September 17, 2005
Grandfather
http://www.bobbittchapel.com/obituary.aspx?MemberId=10829
Please note: his middle name is Marez, and there's no Z in my name.
Posted by chantal at 04:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 13, 2004
Later
I’ve spent hours watching the news, spent hours reading all the online newspapers I can find. Yasir Arafat was buried yesterday in Ramallah, and yesterday evening I finally accepted that the news channels had nothing left to say. All the same, in South-East London, a half-Mexican woman is sobbing over the death of the Palestinian leader, for all that he’s left behind, and for all that he strove for but never had the chance to see. And for his absence from the world to come. No matter how ill he was, I still lived in hope that he would recover.
Yesterday, I finally found something resembling the statistics I’ve been searching for for the last few years: over 4000 killed in the last few years of Middle Eastern crisis, 75% of the fatalities being Palestinian. So for every Israeli killed out of desperation, Ariel Sharon kills at least four Palestinians, with the aid of far more advanced technology than that which is available to the Palestinians, yet still manages to persuade the world that he is innocent, that only the innocent Palestinians he is annihilating are terrorists. For how long can the international community support him without question; for all that Arafat was viewed as an obstacle, for his circumstances, for his absolute insistence on an uncompromisable homeland for those who the Israelis had displaced, can the Israelis maintain their position as a woefully sabotaged and victimised nation? Tonight, I watched on BBC2 footage of Israeli soldiers systematically destroying the bones of Palestinian children. That only supports the stories my Red Cross buddy, Gert, told me of his experiences in Israel and with the savagery of the Israelis, essentially describing them as soulless savages bent on revenge for imagined acts of violence.
I tried to find books by Edward Said – how strongly he is missed in the wake of Bush’s reelection and over Arafat’s death. As the most intellectual, and currently most widely-published Palestinian, this is when we need him the most. He contributed a few quotes to the BBC documentary tonight, but I am sure he never foresaw the death of Arafat, much left that which would follow, which that which I can but watch unfold each day as it comes.
The problem with England, the problem with the West is that figureheads are only temporary. Beckham left Manchester United, and our culture is that of politicians, not personalities. There isn’t the room for someone who, however erroneously, devoted everything he had to recreating even a slice of the homeland his people had held prior to the Israeli invasion, someone who was uncompromising in the conditions his people needed to regain their homeland and way of life despite the autonomy of an occupying nation which felt no remorse at all at displacing the land’s inhabitants in the name of a millennia-old claim.
Everything I have seen since Arafat’s sad death has only confirmed my opinion of the Israelis as relentless murderers immune from justice. Pinochet is being held to trial for the genocide committed during his rule; let Sharon be investigated for the same, for overseeing his share of the 3000+ Palestinians massacred in his attempt to establish rule over a land which is not his own.
I may not have bought the Edward Said books I want to read, but I’ve seen and read enough to confirm that every Israeli who has contributed to the death of a Palestinian should be subjected to a War Crimes court, that even though Israel has managed to amass so much land to date – 80 % of that which was formerly known as Palestine for two thousand years – and no matter how much impunity the Israeli nation has managed to accummulate over the years through international guilt, I can only wait for the day when Sharon is held in court to answer for the genocide and assassination charges he has authorised over the last few years.
Last night, I watched the press recording of Bush and Blair, in which they stressed that they would have supreme control over the upcoming Palestinian elections to ensure that democracy would be upheld.
How, under any warped logic, can a Christian Western nation presume to control the elections of a Muslim, hotly-debated state? Bush only seems to know three concepts: Democrac, Arabs-are-Evil and Space-Exploration-Is-Good-If-Pricey. It’s not up to Bush or Blair to determine the outcome of the Palestinian elections; after all, Bush’s government has done all it can to distance itself from the Palestinian situation, to the point of ignoring it outright, and he has frequently urged for Arafat to be overthrown so that a puppet can be installed who will be more amenable, no doubt, to American influence.
I can’t stop missing my Lewisham colleagues, If Arafat had died while I was still working with them, then probably a whole day would have been set aside to discuss his legacy and its implications on the future. I cried out as soon as I read the news online on Thursday, but spent the rest of the day reading all of the news stories I could find online, from Western to Latin and Israeli, just to find something which resembled the truth.
