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Ok - This is likely to be my last weekday on TMO, as the IT department have announced that as of Mungday they're going to start monitoring internet access. I know this is usually where some people write things like 'IT fascists', but let's face it - they're not paying me to sit here and post jokes about my cock, and days go by where I just do no work whatsoever. So, anyway. My Lightweight Friday Fun Thread...
Do you have a plan/ dream that you cling to in order to get you through the working week?
I mean, I know it's Friday and everything, but soon enough it'll be Monday again. And again, and again, and again, until the day you die. Is there any way out? One of my friend's wants to open a pub. Another is planning to go back into academia and spend the rest of her life learning. Some people want to buy stuff and justify the treadmill, 'the daily bone', as Jonesy bafflingly calls it. Maybe you even like your job? Maybe there's another job you hope you'll get one day. The point is how do you do it? How do you get through the week without wanting to end it all?
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posted
I just like to fool myself that I'm just biding my time here until the time is right for me to start getting on with living properly. As opposed to the sad reality that, really, I'm practically counting down the days till I die.
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I just look forward to the weekened, when I can drink and lie in bed. I posted about 6 months ago about shedding aspirations, goals and motivations, and I'm still chipping away. I've been turning a lot of attention to any ideas that I have previously harboured about marraige and children, which is made much easier by my girlfriend already being married to somebody else. But, I've always kind of half-assedly understood that having children would be a bad idea, and now I'm making an effort to turn it into something that just isn't an option for me. Not an operation, but you know, just talking myself around. I hate my job (obviously), but I've pretty much always disliked working the same as I always disliked going to school. Any kind of routine where somebody is telling me what to do, and I don't have the ability to ask them why, is ultimately destructive, but even more so is the self abuse of biting your tongue and doing something regardless of how stupid you think it might be. It's this kind of thing that has lead me to being a temp, still, with only 3 years until I'm 30.
So, yeah, the only thing I really think about in terms of future is the weekend, when I can laze about, or go and spend money on cold beers in over priced bars. The alternative - to look beyond - is like contemplating a bottomless pit.
[ 21.10.2005, 04:57: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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I'm trying to buy a house, and planning on being a teacher for a bit, and I'm going to make films, and art, and er, art films. But I kind of look forward to and dread those in roughly equal measure.
I quite like alot of my current job, the creative stuff and the stuff involving the students, and I tolerate the dull repetitive drudge stuff because it keeps me in beer and cultural ephemera.
I've never regarded the future as a problem really, so much as the present.
[ 21.10.2005, 05:23: Message edited by: Boy Racer ]
-------------------- Some people stand in the darkness, afraid to step into the light... Posts: 3770
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quote:Originally posted by Ringo: I just like to fool myself that I'm just biding my time here until the time is right for me to start getting on with living properly. As opposed to the sad reality that, really, I'm practically counting down the days till I die.
posted
I like my job in that by the time I'm on my way there I'm not dreading it or feeling like I'd rather be in bed, and that on my way home, most days, I think I've achieved something and can enjoy an honest rest.
However, I look forward to a retirement when I can mostly sit around writing fiction or semi-fictional "research", shuttling whimsically between a house in London and one by the seaside, going to the pictures, exhibitions and galleries whenever I feel like it, drinking late with my old mates on a weekday evening, funding and mentoring young people's worthy radical projects, and being invited expenses-paid to prestigious conferences, interviews, telly shows and the like. I think I'll make a pretty good old man, really: I often feel like an old man now.
posted
Benway, I think you should definitely have kids. Lots and lots of kids. It's just what you need. There's nothing more motivating, fulfilling or rewarding than having to discipline tiny reproductions of yourself.
posted
Anyway, shorter-term, during the week, I am motivated by simple notions like having a few cans of beer, watching downloads or DVDs in the evening, going on at least one decent social outing every Saturday, sleeping a little later and building up a £150 order at Amazon during the month, which I purchase on payday.
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You see, I've done jobs I really hate. Jobs where you wake in the middle of the night stressing that in a couple of hours you will have to leave the warmth and safety of your duvet to venture outside and brave people who you are sure would gladly kill you rather than speak to you like another human being.
This current job isnt so bad yet, so I dont mind coming to work - although I have only been here since April so give it time...
quote: Do you have a plan/ dream that you cling to in order to get you through the working week?
I dont really. I wish I did and then maybe life would make more sense.
I think the only thing that gets me through is taking every day as it comes and spending my free time concentrating on doing the things i like rather worrying about work.
At the end of the day, all of us like the lifestyle that working affords us (even if its not all its cracked up to be).
