover that up, actually. There's one nice part where you can tell I'm stumbling up the stairs because the paint is nicely in the shape of the crook of my arm as I've obviously staggered about.

Sunday, the best day as a Newcastle fan in a long time, and I missed it:

Ueber-hungover from that Halloween party I head for some lunch and then watch Newcastle smash Sunderland all over sipping on cokes in the casino. What a marvellous day. Needless to say I didn't really get up to much for the rest of the day as I had to start work the next morning, bright and earlyish at 9:30am. I must say, however, that not being in Newcastle that day really tilted me, and all the texts and emails I got made me a little homesick. Until I realised it was basically November and I was in 20 degree heat and having a lot of fun, obviously.

My working week:

Basically most days have involved 10 to 14 hours in the office and I think in total this week I've worked something close to 60 hours and it honestly doesn't feel like it at all. I've loved every second of it and never for even a split second have I been bored. Great people are what make great companies and here at PS we have a tonne of good people. I know this is easy to say after ten days or so but I haven't met a single person who I don't feel I can get on brilliantly with. Seriously, they are all top people and I feel really lucky. Professionally, I get on super well with my boss who shares the same vision I have for putting the departments on a more sound footing. Both CS and Fraud are young, immature departments (I don't mean that as a criticism at all, btw, I just mean that they are feeling the pain of having watched membership explode over the last 18 months or so) and they sometimes lack process in certain areas and there are a number of challenges that I have to face in order to make the service we provide to customers stellar. I have a pretty keen understanding of what the biggest pain points are now, though, so over the next 6 to 12 months I'm planning to solve them. But enough of that. Suffice it to say that I'm really looking forward to the challenge professionally over the mid- to long-term.

Overall:

If I told you every little detail of why I'm loving it out here I'd be blogging for months on end, so let me summarise:

  • Great apartment
  • Great people
  • Great challenges
  • Great environment (22deg in November, much?)
  • Great opportunities, both personally and professionally.
  • Super supportive company who really look after their staff with all sorts of goodness.
My next post will probably be in a couple of days, and I'll let you know how I've fared playing poker over here so far. (Spoiler: so so)

A chance conversation with an old friend that I had about 3 months ago when he encouraged me to apply to come and work here has developed into such a great opportunity and I'm grabbing it with both hands (including Friday night when I got absolutely battered) and I'm reminded that the world is full of wonderful opportunities if you only have the stones to go and seek them out. 

I am, of course, disgusted that I missed the NPF Champs, but I caught lots of it on the livestream and I'm so glad I did.

PS, an invitation:

Anyone is welcome to join me out here for a holiday or such, just drop me a mail.