Confessions of a one-handed typist

We're all guilty of it.

Schadenfreude, that is.

"Satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune" according to dictionary.com.

Even the kindest, most warm-heartest, most love-to-pet-fluffy-puppies-on-the-head-whilst-simultaneously-kissing-babies-and-giving-money-to-charity do-gooders amongst us can't help but smirk just a little bit when we see the prick in the Mercedes get done for speeding.

It's human nature to have a little giggle, isn't it?

And there's no shortage of schadenfreude in my life.

This morning, my colleague, the new girl (NG for short), came into my office, bolted the door and said "Oh God! I need to talk to you!"

My interest piqued by the urgency and distress in her voice, I swivelled around in my chair and asked what was up. Thence flowed forth a litany of grief to which I nodded my head sagely and uttered condolences, for her aggrevations were all too familiar to me.

Some of you know that, when I started in my current job just under a year and a half ago, I was very unhappy. It was the usual problem - the combination of bad pay, a high workload and an incompetent boss. Happily, my situation has now changed. I'm still in the same job, and the pay is only slightly better, whilst the workload and moronic boss remain the same. But I recently went through a somewhat introspective stage and I sat down and had a good hard think about it all and emerged feeling more positive and happier about the whole thing. I realised that it is entirely up to me to make the best of this situation, to learn as much as I can, and then to move on to bigger and better things. And once you've gotten your head around that, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to get up in the morning, let me tell you.

Anyhoo, NG had been to her first client meeting with the boss yesterday and by the time she got home last night she was wondering if she had actually gone mad. Her litany of complaints ranged from the boss treating her like a secretary in front of the clients to him telling her she should be out scouting for new business by herself but then telling her she's not capable of working on her own and that she needs to be part of the team.

She ended on a Mugatu note - "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Is it just me or is he completely unreasonable?!"

Unfortunately, it was all too familiar to me, for you see this time last year, I was asking the exact same question. I knew that the way he was acting was unreasonable (piling on the work until I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown; calling me on weekends to ask where files were; calling me at midnight on Sunday night to tell me I had to travel to a meeting at 6:30am Monday morning; making sexist jokes about me in front of clients; treating me like a secretary in front of clients; butting into conversations with clients just so he could try to prove he was smarter than me, and so on ad naseum), and yet, at the same time, I began to wonder if it was just me who was being naive or stupid or overexpectant.

The problem with dealing with people who have no organisational, management or people skills is that, if they come across as utterly confident in themselves, and refuse to change despite the many subtle and later blatent hints you give them, eventually you start to think that maybe the problem lies with you. Maybe you're being intolerant?

So, I sat NG down and explained to her that the problem is not with her. That the problem is indeed with the boss. After all, he's A Boss, isn't he? And we all know what they're like...

I also explained that, after a while, your bullshit-filter becomes more fine-tuned and you learn to disregard the 99% of crap that comes out of a boss' mouth, and to digest and analyse the important 1% that comprises actual useful information.

"Unfortunately," I told her, "it takes time, but you will eventually get to the stage where you don't feel like stabbing him in the neck with a pencil every time he opens his mouth. It's a slow process, but at least you're not alone. I didn't have anyone to talk to about this last year, so count your blessings! I feel your pain and I'm available for a bitching session any time!"

As I sent her on her way, I couldn't help but feel a little smidgen of satisfaction. It's nice to know that NG feels the same way I did this time last year because it means that I wasn't imagining it or making a mountain out of a molehill. This time last year, I felt so alone and frustrated because I had no one to talk to about this. I was the only girl working for the company, and the other guys had been here too long and were too attuned to the boss to be able to comiserate. Sure, I could talk about it with my beau, my friends and my family, but I always got the feeling they thought I was blowing things out of proportion a bit because some of the things my boss did or said were so outlandish. So, I felt like I was going stir crazy.

Now that I've seen the light at the end of the tunnel, I know that NG will be fine in the long run, but there's a little part of me that still enjoys seeing her frustration because it makes mine a little more valid.

Does that make me a bad person?

--

If my boss is reading this, then of course none of this is true. It's all made up. And exaggerated, grossly, for entertainment and comedic effect. It might be best if you forget you ever read this.

--

I apologise in retrospect for any typos in this blog. I'm typing this with one hand because last night I sliced my middle finger on my left hand whilst I was chopping vegetables for dinner. So much for trying to be healthy. The damn thing bled all night and, in fact, I think it's still bleeding now. Actually, I feel kinda woozy...