Sorry you wont be around anymore during the day now Thorn, you'll have to join the nightshift instead...
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posted
Yeah I always look forward to a bottle of beer in the evenings. One of those 750cl bottles of Greene King's 'The Beer To Dine For'. Those are yum.
For the most part I cling to the hope of getting published, although it often feels like being alone in a storm battered sea clutching a rotting piece of driftwood with no *genuine* hope, just a pretence. That's often enough, though, so it's OK. Working through the daily grind usually serves to build me up to the point where I'm desperate to go home and write - as although I get a writing work out in technical terms in my job, I never actually have the chance to express myself.
On a day to day basis, the things that keep me going are looking forward to DVD releases, computer games, and accumalating enough money to buy another upgrade for the PC. I don't dread work like I used to - at least here the people are nice, and each day there's the chance that Sarah's going to be wearing a top where I can catch exciting glimpses of her right tit.
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Clearing my debts, that is the only reason I work, to clear my stupid debts stupidly accrued by my stupidity. If I wasn't in debt I would have the cushiest life going.
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I quite like my job, it is interesting and my boss is nice, and I’m not striving day after day to line the shareholders pockets through some kind of morally dubious business practices. So that is nice. That is not to say I would carry on doing it if I wasn’t getting paid…maybe if I was ultra turbo rich I would do it as a part time hobby, but most likely I would be too busy taking coke in the Caribbean so probably not. I think the only annoying thing about work is that it means I have less time to do other things, I don’t actually mind doing the work, but it would be better if I had more time for sleeping, holidays, staying up late getting drunk, exercise and a range of wholesome cultural activities. Also I would like to get paid more (obviously)…martin is still asleep when I leave the house and happily installed on the sofa by the time I get home and he gets paid a shed load more then me, and has no qualifications! Yesterday I realised I had been a total moron and that all the work I had done in the past two days was not only utterly useless because I fucked up the method, but I had wasted some very expensive and limited resources to do it! I have to go to a meeting and explain this now….
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Getting to the end of the week without wanting to end it all? Dorothy Parker springs to mind:
Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smell awful; You might as well live.
No, it's not original, but it's still good.
I think I posted recently about The Fear and touched on ongoing work stress and running through it. So that's what I do at the moment, when circumstances are slightly beyond my control, I give myself something else entirely outside that sphere to aim for, achieve and ultimately I guess control. With me at the moment, it's running. I'm training for a 10K, which is not bad for someone who only really gave up smoking 6 months ago. It's slightly healthier and less of a cliche than developing an alcohol problem or eating disorder.
In the short term, minute to minute, hour to hour, I allow myself little cultural excursions courtesy of my mind, or with the intercession of Google, a book in my handbag, an art gallery at lunchtime.....
This week it seems to be poetry - yesterday I re-read some bits of Dylan Thomas and RS Thomas I'd forgotten about. This morning the OH obliged by phoning to ask the name of a poem we saw Adrian Mitchell very movingly read last year. To Whom It May ConcernPosts: 915
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quote:Thorn Davis MVP This is likely to be my last weekday on TMO
I think this is some of the worst news ever posted on TMO. I'd rate Thorn as one of TMO's most valuable posters, if not the most valuable. When fair-weather fuckers such as myself have been floating around whinging: "Ooh, I can't think of anything to post", "Ooh I don't fit in here anymore" Thorn has consistently rattled out quality posts like a reliable machine gun with an inexhaustible magazine, hitting the target time and time again.
I don't want to suck his dick too much and, it's true, my fingers recoil from the keyboard when I try to big Thorn up, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.
As for getting through the day, I've had some pretty reasonable jobs over the last couple of years. As a freelancer I've no idea whether the next contract will bring a nightmare scenario but, touch wood, it's been a while since that's happened.
The jobs have been fun rather than fascinating and only interesting in places. None of them could be described as challenging on a creative level and the end product is difficult to be proud of. However, most importantly, I seem to have tapped into a rich seam of quality colleagues. That makes all the difference.
When I'm working from home (which is probably 50% of the time) I only have a cnut for company and a board full of textual weirdoes, but I enjoy it in a different way.
Overall, I don't have much to moan about but I do need to drift off to get myself through the day sometimes. Compared to literally crossing off the days of my sentence in the back of a General Accident Fire Life Assurance Company diary back in 1989, it's a doddle, but after months of trying to wring a little humour and life from "The Jurassic Coast is a 160 mile stretch of coastline boasting some of the UK's most dramatic scenery" I need to dream of something else.
