ferk

Here's a testament to how much my head had been melted over the past three to four weeks: I completely forgot about E's birthday. It's tomorrow (well about 30 mins from now), but as she's in NZ, it's her birthday now for her (making sense?) By the time I get a card and send it, it'll probably be late next week before she gets it and I haven't even had time to think about a pressie. Arse.

Expletive.

The potential emergency that almost reared its head last night turned out to be nothing but a knee-jerk reaction by people who don't know the systems we use as well as the people who develope the projects on them i.e. us.

More stress for absolutely no reason.

It's not just me that's leaking morale... the rest of the team seems to be following suit. My female co-worker has already mentioned that she's going to leave and one of my closest friends at work has sent his CV off to various specialist recruitment agencies looking for a new job and will no doubt get something before too long. A couple of the other guys are looking to move to different departments... the team is threatening to disintegrate.

Bugger.

After the shenanigans of the previous couple of weeks, I started this week with a bastarding head cold. Actually, I can't say for certain that that's the reason, but it makes sense that after the stresses and frustrations of recent times, my immune system pisses off on a holiday for a rest. Head cold. It's a bastard. I keep getting 90% to a huge sneeze, then the sensation goes, plus my eyes are watering continuously, my hearing's screwed because my head's bunged up (even with decongestants) and I've been dehydrated all week, too. My immune system is usually pretty good... it's very rare that I get ill, so having this head cold hang around since early Sunday morning is a rare occurance.

Things are going well in work this week... relatively speaking. There's a bit of a scare going on right now with yet another project of mine which a co-worker "kindly" pointed out just before I left work today. There's no reason to think that this is a proper emergency, but some confusion on the part of the project manager because the project was checked and double-checked last week not only by myself, but more importantly, by the guy that's mentoring me (as I was on holiday). Double-checked. Can both of us have missed a huge problem?

I'll find out in the morning.

I can do without these fucking scares though. I need some quiet time with some stuff going right just for a little bit so I can recharge the batteries. Two and half years of really enjoying my work and it's all being sucked out of in a matter of weeks.

I know that I need a break, but trying to get my mate free for a weekend is proving tricky. I'll try and get some time to myself though.

Are you spontaneous?

From reading through the various dating sites I've perused, I've noticed one thing. A lot of women out there claim to be, or are looking for, someone spontaneous.

In reality, most of the women I've dated are anything but spontaneous. Most things required planning and advance notice and God forbid that it might involve taking a chance.

A prime example was when I was dating FA2. Awaking one morning after I'd spent the night at hers, I noticed the sun was shining brightly outside. When FA2 roused herself, I whispered in her ear that perhaps this would be a good day to throw a sickie and enjoy the day. I suggested that, instead of going to work, she might enjoy being the recipient of one of my full body massages (she enjoyed those), an hour or so enjoying ourselves between the sheets, I'd make her breakfast in bed, we could share an enjoyable shower (together, of course) then we'd head to a local seaside town where we could take a stroll along the beach followed by lunch (my treat) at a cracking pub I knew, spending an afternoon chilling out and doing a little shopping before returning to FA2's for a BBQ dinner (I'd cook) and curling up with a DVD when it got too chilly to sit outside, ending the evening with some more fun between the sheets.

I thought that ticked all the boxes: spontaneous, romantic, thoughful, sexy, unselfish. That was a dead cert for a fun day beside the sea side, wasn't it?

Boy, was I wrong! That's probably the most extreme example, mind you. FA2 wasn't interested and throwing a sickie was a complete no no. Still... any time she complained about my lack of spontaneity, romance etc. I simply mentioned the day she turned down the entire package all wrapped up in one day.

Oh, and don't get me started on these "spontaneous" girls that take three hours to get ready for a simple trip down to the pub... (and yes, FA2 was one of those, too).