I’m too busy grieving to accept the fact that Arafat is truly dead, that he is no longer a player on the international diplomatic circuit; that in all his years of effort, he was never able to secure an established homeland for his people. Yet, despite all his faults, had he not tried, had he not given all he had in those 40-odd years, his compatriots would have simply become forgotten people inhabiting refugee camps in neighbouring states.
Like the Mastercard ad, hope is priceless. And what he gave his people, despite all that I don’t yet know about him and his people, is hope. And now it’s gone. I’m a translator, counsellor and database programmer. And if any Palestinian charity needs me, I’m there. I cannot and will not support the claims of a nation which displaces a nation in the name of a millennia-old right without regard for the land’s inhabitants, and which proceeds to annihilate those with a superior claim than to their own to the land which they are occupying.
But as I’ve been accused in the past, I don’t have a Western perspective. Tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday, but what of the Central Amercan fatalties in US-sponsored civil wars? What of the Native Americans wiped out in the settlers’ desire to establish themselves in their new homeland? What of the 3000+ Palestinians killed in their desire to return to the only home they’ve known? Israel may have the full backing of the US administration, but not of me: I call them the same names they have called Yasir Arafat over the years: murderer, assasin, terrorist, perpretator of genocide.
Posted by chantal at 11:34 PM
November 12, 2004
Little Deaths
My plan for this evening had been to read up more fully on Arafat and the Middle Eastern crisis, but having spent nearly two hours glued to the news, it’s realistic to say that that won’t happen. Instead, I’ve spent the last 15 minutes writing something to submit to some of the news sites I’ve read today, and possibly some newspapers too:
I only found out that Yasir Arafat had died when I arrived at work this morning. I spent the next hour reading everything I could find online, and another hour at lunchtime reading Al Jazeera, BBC News, the Guardian, the Jerusalem Post, the Washington Post, Prensa Libre (Guatemala) and several Palestinian news sites – to cover as many opinions as I could, also reading all the quotes and comments I could find.
The Israeli posters have seemed unanimous in their venom and hatred, blinded by their conviction that anyone who who stands up to the wholesale annihilation and degradation of their people is automatically a murderer and terrorist. But it seems that all that distinguishes Sharon from Arafat is international backing and funding, not to mention some warped logic that they have supreme rights to a territory which they have only managed to occupy by force through displacing its inhabitants.
From what I’ve read, the Israelis are rejoicing at the death of their officially designated Public Enemy. The less bitter of the 90% or so of the world are generous in their acceptance of Arafat’s life struggle, and supportive of extra efforts to achieve what he never managed to secure in his lifetime – the return of a sovereign and autonomous homeland for those who were displaced when Israel sought to take over their land.
It’s particularly poignant, that despite the threats Sharon made to assassinate Arafat in recent months, despite the assassinations of the key Hamas leaders in the same time frame, and the lack of clarity over the cause of his death, only one solid fact has been offered: that the Israeli government effectively killed him by enforcing him to endure substandard living conditions during 2 ½ half years of house arrest. Nevertheless, that’s still not enough to allow him the burial he chose and deserves.
So, having not done the research I had wanted to do, I still want to say what I can. My primary thought all along has been: if only Edward Said was still alive. When Bush was reelected, when Arafat fell ill, and now when he has died: Said was the most intelligent, objective voice in publication. I never read more than the first few chapters of ‘The End Of The Peace Process’ (a library copy), but now I want to go to Waterstones at lunchtime tomorrow to buy copies of every one of his books that I can find.
The little I did read elaborated on how the Oslo agreements were doomed to fail, and how none of the peace discussions to that date would adequately meet the Palestinian needs and demands. A lot of what I have read today has consisted of criticisms of Arafat’s refusal to accept the Camp David agreements, even the Oslo agreements, but surely, when an alien nation is occupying your land and failing to acknowledge the rights of its inhabitants, then compromises are not acceptable. Israel may have superior firepower, financial and political support, but even if the Zionists ever held a moral high ground a century or more ago when they first set their sights on Palestine, every deliberate militant attack in the last few years, every settlement demolished, every homestead annihilated has surely significantly diminished that, if not in the international perspective, thanks to the everlasting support of Bush and his blinkered administration.
