Grateful

I am grateful. I am grateful for lot of things. I have an attitude of gratitude.

I am grateful for the Missus. I am grateful for the wee yin. I am grateful for the crap dog. I am grateful for the friends that I have. I am grateful to have a well-paying job. I am grateful that I am so brilliant at what I do. I am grateful that I was stuck in a traffic jam for 3 hours on the way home tonight.

There are three arterial roads southbound to Southampton from London - the M3, the A30 and the A303. The M3 had a fatal accident on it and was closed. The A303 had a fatal accident and was closed. The A30 had a fatal accident and was closed. Bumper-to-bumper gridlock traffic was trying to get along single-carriageway C-roads and it was mayhem.

My problem, and the problem of the several hundred other people going nowhere in the baking sunshine, was that we weren't going home as fast as we'd like. But we were going home. The guy in the air ambulance wasn't going home. The guy who died at the scene because the air ambulance couldn't get to him as it was dealing with somebody else - he wasn't going home either.

So I am grateful. Grateful that the biggest problem in my life today was a 3-hour traffic jam. Grateful that there is nothing more serious going on that was at the forefront of my mind.

We pulled the rip-cord today. Myself and my gangly friend, being asked to build this new system for the folks we work for, put in a proposal instead. Usual this-is-what-you-get-this-is-what-it-costs stuff. Very risky.

There's a chance that hell will be unleashed, and the company will crucify us for overstepping our mark in this way and getting above our station. There's also a chance that we'll change their thinking, change the way that they see us, and get what we're asking for - a chance to build our system and get a nice reference customer for it. We're not asking for any money, all we're asking for is a referencable customer.

The discussion we've provoked will probably happen tomorrow. Tomorrow night, we'll know what that discussion was. Thing is, it can't go away now. We've passed the point of no return, and we can't go back to where we were.

This is on the back of my little strop last week about the way in which we were being used - just sweeping up and mopping up after companies who have taken money to do a job that they weren't capable of doing. Ahh, but it's OK - John here will work all night to sweep up and make it right. We don't actually need to solve the problem, we've got these guys who can solve the symptom.

And then today it struck me. I have no right to complain about how I am being treated at work. I cannot complain that I am not being treated in the way I want, unless I have said how I want to be treated and the answer is "tough". So we've asked. We await the answer.

On more important fronts, we're still trying to sort out Dawn to Dusk. The ever-organised Jago is having some decision issues about whether or not he's doing it marathon or not. The teams are limited to 3 people, so his decision affects whether or not there's a team slot for my ITM. Entries close on 31 July, so we're running out of runway.

Oz wants to do it too, so there's definitely enough of us for two teams, but it's still a bit of a nightmare trying to sort everything out and make sure that we all get the chance to ride.

That little trauma aside, I am grateful to be riding Dawn to Dusk at all, and grateful for the winderful people I'll be riding it with. Grateful is good. We like grateful.