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

So, whilst trawling around our company intranet today, I happened to notice that Pretty Blonde was no longer mentioned in the email list. On one hand, that should be disappointing, right? A pretty girl that I'm attracted to leaves work (shades of Lickable Girl here, too), which is pretty much the only place I get to see her. The logical assumption is that I should be gutted, right?

Strangely, I'm not. At least, not a lot. The only time I really managed to see PB was at our monthly work's bashes and I've repeatedly mentioned that I would never approach anyone at a work's do, unless circumstances were really favourable (i.e. loads and loads of privacy away from prying eyes and ears). Why should PB leaving the company be any different? none, actually. My stance hasn't changed: if I see PB out and about in the town, I'll make an effort. I'd even go so far as to say that seeing as we no longer work for the same company that I might even be a little more forward than I would have been ordinarily. Maybe the same could be said for her (which would make things a lot easier!)

The same would probably apply to LG too, but she doesn't live in the city so chances of seeing her are remote. I don't actually know if PB lives in the city, but I have at least seen her out socialising - nearly a year ago exactly, strangely.

ooops!

Well, I didn't come back, but I ended up drinking and watching DVDs. Admittedly getting drunk and watching DVDs is kinda what got me into the kind of mood I was in last night anyway, but that's only a minor point.

The recent troubles at work have caused problems. Not just with my professional reputation, but with my own confidence. My confidence ebbs and flows both personally and professionally. At times, it's always low - approaching women with a view to pursuing something romantic/physical is probably the obvious example. At other times, my confidence levels are fairly high/normal - talking to people normally (although I'm useless at smalltalk), knowing my limits at sports etc.

This recent fiasco in work (partly, though not wholly, my fault) has resulted in my confidence taking a real pumelling. In trying to implement fixes for some errors, I had to work late a few nights last week. Everyone else had gone home and I was left on my own to figure out the problem and fix it. This took quite a short period of time, but I then spent the best part of an hour afterwards doubting the code I'd written, checking and double-checking the work many times before getting fed up, posting the fix and leaving the office at nearly 8 pm - a work day of around 11.5 hours.

I still hope/think that the problems of last week/recently have finally been sorted, but I have to start and rebuild my professional confidence again. This is a process that's going to take quite a while, I think and the enjoyment and happiness that I had in this job has taken a severe dent.

The DVDs I was watching (Before Sunrise and Before Sunset) simply reminded me of how useless some people are at contact. The particular plot/circumstances and some of the thoughts voiced by the characters reminded me of V (again) and I'm sad to say that I was the just thew right kind of drunken mood last night where I get stupidly reminscent and oddly sentimental about the brief time I had with V and slightly depressed that despite my attempts at contact, V hasn't yet replied.

It's an odd mood I'm in. I think I'll have to sort out something fun for the summer (visit a few mates or something) to give me a break from work and something to look forward to.

Oh, hang on... I'll be right back.

I came here to make a post about my current state of mind, but that raised a question I have been meaning to ask USHW for some time. I might have asked this question before, but I can't remember the answer, if there was one. I'll have to go ask her...

Yay!

So, I think most of the stuff at work has been sorted. Murphy's Law, innit? Just as I reach breaking point (ish), everything seems to settle down. I wasn't the only one either - my mentor was in the same way and he apologised for being snappy earlier (though I really didn't see it). Now I have a long weekend and a few beers in the fridge. I hope that when I return to work on Monday that things have settled down. There should be one or two minor things still to sort, but the really stressful stuff should be taken care of already. Nice.

Ongoing issues at work

The work thing is still ongoing (see here) and I'm starting to get really fucked off with work and it's starting to effect other work too as I'm too busy running after time critical problems. I'm starting to lose a bit of confidence in my work, second guessing myself all the time and being really reticent about handing my work in, in case the guys in the peer review system really pull my projects apart. I don't think I've ever been this stressed (professionally speaking) and I've always prided myself in not getting stressed easily and have been able to take problems in my stride.

