Thank God it's Friday, with the prospect of some respite from the affairs of this past working week. The radio network engineers arrived a day and a half late. This demolished my scheduling attempts and created problems for us in keeping radio users appraised. Some brought radios in to be fixed. Many more radios had to be hunted out in stores, clubs or pubs, taken to our base, then returned. I haven't felt so out of control since we moved out of the Vicarage and into our new home. Things were complicated by my absence attending a half day briefing session for new voluntary tutors at St Michael's College, on Wednesday morning, and then absence for a funeral this afternoon. Thankfully I was able to recruit Owain to join in the data collection / radio receipt side of operations. His disciplined thoroughness, not to mention his calm cheeriness proved a great asset in minimising the inevitable chaos.
For all our strict procedures, there is nothing uniform about the ways in which users operate their radios in different contexts. Those responsible for business change, not infrequently. Newcomers to RadioNet system may not be briefed by an outgoing colleague or senior manager. CBS is rarely advised of personnel changes. Only if new users with no grasp of the radio operating instructions bother to ring up and ask for help can training be given. Some can't be bothered, so their radio ends up unused, which does nothing for the security of the place in question. Lack of conscientiousness is on times quite shocking. Some store operators only sit up and take notice after a series of robberies or a nasty incident takes place affecting them. Are they too busy to care?
A major maintenance session is when we discover sets are lost or have sustained damage without us being informed. Few would treat their own mobile phones with such disdain. It meant the exercise was fraught with unforeseen time consuming issues. Radios could not be upgraded at the planned rate, so the exercise ran for three and a half days, instead of two. There are many loose ends to be tied up next week. A fresh attempt to inventory our assets must be made, to ensure the condition and location of every handset is known, rather than traceable when changes occur: e.g. radios swapped out for repair, given a new location identity, or reported as lost/stolen. At the moment we survive with a document hunt through a paper filing system, still recovering from three office moves in a year. A 24/7 operation in constant motion deserves better, and will get it this time around. It's the price we pay for establishing the organisation from scratch.
All week we camped out in the reception area of our building, surrounded by scores of radios being upgraded. After arrival this morning I ran up and down four flights of stairs five times in fifteen minutes fetching kit, taking messages. An engineer arrived to service the lifts, taking them out of action for the morning, then another engineer arrived to test the building's electrical circuits. Then a landlord's agent showed up to inspect the building. As we were in the (unstaffed) reception area, with no phone links upstairs, someone responsible had to be located, one or two stories up. The guy managing the building was off work for the day. In addition, I did two circuits of the city centre delivering radios on foot. No wonder I was too exhausted to go out circle dancing when I got home.
I shan't forget my ride along Bute Street at lunchtime today, driven at full tilt in the traffic on one of the city centre's electric golf buggies to collect a couple of unused radios from a down-town top floor office. I kept wondering if it had enough power for the return journey. I worried about being stranded, as I had to cycle home and prepare for the afternoon's funeral. All's well that ends well. At least I'm getting a taste of what it would have been like to be the worker-priest I originally hoped to become when first ordained. There's a lot more to living a priestly life in the world of work than meets the eye. Could I have ever sustained both dimensions satisfactorily I wonder?
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