There is no doubt that Arafat has been the Israeli Public Enemy; how else could any nation support, much less justify the excessive military operations of the last few years in retaliation to the odd suicide bomber, or the odd stone-thrower. But we have an interesting parallel – the combined UK and US forces decimating Falluja in its need to drive out militants, while at the same time, Sharon is fully supported in doing the same to the the people his people has displaced, without repercussions. Even the wall, separating Palestinians from their fields, work, basic economy, education has managed to pass without too much criticism.
I am basing this only on what I have read from time to time over the last few years, and on my historical knowledge from a hundred years ago, when Herzl and Weizmann sought to purchase the land of Palestine from the Ottoman Sultan. It wasn’t until the Second World War that the Jews had sufficient moral ground to manipulate the necessary foreign powers into supporting them, but having an overview of their history, which seems to have been solely based on military dominance and emotional manipulation, and a collection of a Red Cross former colleague’s recollection of the savagery of the Israelis, I cannot but feel that without the political lobbying of their American cousins, they would be as vilified as Arafat or Saddam Hussein for the viciousness of their actions over the years.
Still, the basic fact remains, that the Israelis continue to treat the inhabitants of the land they are technically illegally occupying as trespassers, having supreme control over aspects of their life which they should have no right to have access to. Israel is a parasite of a nation – surely anyone with eyes and a brain would agree – and despite it being their ancestral homeland of several millennia ago, you don’t see the Welsh asking to reoccupy England, or the Scots to reoccupy Ireland, their homelands of 1500 years ago. The Americans have successfully reduced the Native American populations over the last 100 years, and enforced strict restrictions on the lives of those who remain; of all countries, how can the States even start to comprehend the issues at stake here, rather than settle for the easy option of one parasitical state bonding with another.
I have no doubt that Bush and Sharon are overjoyed by Arafat’s death, though several questions have been raised as to whether or not Sharon will support his claims that Arafat was always the obstacle to peace discussions (as in, not supporting the Israeli demands), or resort to creating further imaginary obstacles in the road ahead. My greatest fear at this point in time is that the two will conspire to install a puppet president, someone who will gamely agree to the American and Israeli demands without sufficient considerations for the Palestinian struggle. As with Osama Bin Laden, I’m aware of Yasir Arafat’s background and motivations, and I have no doubt that the issues he fought for at all costs were worth the sacrifices, having witnessed the loss of so much, and the growth of so much hope in his lifetime. But it seems unlikely – Sharon, for all that he is surrounded by Arab nations, is as Arabphobic as Bush, and out of the current PLO administration, it’s hard to imagine that there’s any potential clear successor to Arafat who could stand to achieve all that he did, and more – especially the peace that he fought so hard for.
American democracy and meddling is not what the Arab world needs. America’s war on the Arab world seems specifically based on its refusal to acknowledge or understand alien cultures. The war in Afghanistan is far from over, and those behind the forces in Iraq seem incapable of assessing the reasons for the resistance to their presence. It’s personal, too – the last I heard of my cousin Jacob, he had signed up to the Army around the outbreak of the Iraqi war, and his brother shares two names with a Mexican killed during the attack on the Twin Towers – but it can’t but seem a drive towards world dominance by a superpower led by an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s confronting.
One of the last times I remember hearing from my brother was 2 years ago; I’d asked various friends if it would be considered a security violation for me to be ‘caught’ listening to Arabic pop while in American airports. My brother replied, only if I appeared to enjoy it, in which case they’d deport me to the country I’d least wish to be in.
At the time, it was Ireland; now it’s America. I know that certain friends, such as Paula, don’t have that much choice, but for me, I want nothing to do with a country which would sanction the murder of such a historic freedom fighter, blatantly ignore the issues he had dedicated his life to, and at the end, continue to embrace his enemy – who, if anything, is the murdering terrorist Arafat has been accused of being in his death.
Posted by chantal at 12:23 AM
November 03, 2004
Election
I’m deathly tired, so just a few words before I collapse into bed.