I don't want that to happen because until now, I've really enjoyed my job and for the most part, the people I work with. I am getting to the point where I'm seriously considering moving somewhere else. I don't know if anywhere else would be any different in terms of the causes of frustration (communication issues and information sharing, mainly) and my currfent desires might just be a knee-jerk reaction to the last few weeks. My current co-workers are being supportive, but this one project is dragging on and on and it's just sucking out my enthusiasm for the job and I'm sure it's starting to annoy my mentor who's been incredibly patient until now.

With any luck, tomorrow will sort out the last of these problems and I can get back to enjoying my work, but I thought that on Monday... and yesterday... and this morning...

I have taken the day off on Friday, so I'm going to chill out and forget about work for the long weekend.

Every cloud has a silver lining...

Scooby Doo may well be a poor movie, but it has Sarah Michelle Gellar in it (I'm not a big big fan, but she looks fine enough here), Linda Cardellini (who thought Velma Dinkley could have ever been sexy) and Isla Fisher (again, I'm not really a fan, but she's gorgeous here).

Something for every man... a blonde, a brunette and a redhead.

Nice.

more dreams...

I had a dream a few nights ago where I was at a quiz of some kind. Christ knows what kind of quiz it was or where it was, but Jennifer Aniston was the question master. Getting towards the end of the quiz and I was in second place, close behind some guy. Whatever happened in the final round, I ended up tying for first place, so we went into a tie-breaker which was to identify Christmas songs or whatever.

I went first and they played something I didn't recognise (making a smart comment to Jennifer about how Christmas sucked ass and how the quiz was weighted against me, which she laughed at). Then they played “I believe in Father Christmas” to the other guy, who went off, called his mate on his mobile, and came back with an answer... the wrong answer.

For some reason they gave him the quiz as the tie break winner. Jennifer came over, had a quick chat and gave me her hotel room number and asked me for a drink afterwards. She seemed quite down and in need of a chat, so I agreed and she cheered up at that.

So, next thing I knew, I was in this hotel trying to find Jennifer. It's not any hotel in my home town nor anything like any hotel I've been in or seen before. It was packed full of people (like a shopping mall or similar, but far too many people for a hotel) and it was HUGE. The thing is, no matter where I went within this hotel or where I looked, I couldn't find Jennifer's room, though the guys at the desk were forever telling me that she was in her room and expecting me and even giving me directions to it.

This went on for some time until I woke up, before I found Jennifer again.

I woke up feeling quite disappointed that I never found her room to have that chat.

There's a deja vu element to this. The quiz thing is new, but the hotel thing seems incredibly familiar. Not in real life, of course, but I think I've had that portion of the dream before. Does it mean anything? I'm not sure. FBS thought that dreams meant something. She had a few books on the subject, but I never read any of them and FBS never talked about what imagery, so I've no frame of reference to even make a guess.

I've had better weeks.

This week has been hell. I've lost a lot of sleep because of the heat from the start of the week, plus work's been a real drag. I've been really busy trying to get a project out the door and now we've discovered a real-time issue in another of my projects that will require urgent attention, thus pushing back another project I should be working on. Part of it's my fault obviously, but I think these mistakes (really quite small in the scheme of things, but have large consequences) could have been avoided if we worked differently.

Communication in our place is a serious issue with project updates being routed through my team leader instead of coming stright to me and often days late (sometimes at the fault of my team leader, sometimes not). I'm not stressing over it - I'm new to the team(ish) and still relatively inexperienced, so mistakes are bound to happen and I think it's best to make them now and learn from them than make them months down the line through carelessness. I'm frustrated that the mistakes have been made though - in my old team, I was very good at my job and it's hard not having the reputation and having to build it up again.

Still, I had a chat today with the only female (currently) in our team. She's kinda weird in that she is generally very blunt and abrupt, but can soften up and be quite approachable. When she's being abrupt, she can be quite intimidating, but when she's not she can be a very good chat - interesting, intelligent and very funny. I'd like to get to know her a lot better, but the seating arrangements don't really help stimulate conversation within the team. There's no attraction there in the romantic kind, though she is quite pretty (in a Sarah Silverman kind of way).

