Lecture this morning from a shuttle astronaut.

Really excellent presentation as you might expect. 12-13 minutes upbeat video, slides of his two missions (Hubble and ISS), questions and answers. Good crowd in one of our biggest lecture theaters.

But it was a mistake to go. I'd forgotten how easy it is to reawaken the desire to one day venture into space and the frustration that it's so unlikely to ever happen. Left feeling very melancholic. Back the to fantasy of SF books and my Traveller collection, I guess.

Away at three conferences next week - doing presentations at two of them - so I'll probably go quiet for a bit.

;-)

The sketch at the staff training this afternoon - on the theme of 'change' as there's a lot of it coming - went down exceptionally well. I'm (almost) embarrassed to say. They laughed in the right places, took the relevant teaching points from it and many of the 60 or so in the 'audience' remarked that it was the best part of the afternoon. At one point we were using the five inflatable 'pod' thingies we have in what used to be an old nightclub but is now a student study/eat/play space, but my plan to deflate one came to nothing when I pulled the wrong plug out.

Shortlisting this afternoon went very well. Easier than I expected. HR guy happy to invite all four.

The irony is that he revealed it is not HR that is insisting on the interview date being when both two interviewers and one interviewee can't make it; he revealed it's a Library decision.

So mid-meeting I was despatched to the Head to find out why they couldn't simply be delayed a week.

"Ah well, umm, urh, there should be a handover period for such a complex job and all that." Or words to that effect.

Hold on a minute, given the actual departure date in question there's no way the outgoing incumbent is going to spend the last day of work delivering a week's worth of quality training to the new person, so effectively there isn't going to be a handover period.

So... no objections from HR on doing the interviews a week later and my senior colleague (and assistant) could have done the wretched job after all.

At least t'other colleague/friend will be able to attend no problem although my head said surely it would have been better to let the whole thing slide, blame it on HR, reduce the options, and avoid having to choose a friend or not choose a friend. It's lose/lose really. But we'll see what happens at their interviews. (I was considered a bit cruel for wanting them to do a presentation to see what they're made of and because I'd enjoy that part of the process!)

One of our team is retiring soon and so we're interviewing for a replacement. Internal library staff only.

It should be my senior colleague (and assistant) doing the interviews with someone from HR but they're both on leave the relevant week so they've asked me and another long time member of staff who is also leaving but doing a similar job to the one we're replacing.

It's a bit of a scary prospect as I've never sat on that side of the table before, but I can't really say no and I suppose it will be good for me.

The thing that's causing the most stress though is that instead of having, say, half a dozen external candidates I've never met, we've got four internals who happen to be friends (one of them a good friend) as they all participate in the library's book group with me.

Added complexity from the fact that one is in Thailand on holiday at the time of the interviews - specifically away at this time rather than a time more convenient at the request of the department in the Library she works for. There's been much talk about whether it would be 'fair' to not invite her for interview, or to invite her to a date we know she can't make.

Anyway, today a very new member of staff from HR came over to set some of my fears at rest, answer questions I had and to plan for the meeting we have on Friday to actually shortlist the candidates. (Though frankly all four would be able to do the job.)

Also finalized the script for the sketch next week.

Lunch today and lunch yesterday marking the departures of various members of staff who've taken voluntary redundancy to help the University make cut backs. Fun but sad at the same time.

PC has been increasingly flakey of late.

Finally took the plunge and had it reimaged by our IT guys today. :-(

(Will take at least a week to get everything reinstalled and what not again. Nothing's going to be quite right for a bit, but I guess it will be worth it if the machine works for another four years.)