I – and a colleague – have been on tenterhooks all day, frantically awaiting updates, and hotly discussing the possible outcomes when there’s nothing new to read online. I’m eligible to vote, but I’ve been advised not to so as not to get caught up in the taxation system etc. I reassure myself that my single vote would not make much difference as it is.
Since I lost my job at Network Rail, I’ve not read Prensa Libre, the Guatemalan newspaper I normally read daily. I read it today, however, to see their opinion on the elections; they saw it as a referendum on all the things Bush had failed to achieve in the last four years, however I also know that a large number of Americans won’t be caring about politics or achievements, probably just maintaining the status quo due to lack of information.
I’m about to go to bed, but I quickly checked Sky News, and found on their teletext:
- African-Americans are being told that they do not need to go to the polls
- Those with unpaid traffic tickets cannot vote
- The actual election date is tomorrow
- They can vote by phone as they are ‘such faithful voters’
- The main states affected are Pennsylvania, Winsconsin, Ohio and Florida, the last two of course being two of the key swing states
- A complaints hotline has received over 5,500 calls a day.
A friend at work has made comments about how the Florida votes – despite those already ‘lost in the post’- have to support Bush or else, given the events of four years ago.
It’s so neck and neck, it’s hard to be optimistic, but I swear, if the world wakes up tomorrow to find itself subjected to another four years of Bush, there will be many people crying.
Posted by chantal at 12:22 AM | TrackBack
November 01, 2004
Braver New Job
So now my time at Lewisham is coming to an end. Matt, Jenny and Simon know me well enough to know that I’d turn into my latest nickname, Harpy, within days if this role was to be long-term. On some level, I’m sad to be leaving – I’m fond of most of my colleagues there, but grateful not to have to withstand too many more dialogues with Zak, who I’m still convinced barely understands database design, much less suffer yet another team meeting or conversation with John. From the conversations I’ve overheard, the team seems riddled with Furballs, it’s just a case of ignoring them the best we can. At least none of them sound like they’ve swallowed a pedigree cat.
My jobhunting has gone so badly, I’d managed to convince myself that I’d be happy to stay on, gain the SQL Server and Crystal Reports experience, wander over to Tesco every day with Dominic except for when I’d rather go on hunger strike than subject myself to yet another pathetic-excuse-for-a-sandwich from Tesco, chat with him for most of the day, then feel mild guilt at how little work I’ve done, just before leaving, just before being detained by John, Chief Furball, for about half an hour. I’ve learned quickly that the train is never going to turn up, so it’s a far better waste of time to stand outside the office at the bus stop, and to elbow my way on before the several dozen black women bulldoze their way on.
But at least it’s only temporary. If I’d not had any other options, then I’d have been happy to play with SQL Server etc, if only so I could put them on my CV, and continue chatting with Dominic, Stacey and Anthony (frantically avoiding germs from the latter). I’ve worked so bloody hard for the last two years, working in somewhere so laidback and unpressurised is up there with winning the lottery. Dominic commented on the complete absence of all managers on Friday, so as a result, we chatted for most of the day, and I caught up on email. I ended up having to stay half an hour late – thanks to the painfully awkward John (Furball Mark II), whereas Dominic realised he had an urgent, immovable deadline around 4pm. Stacey and I left together. I’d really hoped we’d go to the pub together – though Matt’s on holiday for now, if I’m going to celebrate my new job with anyone, I want it to be with the Furballed Crowd, not with short-term friends based in a part of London I never want to have to visit again.
It’s ironic, that after nearly two years of working for Network Rail, I’d sooner take the bus to work, no matter how long it takes, rather than subject myself to a predictable stream of excuses for my train’s absence, generally either ‘delayed’ – no ETA even attempted at – or just simply cancelled. I guess that summarises well my current job – an interim role to help me disengage from Network Rail and my close friends there, to be able to email them frequently but not miss them as painfully. To bond with new colleagues, to settle into a new role, but still to always squeal or smile when I receive an email from an ex-colleague.
It’s been a long week. It started with Rahat’s leaving party, ended with Ana returning to her boyfriend, and included way too many late nights in between. And all the while, I stink of fox repellent. Yuck.