I've also had various technical issue that are frustrating (and ongoing), not least my internet connection going AWOL for nearly two days straight. I know, it's only two days, but I felt like my left leg had been cut off, and the lack of email came at a bad time for various reasons.

the usual

Tonight I watched Garden State with Zach Braff and Natalie Portman in it. It's not a bad movie. If you've seen Before Sunrise or before Sunset, then you'll understand what kind of film it is, or it's vibe at least.

It kinda made me want to travel again, though I'm not sure why because travel is not really one of the themes of the film. I think it's maybe because it's set in America and because I was thinking about V a little.

I was also thinking about E. She hasn't been online on MSN recently, so my assumption is that this thing with the new guy she was telling me about is taking off and taking up her time. That's a good thing. The last thing you want to be doing in NZ is sitting chatting to people back home on the internet for a good portion of your weekend.

Untitled

The weather here for the past three days has been absolutely glorious. That has good and bad points. The positive is that the weather is good for raising the spirits and it's good for perving as the female population dresses down. The bad is that I tend to get terribly dehydrated, I lose my appetite (not necessarily a bad thing... I eat too much as it is, I think) and the high temperatures mean that will get about an hour's sleep tonight if I am lucky. Last night, it was about two hours at most, on and off.

That's OK at the weekend because I can sleep late, but during the week, I need my sleep otherwise I am useless at work. Before last Xmas, this wasn't an issue. I was working on long/medium term projects that had deadlines every six to eight weeks, so the odd off day could be soaked up. Now, however, I am working on short term projects that have a turnaround time of about two weeks, including TWO to hand in this week.

That's going to mean long days until I van get the work done, which is going to put me in a foul mood as who wants to be stuck in an office when it's glorious outside?

Contact... (cont'd)

Bah. Still nothing from QC2. This is unlike her as she's usually pretty reliable. However, I'm concerned that she's slipping into the category of FA2, V, PD where contact is simply non-existent.

On that subject, FA2 is back in the country. I think a relative is seriously ill, but that's a guess. She's been about for quite a while now as she's logged in to MSN at UK times rather than NZ time. While I know I can't take up too much of her time, I think it takes the piss that she's not been in contact (and again, she'll complain at some point about my own so-called lack of contact). I think it's time I deleted FA2 from all my contact lists.

Contact

Today, I decided that it's been far too long since I've seen QC2, so I sent a text message in the hope that she'll reply soon. Emails to her address seem to go missing a bit which I think is the fault of my email server at work, so I decided to try the SMS route.

I hope she replies soon.

Another weekend down.

Blimey. Having drank in a bar just around the corner from a previous place of employment for many years, it's become our usual haunt when I meet up with these guys. Typically, we've always done our drinking on a Friday night. Blow me, if the bar isn't a hive of activity on a Saturday night rather than the semi-quiet, atmospheric place we knew on a Friday.

It was a good night. It always is with these guys, even with the one who does nothing but complain and moan all the time. As per usual, it was also a late night. Once we get rid of the guy who complains, we end up shooting the breeze about all kinds of stuff. I was quizzed once again about my brief dalliance with FBS and my close-but-no-cigar encounters with QC3.

Being slightly tipsy, I relished being a little more open than usual, but I also had a pang of regret about not taking things further with QC3. We'd not be married or anything because it wouldn't have lasted that long, but it would have been worth it for the brief time we were together.

Bah.

I should be in the pub right now with work chums and sneaking glances at Pretty Blonde to try and make up my mind if there actually is any interest or if I'm imagining the entire thing. Sadly though, no-one from work is interested in the pub tonight as we're all heading out next weekend instead. It's a shame because the weather here is fantastic and it'd be a great night to be in the pub.

Ah well... there's always tomorrow.