Well, I am now a new ”proud” employee of One Call Insurance Services Ltd. back here in Blighty.

The directors drive DB9′s and R35 GTR’s… and why not? I would if  I owned an insurance company!

Just for the record I prefer the GTR any day, but it has been a regular discussion between my soon to be hubby (who had a GTR at 19 years old – the youngest in the UK ever), that if we won the New Zealand Big Wednesday lottery, he would hold onto the DB9. (The the Porsche KN also in the NZ Lotto can well and truly take a hike)

So, here I am, at One Call ( “… Does it all”) after applying for ‘Marketing and PR Manager’ and quickly adjusting my contract to say ‘Creative Development Manager’. In reality, I am half pegged between the IT / Marketing and Operations departments with employees feeling sorry for me being in the IT room.

I love being in the IT room! Very few know my skills and history and (plus being female) so assume that my title means I am totally technically un-savvy and  do nothing more than direct the company marketing budget – FAR FROM THE TRUTH, and no wonder the personally considered ‘PR/Public Relations”detrimental title is not to be applied to me.  I have managed a computer store with an 8 strong technical team and co-run an IT consultancy. My dad had a very successful Electrical business (so does my ex husband), and my dad is an Electrical and Mechanical engineer who designed the cam shafts for BMW and General motors. I grew up with mechanics, computers and electronics right down to stripping engines and building alarm clocks for the fun of it from scratch in the garage as a kid.

I had a conversation with a few girls on a break at work where they told me horror stories of bad electrics in their houses. One said that her young son broke a power point and now live wires are all exposed but is taking days to get a qualified Electrician in for it. I said it only takes 5 minutes to turn the power off and fit a 2 pound fifty socket front on which come with wiring instructions… but it is all alien to them and they think if the freezer is off for more than 30seconds, that the earth will cave in!

Ah well, all is fine in the IT room. I don’t work well in a room with women at all, so I am enjoying this due to my interests and mental make up. If the management understood a remotest part of technology, programming or graphics whatsoever (as in the intricacies, cost and time), it would be even better…. but you get that everywhere.

As someone that has over 8 years formal training in Graphic design (with particular specialist in Corporate Identity/Branding) and has also vast experience across all facets of the design industry, I do get a tad more than annoyed when I see bad design decision and BUDGET getting made without my inclusion and informed input. This will be overcome. Respect is never earned immediately but I estimate that I have already saved the company about 40k in the few weeks I have been there. I have also made headway in giving at least 3 of their company’s a more professional corporate image.

Anyway…. here is the website built in a day… obviously ’live ‘is ‘live’so that one will change when I get time to do it  (IF – I get time to do it lol).

On my own hosting: O C Commercial Insurance.

Live: http://occommercial.co.uk/

You will see that not all the information is complete on the O.C. Commercial website but I HAD to put something up that looked better for now!

On the live site you will get a layout ‘bug’ on Firefox only which I am going to track down, but on my own hosting, it is absolutely fine! (maybe it did not upload properly at work to the live site – I will update this post appropriately)

Feel free to look at the code and the css, as it is well annotated. I have used some of JQUERY UI, made it IE6 ok, Non Javascript friendly etc.

One of my next web projects will be to sort the One Call Direct Website.