best of a bad city

Been a busy few weeks. The upshot is, we’ve now got a flat in Edinburgh and are moving up at the end of this month. Yay?

It’s more difficult that I expected, leaving London. I’m tired and claustrophobic in this city, more than ready to go somewhere it isn’t a major undertaking to pick up a pint of milk, but all the same…we’ve been here three years. It’s familiar. Like a long depression, after which smiling is scary.

Still, there’s bright spots I’ll miss.

The University
I’m back to working with the big arts university through the end of the semester (and serendipitously, my move date), where I’ve floated through a few contracts. There’s a few aspects that drop me into a vat of spicy boiling rage once or twice a week (primarily, the huge mess the last person left me to mop up, and my supervisors’ determined innocence of this fact), but the benefits far outweigh the hassle.

My coworkers are nice. This is simple, but huge. Most of them pitch in when there’s a big task or a crisis. And nearly all of them have some artistic hobbies, so their conversations are interesting and no one stares at you for scribbling in a sketchbook or reading over your lunch break. Also – lunch break! You’re expected to take one, instead of getting the skunk eye for eating away from your desk.

Also, there’s free publications of varied quality lying about. Most are displaying student work, but others include random how-to’s…what open-source software can be used and what still required professional stuff, the important laws regarding squatting and the local squat-arts scene, etc. I like leaving these on the bus when I’m done and watching people’s fascination when they pick them up, expecting a Metro or London Lite. The best was when I dropped the Student Union magazine, ‘Less Common, More Sense,’ with its bizarre cover of a sausage in a banana peel, on the seat in front of me, and a young guy picked it up, flipped through with a growing grin, and pulled out a Polish-English Dictionary to begin working through the first article.

It’s also, several times a week, a satisfying job. Most of my job involves scheduling and maintaining records of the advisors and counsellors, which as I’m partially an anal retentive picky pain, works for me. I spend a lot of the day on the phone with students, which is entertaining in itself, and sometimes they’re really in a bad way. It can be exhausting, on days you’ve heard too many sad stories and haven’t been able to help, but then in another day or two, you’ve gotten them a time to meet with a counsellor and they are happier. I haven’t done the hard work, but I have gotten A and B together, so I feel like I’ve had a positive effect on my corner of the world.

modestly proposing...

I’m not saying that it’s a rational impulse, the wish to murder someone who pronounces ‘here’ as ‘hnun-yheah.’ Even if they start and end every sentence with ‘hnun-yheah.’

But common sense dictates, to keep the population at a sustainable number, a reasonable licensed hunting season. Say, September through April—enough to stock the deep freezer with hnun-yheah steaks and hnun-yheah bratwurst through barbequing season.

Most of my father’s duck callers would need only minor modifications: hnun-yheah! hnun-yheah!

Hey, pods! Come and get me you scum!

This is the second day of the new job at the old office. It had seemed to be going pretty well until this afternoon, which is when my erstwhile trainer went into full meltdown because the backlog she’s put off for three weeks isn’t done. Every time I’ve approached her since to either a) report I’ve finished part of the backlog or b) ask to borrow the office diary in order to complete another part of the backlog, she’s been one notch down from the full Sutherland:



Soooooooo…I make this face a lot:



And hope I won’t wake up tomorrow next to a pile of dust looking like this:

3...2...1...

It’s now the downhill bit of my notice period. The embodiment of upper-middle-class white male privilege bossman has continued to be a turd, but it’s only 8...7...6 days to go. Hah!

He’s actually getting worse, not only to me but to the rest of the team. They’re developing the hollow-eyed fearness as more and more I get to say, gee, I’ll be gone when that meeting happens, so you’ll need to arrange details with the Prancer and send the invite yourself you fool, you poor poor fool. Bwa ha ha. Prancer has made no moves to arrange for my replacement, of course, the better to sink into a deep rotted entropy that leaves the next poor sod on the back foot from her first day.

Of course it’ll be a her, not a him. His sagging pastry libido couldn’t stand the blow of a male assistant. I’ve suggested to the agency that they look for a former marine. Hooya, Prancer. Hooya.

As to my own future, the next steps are falling together with somewhat worrisome convenience. I spent some time with the agency rep beating my cv into shape, and for the past two days it’s been a golden ticket. I fear the ironic comeuppance surely lying in wait.

And yet, if there’s been any unifying theme to my life, it’s that common sense is a big rusty beartrap while huge impulsive moves lead to the yellow brick road.

incoming outgoing

Right, what sadist came up with the month’s notice scheme? It’s barely been a week and I’m ready to soak the bridge not yet behind me in paraffin and chant about the fifth of November.

Sadist, I’m well aware of the reasons for fleeing this office like I just let loose a largish pack of sexually frustrated guinea pigs on the tea counter. Especially the one where the exec is seemingly incapable of looking at his own schedule, remembering when he’s demanded I fit meetings in, or giving me small unimportant details like who should be at a meeting until five minutes before it’s due to start.

Prancer: These people I’m meeting with later—is anyone from marketing attending?
Oda: (opens the meeting in his Outlook calendar, which contains his original email requesting to set up the meeting) No, just you.
Prancer: Fuck, why not?
Oda: Your email didn’t mention anyone but you.
Prancer: Well I thought I’d implied that I didn’t want to meet with them. I hate those fucking idiots. (sulk...glare...)

Or...

Prancer: Get us lunch for a meeting I’ve just made, tomorrow.
Oda: (has long since accepted that no one else realises catering isn’t magicked up by eternally burning golems rather than temperamental pseudo-chefs) Any specifics you’d li—
Prancer: Whatever.
later, after a frantic email exchange confirming what catering had in stock:
Oda: Your lunch tomorrow is sorted, and I’ve reserved Room—
Prancer: Is it a light lunch? Because I don’t want all that shit you usually get.
Oda: No, it’s—
Prancer: All I want is sandwiches, sushi, and those little chocolate biscuit things.

The worst part is, that’s exactly what I ordered.

This is how the Stockholm starts, isn’t it?

pursued by a bear

Yesterday I was fired.

Technically, I quit, twice, after which Prancer declared that it wasn’t working out for him and I would have to find another position. O noes, rly?

It’s typical that even this conversation immediately deteriorated into a sophomore break-up. No, you’re not breaking up with me, I’m breaking up with you! Just picture me working for a short, podgy version of Ross Geller.

But only for four more weeks! Or less, if I land another contract sooner. Whee!

I should not be this happy to be unemployed in a maneating city like London. And the fellow buttmonkeys I’ve told shouldn’t have been so happy for me. And yet.