Learnin's and Ponderin's

What I've learnt from my new job is that:

- I'm in no way over-qualified. A well-organised monkey could do this job. I get to book meetings, plan people's days, take minutes and type them up, all shit like that (I get to play out my secretary fantasies AND have control over other people's lives *orgasmic control freak sigh*) but more than that, *orgasmic geek sigh* I've been given the metaphorical keys to the department's web pages. At the moment it's awful. Not only is it written in a way that means only people with an intimate knowledge of planning rules and regulations would be able to understand it (and, even then, possibly only with a relevant textbook by their side) but there's some insanely obvious spelling and grammatical errors, it's done in a horrible, horrible layout (like, horrible!), and the navigation was obviously concocted by either an evil genius who didn't want people to access the information they need or, and more likely, by a retard. I love making rubbish things prettier (the only thing I'm not good at performing that sort of task on is myself) so, thus far, it's pretty awesome (in a 'I'm only going to be here for five months so let's enjoy this ride while it lasts' kind of way).

- My boss is weird but not weird and creepy as my first impressions had indicated. His weirdness is the weird I can appreciate rather than fear, plus he's got the corniest sense of humour ever which I never not love.
Token example:
Me: 'How many people work here?'
Him: 'About half of them'
Me: [slightly incredulous giggle that anyone still uses that joke]
Him: 'I've been waiting for you to ask me that all week so I can say that'
Which is what made me decide I'm in. He's my kind of people.

- Middle-aged women moan. A lot. They also have a tendency to bitch. A lot. Now, yeah, I know I know, moaning and bitching are indeed two of my favourite past-times. But when it's other people doing the moaning then it's really fucking annoying. It's every single day with the same complaints about the work and the same snarky comments about the same people. Ours is not a united team. There's office politics and back-stabbing and game-playing (it's like a low-key, parochial version of All the President's Men or something) but above all else, there's moaning and there's bitching. I'm fairly sure there's been openly hostile discussions about whether or not I deserve my job and my pay grade taking place in front of my desk (doesn't really bother me if they are because, to be fair, they have a point) but what really annoyed me today was that one of them tried to get me to say that I don't think grown women should wear pink - on the day that another woman in the office was wearing this BRIGHT pink sweater-dress. Now, in the normal order of things I would raise an eyebrow to myself but chick can actually pull this outfit off in a trashy extra-from-Melrose-Place sort of way but, to be honest, when all is said and done, I don't give a shit if she wants to wear pink. No, I never would, but if anyone else does then what do I care? Admittedly there are some fashions that do offend me greatly but, although I will point it out I won't point it out to someone I hardly know and I certainly wouldn't mention it in earshot of anyone who happened to be making that horrific sartorial crime at the time. Especially not if I had to work with them everyday. Especially if I then spent most of the afternoon (and pretty much every weekday afternoon) bitching WITH THAT PERSON about someone else in the office (who's crime is talking too quickly. For the love of Jesus. H. Christ people I can't even... I just... I mean, really. Come on.) It's too much. I can't cope. I now understand why a lot of the 'younger' crowd listen to mp3 players all day. To drown out the droning of the middle-agers.