I’ve always said that I’ve never worked for any company like Network Rail, never got so personally involved, except for some excavations I worked on in France 9 years ago, where I at least had the choice to return after I left. Maybe the purpose of this current job is to absorb the anecdotes, meet new people, new working practices, so that I’m at least in a better shape professionally when I start my new job. Though I’ll never stop missing Jenny, Matt, Ian, Simon, Laura and the rest, at least I can keep it to myself from now on. At least I can vaguely try to be committed to the company, rather than constantly keeping my options open because they’re not paying me what I’m worth.
So that brings me to the new job. A job from heaven, a job which I could never have dreamed of getting – and one which I got on the basis of my character and personality alone. It’s in a fantastic location, too close to a Waterstones for comfort, stunning building, probably a healthy IT infrastructure at last – and it doesn’t feel in the slightest bit real.
But it’s a Real Job, at the very least. Like in Network Rail, where I lucked into my job as I vaguely had the skills and they were under too much pressure to be too choosy, this is a job I’d be stupid to turn down, to choose friendly colleagues or the nightmare of badly-programmed SQL Server over the future I’ve been wanting, but never expected. At the back of my mind, there’s always the unspoken rivalry with Khilan, who I’ve only heard from infrequently in the last two and a half years; both of us have been very cagey about what we’ve been up to in the interim, but I never stop feeling the pressure to try and upstage him, or at least be on an equal footing when we finally drop the pretense and admit what we’ve been up to in the last few years.
It’s been two years since I last let myself chat with a friend at work, and I’m enjoying it. I’m enjoying the dry humour, the opinions, the sporadic conversations. Sylvie – the Elsa of Hackney – would shout at me that I had no sense of urgency, but currently, no matter how behind or disorganised things are, neither do any of my colleagues, and it’s a healthy transition environment after the frantic pace of the Project, and the absurd working conditions we were expected to endure. I find the lack of pressure or guidelines unsettling, and frequently worry about how little work I’m getting done, but at least, for the first time in nearly two years, it’s healthy. Nobody in their right minds – apart from Matt – could have ever described the Project as healthy.
It’s still ‘we’; it’s still present tense; I imagine it’ll take me far longer yet to stop feeling so untimely ripp’d, but at least emails can make up for not sitting next to the Furball (and wincing visibly with every hacked-up hairball). But at least by the time I start this elusive new job in a week, there will have been a whole different job and set of colleagues between it and the Project, hopefully enabling me to start on a far fresher note and not always looking back. In a way, it’s good that I’ll be starting at the bottom – after nearly two years of the benefit of Matt’s Access skills, which were only ever called into question whenever I faced yet another baffling error message or glitch he’d never seen before in the eleven years he’d worked with Access (I was so relieved to hear my PC was being put out to pasture and not being inflicted on him), constantly doubting, questioning and occasionally ranting about Zak’s database skills isn’t a situation that can last. I sincerely hope I’ll not come across another Zak – nervous twitches, bicycle bits, bizarre interpretations of naming conventions and all – but a mentor, much as Matt has been, and I’ll never have to look back except for the occasional Furballed reunions. Robyn’s back; we need to set a date.
Anyway, it’s late, and given how strong this sweater’s smelling, at least I can sleep safe in the comfort of knowing that there’s not a fox for miles around.
Posted by chantal at 12:41 AM | TrackBack
October 24, 2004
Brave New Job
New job, new industry. This time it’s education, and I think I got the job largely on the strength of having two (adopted) sisters who are both teachers. They don’t need to know that I’m no longer in touch with one of them, and that the other lives and works in Holland. Much less that I never experienced the state school system in England, so I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about most of the time. Two days of it was enough for me to phone my mother to thank her for never subjecting me to a state school.
I had the interview Monday afternoon, and started Tuesday afternoon, following an interview for ABN-AMRO based in Paris. Lewisham Council has the most rigorous security system I’ve ever come across, apart from IBM; you even need a swipe card to enter the toilets, and as I found out today, the swipe cards are even gender-specific. I don’t have a swipe card of my own, nor a PC, nor desk, nor even a login, much less to the various databases I’m meant to be working on. I arrived at work at 8am yesterday, and ended up reading a book for an hour before anyone arrived to log me in to a computer.