Woe is me - A self-pitying, melodramatic Wednesday whinge

I'm ill.

My head has been stuffed with cotton wool, lead and helium, which is an interesting, yet wholly undesireable feeling.

My eyes are still full of hot sand.

My throat has had the insides scraped out and rubbed vigorously with salt & vinegar resulting in an altogether very unsexy croaky voice.

My neck and shoulders have been encased in concrete, restricting every movement I make and weighing me down so that I feel that little bit closer to hell with every minute that ticks by.

Hi Satan!

My lower back throbs with a dull yet persistant ache that makes me want to strap a hot water bottle on there and curl up into the feotal position until it's time to die.

My limbs feel like they've just run ten marathons back to back whilst scrubbing red wine stains out of a white shirt using an old fashioned washboard, soap that won't lather and very hard and cold water.

My body temperature swings unpredictably between unbearably hot and shivering cold, meaning that I'm constantly either ripping off jumpers or frantically trying to wrap them around me again to retain some semblance of warmth.

I'm tired, yet I can't sleep.

So I'm at work.

"Shouldn't you be at home?" I hear you say.

"Yes," I reply. "Yes I should. I was at home all day yesterday and I should have stayed there again today."

So, why didn't I?

Because I got bored, that's why. That's how ill I actually am. I got bored. I couldn't go outside because the weather was too cold and shitty. So I stayed inside all day. Our Internets isn't working because of some problem with the line. I hate daytime TV. I finished reading The Historian (fantastic book - Mozz, give it another go, seriously) and need some time to digest that one before I can pick up any other. I've watched all the DVDs in the house. I've read all the newspapers and magazines. By 8pm last night, I was climbing the walls. And then I got bored of doing that! I'm restless and I can't concentrate long enough on any one thing to relieve the boredom.

Today, when I woke up, I found out that we don't even have TV anymore because a rather horrible hail storm last night has done something funny to our connection. No Internets and no TV make Claire go crazy.

So, instead of staying at home and developing a nice case of cabin fever, I decided to go to work. Might as well get paid for being bored shitless, right?

*sniffle*

*cough*

Should have brought my duvet...

Another day, another dollar

Claire awoke with a start after what seemed like only minutes of sleep. She looked around the room which was barely lit by a shaft of grey winter light filtering through a chink in the heavy curtains. Outside the rain battered the window and the wind howled mercilessly, slamming a nearby door against a wall - the cause of last night's insomnia. Where...? Ah yes, the hotel. Still in Sheffield then.

She reached out and silenced the alarm that had woken her, and rubbed her gritty eyes that felt as though they had been filled with hot sand. Time to get up? Maybe just five more minutes of rest. Last night's late dinner still lying heavily in the pit of her stomach, she lay back against the once-luxurious but now almost threadbare sheets and closed her tired eyes, praying for sleep to swallow her whole and deliver her into a blissful slumber that would last for days. She couldn't remember the last time she had been this tired.

The alarm started screeching again, signalling the end of the five-minute snooze period. With an exasperated sigh, she silenced the alarm again and flicked the switch on the wall by the bed, flooding the room with harsh, unnatural light. A searing pain filled her head, as though someone had just rammed a picaxe through her eyeballs. "I hate mornings," she thought to herself as she threw back the covers and shuffled out of bed with all the grace of a lame donkey.

The shower ran cold for approximately seven minutes. Just as she had given up, about to resign herself to a day of smelling like last night's cigarette smoke, the water began to gain a little warmth - not enough to be theraputic but enough to make standing underneath it for ten minutes bearable. As she half-heartedly rubbed shampoo into her hair, she pondered what today's training session would bring. The eighteen students has so far been significantly more unresponsive than expected.

She rinsed the shampoo from her hair, and added a generous dollop of conditioner, massaging it in as she contemplated. Was it because of language difficulties? Cultural differences? There were only about four native English speakers in the group. Maybe they didn't understand Jamie's lectures? Maybe they'd be more communicative on this second day of the course, now that they knew what to expect. She hoped so. The long drawn out silence after that dreaded query - "Any questions?" - was beginning to grate on her nerves.

Whatever happened, she hoped today would go a little faster than yesterday, which had seemed to drag on for three years. She rinsed the conditioner from her hair, and switched off the stream of lukewarm water. She towelled off, dressed, fixed her hair and makeup and made a final check in the mirror. "Another day, another dollar," she told her reflection, as she picked up her umbrella.. "Maybe I'll suggest a warmer climate for next year's course."