I think why it's getting to me is that I don't want to end up like them. I don't want to blink and have 15 years go by and realise that for all that time I've been in the same job, working with the same people, and never really enjoying it, or never even really stopping to question whether I enjoy it or not and doing it anyway. There's something to be said for being content, for finding your niche, and just existing. It's a lot easier to exist than to really live. Thing is, I am quite content at the moment, with my life, and my job, and my friends. I have my short-term and long-term goals but who knows if I'll ever have the drive to really follow through on those? And the minute that thought pops into my head I get scared and I get kind of angry with myself. Because I don't just want to settle, even if that's the easiest and most rational option out there. About six months ago I was subjected to a conversation between two guys, one a little older than myself and one older by around ten years. They were indulging in a self-congratulatory discussion that went something along the lines of how society has all these rules it lays out for about how you should be living your life and if you don't conform to it then you're made to feel like you've 'failed' the life test in some way. Particularly in respect of the fact that everyone is always expected to have career goals and couple-up yet they were content with their jobs as is and were really happy being single yet were almost expected to apologise for this fact. Weirdly, I'm sure I've said all of those things (and more) at one time or another, yet I walked away from hearing all that feeling like I being personally attacked. It took me a while to figure out why it got to me so much, when, to all intents and purposes, and certainly to a lot of people who know me, I agreed with them. But after a roll-up (or fifty) I arrived at some conclusions (by the by I haven't smoked for like a month... nothing that counts anyway... I stopped enjoying it which happens from time-to-time. Perversely, I think it's negatively affected my writing. Smoking gives me this time-out where I'm really forced to think, not just about my problems but about my day generally. The number of 'start-up' sentences that have come to me out of the ether all thanks to a cancer stick... still not really bothered about smoking at the moment though so we'll all just have to carry on and hope for the best where my writings are concerned). But anyway, for the goals, that was fairly obviously a dig at me because I do have them. The life they lead where they're working to live rather than living to work... I don't want that. For some people, yes. For me, no. I don't want to do a job just to get a paycheck at the end of the month. I want to be inspired and passionate about how I get to spend the majority of my day. I understood what they were saying about how a job can just be a job. It shouldn't define you or shape you. It shouldn't no, but the trouble is, it does. And yes, thinking about the future rather than living in the present can be a sad way to live - you never really stop to smell the roses, it's always about moving 'onwards and upwards' but if you don't think about the future then that's when you end up doing the freaky-ass blinking trick and suddenly realise that, although your life aged 25 was awesome and you loved it, it loses something when you're still living the same life aged 40. Change is inevitable, most of the time you can't plan for it, but not planning anything at all is foolish in the extreme.

The single thing, yes I'm still wretched and alone. Recently I thought that maybe that might be rectified - without me having to compromise and settle for something less than spectacular - but nothing ever really came of it in the end. What can I say? I get the feeling that maybe the idea of the Sazz is a lot more attractive than the reality of the Sazz (although in the last six months I've been re-connecting with an ex who is interested in getting involved in my life and learning what I'm all about now... which, were ye cynical, makes it sound like he's just trying to get into my pants but I really don't think he is. Regardless, he's made me realise that although airy-faerie idea Sazz is pretty awesome, reality Sazz has some good points too). However, that's not really here nor there. I also like being single, I like being selfish, I like that I have nothing, ostensibly, tying me down. For the last two years I've been one of the most passionately anti-relationships people around. People in relationships are boring and act stupid and compromise - not just on small things like, agreeing to do the washing up to keep the peace, but on who they fundamentally are as a person. Yes, I get offended if people in relationships pity me and think that I can't ever really know happiness until I've found 'the one' but, regular sex notwithstanding, there are good things about having a relationship. It's weird for me to admit that but it's was even weirder for me to have arrived at that conclusion as it only happened because I was listening to other people speak the words that I'm the one normally speaking. It's just that they made me realise how utterly extremist it all sounded. See, the thing about extremists, whether they're just determindly single or members of al-qaeda, they're generally deluded about everything, but most importantly, themselves. They go too far because they're always having to defend their beliefs or their choices (this, to be fair, probably doesn't apply as much to the al-queda camp. If you are in the al-queda network and were hoping to get some insights into your psychological make-up then I don't think it's going to happen here. Sorry. I'm good but I'm not that good). Allowing yourself to fall in love and be changed by another person is a good thing. It's kind of one of the big indicators for knowing you're a healthy adult. Having said that, it pisses me off to see people staying together for years and years and making one another unhappy just because they're scared of being alone, or those people that may get out of an unbearable relationship only to jump back in with someone else a few months later (I really don't see how these people can think they understand love because, as far as I know, it happens so very rarely and is so fucking fragile that to believe each new person is 'the one' is retarded at best). Mostly because people like that (and alas, I reckon they are the majority of relationshippers) are the ones who fuel the fire of the extremist-singelers. That, and the only singletons that are represented in any kind of public way are the ones who are desperate to be with someone. Desperation is never ever ever an attractive trait and if that's what we're all stereotyped as being then hell yeah, certain single people are going to rally and rail against that conception. But to what end? Just to fool oneself. I think the key thing is, I don't want a boyfriend. I don't even mind being alone, in fact, I actively like it so to give that up, to make that sacrifice it would have to be for someone pretty fucking special. However, I would be willing to make that sacrifice - in theory at least. So, to sum up, the extremist single-for-life-yo lobby are the ones that made me not want to be single for life. Irony is a dish best served ironically. And with a raised eyebrow.