I do have, however, someone I walk with to Tesco to get lunch, and who I chat with lots during the day (a fellow musician, with a strong interest in dance), also a rather camp smoking buddy, whose main passions seem to be Holland and Dutch pop music, but who swipes me into the 5th floor smoking room, and also the very friendly administrator with whom I had a lengthy gardening chat today. Apart from the head of the department, who is widely regarded as a cross they have to bear, they’re all extremely friendly, relaxed and chatty. It’s a healthy work environment after the traumas of leaving Network Rail, but I’m still torn between being upset over how my job ended, and missing my old crowd like hell. And being upset that I don’t hear from them nearly often enough.
One of the hardest things is explaining the uniquely bizarre work culture that was Network Rail; though I became less sociable over the last year, I was completely immersed in the Project till the very end – to the extent that I wouldn’t stop working in order to jobhunt - and it’s hard to describe how we were all expected to put our lives on hold till the Project (or our jobs) was over, and how our colleagues were expected to replace our families and friends. How we were expected to work so hard we’d barely have the stamina to get home, but never question it. And above all, how we’d form a close-knit unit based on ‘sharing the pain’ of the Furball.Much as I resented Ian when he first arrived for his loud phone calls, he’s actually one of the people I miss the most; this morning my train ceased to exist, and its follow-up was delayed; I pictured him spluttering with laughter as I’d spit, ‘I hate trains’ as I arrived. Or him trying, and failing to contain himself as Matt would mutter away while the Furball would brag about himself over the phone. Which would be swiftly followed up by emails between Matt, Jenny and I, which I’d then cc to Ian, the Furball clueless as to why we were all helpless with laughter, much less that he was the source of it. Today, analysing a database from hell, I bashed my head repeatedly against the desk, pulled endless faces, and kept waving my hands in frustration; I would have had any of them sympathising and enquiring within seconds, whereas instead, the administrator simply handed me her swipe card without a glance so I could go for a cigarette. Although my mini rainforest is now filling the kitchen windowsills and the top of the fridge, not arriving to it every morning seems wrong, as does not having friends visiting me at my desk or phoning up to chat at length before they came to some work-related point. Or emailing for days after they’ve reached that point.
So I’m full of anecdotes, and I’m sure they’re fast getting bored of them, especially when I talk of Network Rail in the present tense. I never thought I’d believe it, but Lewisham’s IT infrastructure actually makes Network Rail’s look impeccable, and having spent nearly two years either wanting to throw my computer out of the window or shoving my foot through the monitor, I’m familiar with most of the problems they’re having. But a lot of the time, it feels like I’m at the pub with Gary or Tim, and I’m simply recounting the events of the day, in other words, being full of all these stories I need to share so that my new colleagues know where I’m coming from. But then, we had to attend a leaving presentation today, for a woman who was leaving after 19 years, and it reminded me that after almost 2 years, nobody raised a collection for me, nobody really bothered to say goodbye, and that none of the good friends I’d thought I’d made over the last 20 months actually cared, in the end.
So, new job.A week ago, I signed up at a temp agency, and I’m currently earning the minimum rate they offered me as a secretary or adminny-type person. My only interest in taking the job was that at least it was a technical role, and not vaguely secretarial, and though I occasionally have to do the crap the Furball’d inflict on me, I don’t let myself resent it at much, probably because I have no commitment to the job, illustrated by applying for 43 jobs on Thursday. Theoretically, there’s a 1-week trial in which both I and they are meant to decide if it’s going to work out, but I’ve not received any indication that I’ll be out of work again at the end of Tuesday. So far, I’ve met two databases – one SQL Server, the other in Access – the former has strengthened my resolve to avoid SQL Server at all costs, and both are without question the worst-designed databases I’ve ever come across. I’ve not yet asked how much the former cost. Zak, the database guy, firmly defended his complete rejection of naming conventions, or even understanding of basic database design. He even argued with my identifying lookup tables and subforms as such. When, after much egg-sucking, I reminded him that I’d worked with Access for years, he replied that he had too; nothing in the database I’d spent Friday analysing gives me any indication that he has the slightest clue as to what he’s doing. I’m reminded of the quote that a full version of Access is extremely dangerous in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing…
Like Network Rail, I’ve spent the last few days not really knowing what I’m meant to be working on, who I’m working for, much less what I’m meant to be doing. I don’t like SQL Server, I don’t like the databases, I’m clashing a bit with the database guy, but …. at least the people are friendly.
