Chantal - Have Laptop Will Travel: The Hot Chocolates Don’t Work

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December 03, 2004

The Hot Chocolates Don’t Work

I’ve never had such a bloody awful day at work. Ever. It was so bad that I couldn’t leave my desk, as I’d storm out of the office if I did; if I went outside for a cigarette, I knew I’d never return. Admittedly, when I finally trusted myself enough to go for a cigarette, I realised it was too cold for me to go any further than back into the office at top speed.

About fifteen minutes later, Fill emailed me for a fag break, and told me he’d heard a rumour (albeit from a completely unreliable source) that I’d be losing my job in a week.

Anyone who reads either of these sites will know that Central America is very much on my mind these days. I’ve spent half my life juggling England and there, and I’m worn out. I don’t have what Gina has – any links with any Latino communities, indeed any connection with Central America besides my regular contact with my mother – I just have my flat, a few scattered friends, and still more scattered plants. Piles of adored ex-colleagues. Also two harps, two guitars and a collapsible piano. It may have taken me over a week to pack up my desk on the Project; I imagine it will take me far longer to pack up my flat. I’ve no doubt that the very few who have seen my flat will more than agree.

So there was that. Homesickness, meeting Gina, no flatmate on the horizon, failure to book flight home, the possibility of losing my job.

A very classic Freudian slip there – I actually wrote ‘the possibility of doing my job’. My day started with seven emails, with me dancing to Cheb Mami and singing ‘An Englishman In New York’ but trying to cram in the words ‘I’m a half-Mexican in London’. It doesn’t quite work.

You all know that I passionately loathe my job. I have spent two days this week swapping jokes and silly websites with Fill, and spent the other three days itching to rip off the heads of the people in my office, my boss, his boss and Rebecca being foremost. He’s off now till Wednesday, and I’ve promised him at least three headless corpses on his return. At some point this morning, I realised what a complete bloody joke my job is. I’m a database programmer (now). This job just seems to consist of dumping data into databases and extracting statistics. I spent over an hour fiddling with Windows Explorer, flicking through thirteen folders with about 50 dbf files in each, none of which actually contained anything even vaguely resembling useful information. I actually felt physically sick at the thought of having to consider approaching any of those files (as opposed to the effect of the two hot chocolates I’d drunk earlier in rapid succession). I realised that my job would never be more than any of this, that even though my job title, according to the org chart my boss’s boss printed off for me on my first day is ‘developer’, I’m never going to develop anything besides homicidal tendencies and an unhealthy rum habit. I’ve tried to limit myself to one lunchtime pub trip per week. I’ve gone to the pub three times this week.

So that hour spent flicking through Windows Explorer was my attempt to appear to be working while despairing intensely.

After Fill told me the gossip about me, I decided I should do some work, at the very least to cover up the two days of doing sod all. More like four weeks (I’ve now been there for four weeks) of doing sod all. If they really do want to get rid of me, at least they won’t be able to say it’s for lack of productivity.

I have two new data sources to work with, mobiles and work extensions. The work extensions are the mass files I mentioned earlier; to date, I’ve spent about a whole day trying to hack into the mobiles data. I spent about half an hour today baffled by the fact that there are 12 calls logged against my extension despite my never having used the phone yet, then returned to the hell of the mobiles.

The first hurdle was the data2.msi file. The file which baffled the Network Rail IT staff for weeks, and the one which determines whether or not I can actually open the sodding databases. Without this one wee file, my computer decides that the database isn’t actually a database, and returns to its nap. It then took me another hour or more to store another missing file in a location I couldn’t copy to – I couldn’t copy the database off Terminal Services, nor the missing file to TS. I gave up, and tried to access the front end. Its command on load is to maximise, so if you’re using a wee little TS screen, all you get is an error message saying that it’s closing down as it can’t maximise. Even when I maximised the TS screen later on, I was still plagued by requests for about nine missing files multiple times before it could complete any function.

I forgot to say that I popped over to the other office to drop off the Christmas Lunch menu – I’d planned to say something gloomy like I’d rather be painfully tortured than go, but then I realised that going would be in itself painful torture. Fill was on his way to the canteen; I needed to speak to ND about that dratted msi file, and it turned out he needed to speak to me too about restoring a backup of a SQL Server database. Apparently it’s yet another of those things my predecessor did which I’ve never so much as heard of before. He summoned an Asian woman to help him eventually, but sitting on a desk watching them was like sitting through a reenactment of Dumb & Dumber.

Fill was in my office when I returned, logging into the PC next to me (also the one nearest to Rebecca, poor thing). Given how much time we’ve spent slagging off our jobs, and how much I was suffering by that point, it was painful not to be able to say anything as most of the helpdesk lot were at their places.

Back at my desk, I pointed the sodding Windows Installer at the msi file, at which point it promptly asked for another, without a browse option. Even if I could create the necessary filepath, there still wasn’t any way I could copy the bloody file over to resolve the issue. It was around then I started swearing and bashing my forehead against the desk. As the main issue was about the lack of a proper Access installation on the relevant server, I decided to access the server through Explorer – and found that it was password protected.

At that point I started swearing loudly.

At the same time, Rebecca opened her mouth. Her two dramas of the last few weeks have been being ill, and flat trauma. She moved into a new flat a week ago, and actually arranged for a police escort from her previous flat of four days. The new landlord wants a character reference. So Rebecca’s writing it herself. I tried pointing out to her that she’s completely invalidating the point of a character reference, and with nine other people in the office, surely someone else can write something for her. Lead balloon. I muttered to Fill ‘I’ve got to get the fuck out of here’, and passed him a note saying – referring to an earlier email – ‘Your first guess was right. This has got to be a nightmare. It can’t not be a nightmare.’ He was on the phone; I grabbed my stuff and headed to the nearest pub.

I only had two hours left when I returned to the office, or two and a half hours, as it turned out. On my second day, I brought in my CD collection, and sprinted over to John Lewis once it was open to buy some new headphones. Ever since, I’ve spent all my time listening to music very very loudly. On the Project, I’d turn my music off whenever people talked around me; normally I don’t bother any more, as I know the conversations around me will only make me all the more depressed, but I saw my boss and his boss talking, and turned Khaled off to hear them discussing a new starter. Although they dropped their voices after a bit, and the rest of the room got noisier in that time, I still heard more than enough. But still, not enough to know whether or not it was my job they were talking about. But I still heard them discuss how well this new person would fit in, how well they would adjust. I’ve already asked once to move out of the office. I spend all day listening to music, looking as though I’m being tormented by unspoken evils. I learned quickly that apart from a couple of people who barely speak to me, I despise everyone in my office, and I’ll jump at any excuse to not be there. I’ve been sacked often enough by very flimsy excuses, which of course makes me all the more paranoid.

I do know that I always loathe returning to England in January. I almost missed my flight back a year ago, and probably this time, I’ll try a hell of a lot harder to ensure that I do. But I’ve wanted to leave England for a long time, since long before I tried to move to Dublin. Fill asked me earlier what’s stopping me, and in reality, it’s simply the logistics of packing up this flat.

Posted by chantal at December 3, 2004 10:36 PM

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