Having said that, I'm currently a perfect example of someone who should be careful what they wish for. I've recently been given the biggest opportunity of my 'career'. If it comes off then it's a massive step for me, and even if it doesn't, it represents invaluable experience. The opportunity has paralysed me with fear, though, and while I'm working on the project, I find my mind turns tail and retreats to the safety and familiarity of the banal everyday job.
Usually, it's essential to think "This can't be all there is. I won't be doing this in ten years, I'll be doing X, Y and Z." At the moment, though, sinful thoughts are flitting through my head along the lines of "If I can just fuck this up and fail, I can get back to the humdrum harmless bone."
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: I just look forward to the weekened, when I can drink and lie in bed. I posted about 6 months ago about shedding aspirations, goals and motivations, and I'm still chipping away.
You're full of shit Benway. Listen everyone: behind this carefull maintained slackerdaiscal pose Benway has been working hard on producing a fanzine - the first issue of which sits on my desk. As you would expect it's a passionate and beautifully written expression of his love for a particular cultural field; the two pieces authored by Benway himself are funnier and more engaging that about 95% of what you'd read in The guardian and yet here he is, acting like a beaten mule.
I know I haven't been the most supportive of pals recently and I should have emailed him as soon as I'd read my copy (on the train back to Yorkshire, after we dined in The Norfolk) but this "I am a teh uselessenz" stuff must not be allowed to stand.
You have powers, Benway - do not deprecate them and end up pissing them up a wall. Don't you have a second issue to work on??
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
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I'm doing contract work at the moment and have been for the past three years, the last nearly-two of which have been on my current contract. I've just been told this will definitely come to a close at the end of the year.
I'm ambivalent about my job. It has had it's moments of being almost quite interesting, which is saying something when you realise that I work in finance. However because we're getting to the tail end, the interesting work is drying up and I'm just left with clearing up the crappy admin and doing handover stuff.
Because of the resulting general ennui I probably spend maybe 1/3 of my day mucking around on the internet doing nothing much, yet somehow the company I work for still seems to think I'm the best thing since sliced bread for some reason and pays me accordingly. I feel like I'm cheating them and even more of a corporate whore than usual, but since I don't currently have any offers of employment past New Year it'd be stupid of me to enlighten them.
As far as the future goes, I've always wanted to be one of those brave people who says, fuckit, I'm off to see the world for a year or I'm going to breed goats or I'm going to set up my own business or I'm going to join a commune, but I like my creature comforts too much and I don't have the nerve to just jump off a cliff without a safety net. I am chickenshit, basically.
-------------------- i'm expressing my inner anguish through the majesty of song Posts: 4243
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Do you have a plan/ dream that you cling to in order to get you through the working week?
Personally, I live on Planet Fantasy and always have done. This can make life amazingly exciting even when the reality, if being observed by a neutral outsider, is excruciatingly dull.
I've always got a plan. A business idea, a drop-out-and-live-the-dream scenario, a film script or a sitcom or a novel, a plan for a club or to manage a cool new band. The whole lot is in the head and never actually gets beyond an afternoon browsing the internet to see if anyone else has already done it.
I'm perfectly aware that I'll never execute any of these plans, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. It's the buzz of the idea, the clarity and beauty of the concept as it forms in my head, the vibrant image which, when on my couch I lie, in vacant or in pensive mood, flashes upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude. And then my heart with pleasure fills. (Although it rarely involves any daffodils.)
I'm going for a job interview in Paris on Tuesday. Of course, I've spent the last couple of evenings looking up every detail about the place, establishing how easy it will be to get my bike over there and the best routes for commuting, whether to live in Montmartre or closer to the workplace which is outside of Paris in fact, how best to travel home most weekends, how to constructively spend my evenings/where to get drunk most happily etc etc. Come Tuesday I probably won't get the job and it'll be on to the next scheme. No point being disappointed.
It can be horrible when you have a lucid moment though and realise that you really are a pointless waste of space. I try and avoid those as best I can.
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errr, ahm.. Yeah, I finished writing last night. If you're interested, I think it will be much better than the last one. Funnier and more energetic, and it's bigger, and we even have an advert! But, you know. I'm only in it so I can go to free films, and maybe become some kind of celebrity horror film pundit, ligging my way around leicester square. Ben - if you want to write that piece we talked about, that would be fantastic, but there's no need to go slagging me off on the internet as some kind of enthusiastic/pro-active piece of shit.
quote:Originally posted by dang65: I've always got a plan. A business idea, a drop-out-and-live-the-dream scenario, a film script or a sitcom or a novel, a plan for a club or to manage a cool new band. The whole lot is in the head and never actually gets beyond an afternoon browsing the internet to see if anyone else has already done it.