---

So, yes, I'm still in Sheffield. And, yes, that is an accurate reflection of my experience of waking up in hell this morning, after approximately two hours' sleep. It's not so much that I'm in Sheffield that's making me slightly less than enthusiastic. Rather, it's that I'm in Sheffield in a sort of crummy hotel, with horrible, rainy, windy, cold weather outside, attending and helping out with a course that, whilst interesting, is a lot of hard work - back to back lectures from 9am 'till 5pm - and then drawn-out dinners that go on well into the night, leaving me exhausted yet unable to sleep as my body attempts to digest.

*whinge whinge whinge*

I know, I know. It could be a lot worse. I could be working in a coal mine, hundreds of feet below ground, relying on a canary to tell me when to get the fuck out because I'm about to suffocate. I could be working in a paddy field, spending day after day with damp feet, bent over as I harvest rice and get paid a pittance for the privilage of doing so.

Goddamnit, I could be an accountant!

It's not so bad. At least me and the new girl are getting to spend some time together - she's cool. We also have a lady visiting us from Brazil who is super fantastic and very witty.

And, best of all, there's only one and a half days to go...

However, watching this continuously does make it more bearable!

Hell is entirely relative

The other day, I overheard someone tell someone else to "Go to hell!" And, instead of quivering in fear, the other person (or the damnee, as we shall call him) merely laughed. "Ha ha!" he exclaimed. "Suits me! That's where all the cool people go!" But he's wrong because, you see, hell is relative.

There seem to be two schools of thinking on what hell is all about. The traditional idea of hell, as preferred by bible bashers and Catholic priests the world over, is a place made of fire and brimstone; a place of eternal agony and torment for murderers and people who don't eat their vegetables.

In some versions of the story, the place is guarded by a three-headed dog called Cerberus. In other versions, the place is ruled by Satan, images of whom range from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The one common theme throught the various versions of the religious hell is that, once damned, you will spend eternity being flogged with a cat o' nine tails and being forced to commit unholy acts, such as work as a telephone operator, or ungodly chores, such as washing Hitler's underwear after curry night. And guess what? Every night is curry night in hell! Muhahaha!

The other more modern and trendy school of thought on hell is that hell is where all the cool people go. This really annoys me. Hell is not a biker bar with unlimited free booze and a fantastic jukebox, where you can still smoke and shoot pool, and which is full of cool people like Jimi Hendrix and Bill Hicks.

You see, the whole concept of hell is that it's supposed to inflict pain and suffering on the person who's been damned, and we all know that one man's heaven is another man's hell. Therefore, hell is relative. Ipso facto.

From dictionary.com:

hell ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hel) n.

1. a. often Hell. The abode of condemned souls and devils in some religions; the place of eternal punishment for the wicked after death, presided over by Satan.
b. A state of separation from God; exclusion from God's presence.

2. The abode of the dead, identified with the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades; the underworld.

3. a. A situation or place of evil, misery, discord, or destruction: War is hell (William Tecumseh Sherman).
b. Torment; anguish: went through hell on the job.

Hell is the absolute worst case you can imagine. And then some. So, to picture your own personal hell, here's what you need to do: (1) Think of the worst place in the world. The one place where you would give anything not to be right now. (2) Think of all the people you'd be more than happy never to see ever again. (3) Think of the one activity that you would sell your left kidney never to have to do ever again.

Now, imagine being in that place, with those people, doing that activity, FOREVER.

Congratulations. Now you know what hell will be like when you go there.

For me, hell would be sitting in my office, with my boss constantly interrupting me, trying to edit the typeface on a huge report that I've been working on for months, but he keeps making changes to the report, and I have to keep going back over it to update the font. He's constantly making crap and/or sexist jokes, and asking me inane questions about reports that I completed months ago, and then getting pissed off when I don't know the answer straight away. For eons and eons and eons.

So, yeah, I'm pretty much already there. I knew I shouldn't have laughed at Denis Leary's Jesus joke.

So, remember kids, the next time someone tells you to go to hell, don't flash the smug grin and make some lame joke about how you'd be more than happy to go and drink tequila with Bill. Because hell, for you, is more likely to be a New Kids on the Block reunion concert. In Milton Keynes. And, trust me, you really don't want to go there.