I'm perfectly aware that I'll never execute any of these plans, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. It's the buzz of the idea, the clarity and beauty of the concept as it forms in my head, the vibrant image which, when on my couch I lie, in vacant or in pensive mood, flashes upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude. And then my heart with pleasure fills. (Although it rarely involves any daffodils.)
I'm going for a job interview in Paris on Tuesday. Of course, I've spent the last couple of evenings looking up every detail about the place, establishing how easy it will be to get my bike over there and the best routes for commuting, whether to live in Montmartre or closer to the workplace which is outside of Paris in fact, how best to travel home most weekends, how to constructively spend my evenings/where to get drunk most happily etc etc. Come Tuesday I probably won't get the job and it'll be on to the next scheme. No point being disappointed.
Dnag, this is actually quite beautiful and inspiring - it's like you've wholeheartedly embraced Kierkegaard's assertion that one can only be truly happy when dreaming of future happiness.
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Bun's right. I've read Benway's fanzine and, like the man himself, it's a fantastic piece of work. I'm not a horror fan but I am a fan of this publication because it's clever and funny and passionate and bloody well written.
Don't be drawn into feeling sorry for this fucking charlatan.
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Other little-known fact: Benway auditioned to be 'Dom' in Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow and got through to the final four.
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quote:Originally posted by H1ppychick: I probably spend maybe 1/3 of my day mucking around on the internet doing nothing much, yet somehow the company I work for still seems to think I'm the best thing since sliced bread for some reason and pays me accordingly. I feel like I'm cheating them .
I heard that! I just had to quickly minimise a TMO window when my boss came over to my desk to tell me I'd been put forward to be the unit's professional excellence rep. What the fuck?. I didn't do any work at all in September and last week when the rest of the team were working late on bids for the Olympics, I just carried on posting here, and then went home on time. I wonder whether this 'professional excellence' thing is a bit like "making the div kid at school the milk monitor".
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but, yeah, I've always got ideas for a film, but I tend to remember that bit in TvGoHome about the director who only makes films in his head, and that tends to quell it. If anybody here is homeless, I'm kicking around ideas for a bittersweet film that's like a reverse of pygmalion, where a salaryman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and in the depths of alcoholism, befriends and eventually takes in a homeless woman who is pregnant. Anyway, she just takes the piss, thinking that he's just doing it to make himself feel better, and doesn't really care about her, and who does he think he is anyway. One night some of her friends come round and rob him, and she discovers him dead drunk, soaked in him own piss, in the kitchen while she's been asleep, and realises that he's got a real problem, and see's that he's in a bad situation as well. She comes to understand why her took her in, and so she tries to help him overcome his problems. In the end, they both help each other, and she names the baby after him, and goes to live with an old boyfriend, even though the helper guy has been hiding letters from him to try and keep her to stay. He quits his job, and goes to work full time with a care agency. But, I need some authentic homeless/alcoholic scenarios to draw from.
But, I'd never make this, so it's just torture to even think about it.
And, don't listen to these motherfuckers, they just want to get a slot in the mag.
[ 21.10.2005, 06:40: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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Thorn - I had a similar scare a couple of years ago, but with these things the bark can be worse than the bite. If you have a contact in IT, have a wander over to their desk and fish for why the regs have been tightened up and who they're after. It may be the case that porn and moonlighting are the only things that are really likely to get flagged and that there's a tolerance threshold for 'online research' (you could always argue that the Web forum is some sort of discussion resource for leading edge tech issues).
Unless you have pressing 'performance issues' it's unlikely that anyone will want to make an issue of your internet use.
The one thing I fear is that employers permit widespread internet abuse so that they always have an ace up their sleeve in case an employee makes trouble ("He/she was dismissed for gross misconduct once we investigated his/her use of company internet access"). A threat, i suspect, that hangs over us all. Posts: 8657
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quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: I'm kicking around ideas for a bittersweet film that's like a reverse of pygmalion, where a salaryman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and in the depths of alcoholism, befriends and eventually takes in a homeless woman who is pregnant. Anyway, she just takes the piss, thinking that he's just doing it to make himself feel better, and doesn't really care about her, and who does he think he is anyway. ... But, I need some authentic homeless/alcoholic scenarios to draw from.
Worth reading the biography of Vivian Stanshall. In his later years he used to invite a group of boozers that hung around the local Offy to come back to his place for a bite to eat and a drink. They completely took the piss, regularly robbed him, and were quite likely present when the fire that killed him started, though they didn't hang around of course.
ETA: Also, Alan Bennett's Lady In The Van. Possible source for more eccentricity.
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for that, possibly rising to a ![[Mad]](mad.gif)
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