Okay, back to Network Rail, and I’m silently livid that Donna (Elsa) has managed to keep her job, while her pettiness and childishness cost me mine. My mother has always cautioned me not to be bitter, but I can’t help it, not after she told me about her relationship problems the first time I met her, her pregnancy scare, her relationship and sex life problems, her one-day stand with Dougie, then drastic improvement – then Carla started and she had a new friend who didn’t silently criticise her work habits, and I no longer was her friend. I’ve wondered if it was about projection – my silent disapproval of her overly chatty, playground bully personality which turned her against me, leaving her to feel she had to pull rank just to justify her role, ill-defined as it was. I don’t waste that much of my time thinking about her, but when you compare a person who works as hard as she can – pausing only to water her desktop rainforest – and someone who chats for at least 4 out of the 6 hours she can be bothered to work, I’m almost demoralised that I have to question which one gets to keep their job.
Maybe I’d be coping better if I’d had more clarity about when my job would end. Rob, the person who appeared to control the fate of my contract, mid-morning on my last day, stressed that he Didn’t Do Ambiguity, but never gave me the chance to remind him that he’d offered extensions for two separate projects. Up until about 11 am on my last day, I was fully expecting that I’d be back at work on the Monday, and given how hard I’d been working till then, I’d not had the chance to start distancing myself from my immediate colleagues and the job itself. It’s all too easy to settle for Rob picking that day to be my end date on purpose out of spite – a weekend when most of my friends had chosen to go on holiday, and when the rest would be at any of three other parties scheduled for that evening, meaning a grand total of two people would be there to say goodbye to me, even if one had to backpedal quickly to get to the party arranged for herself at a bar which I’ve always hated with a passion. The Furball was off sick, Rob was off for some vague reason, Geoff was otherwise engaged, which meant that none of the potential candidates for my final boss were actually around to say goodbye after almost two years’ dedicated work. Matt may say that that’s how contracting goes, but he’s never involved himself the way that I did.
I’m very clear that I want my next job to be exactly what I had at Network Rail – the freedom and flexibility – but without the insanely unhealthy work culture of the Project. When Dominic (Tesco buddy) told me that people didn’t go to the pub, I was relieved; I don’t want to bond with colleagues again to the extent that I’ve done over the last two years. The reality is that few of my closest friends ever went to the pub after work, and that I rarely saw most of them, and nevertheless never stopped caring for them deeply, but that’s more than should have to happen in any job. If, of all of those I’d made friends with over the two years, they’d made the effort to turn up to send me off, I’d maybe be less bitter, but I find myself starting my new job haunted by memories of everyday life there, and the half-hearted attempt at a farewell.
I never believed that the day would come when I wouldn’t have Ian to my left, Matt to my other left, Simon beyond Ian, Jenny diagonally across from me, and the Furball to my right. I never let myself imagine a future without Ian, Jenny and Matt, even if we all knew it would happen someday. I’ve worked for so many companies that I strongly believe in my definition of professionalism, but I never expected to suffer from certain managers’ lack of the same. As I’ve said, on the Project, we were expected to give everything, and now, when I’m shivering outside Lewisham Town Hall while smoking yet another cigarette, my mind is caught up with memories of what was, not wanting to engage with what’s my present and future.
Posted by chantal at 04:00 AM
September 20, 2004
Friday
It didn’t help that I have a sharp knife on my desk.
Four weeks ago, I was given a one-month reprieve at work. Elsa, who was far friendlier at the time than she is now, had assured me that my contract would be extended for a further month every two weeks in. Elsa’s the type of person who’s used to getting what she wants, so when her boss – one of the candidates for being my possible boss – muttered to me two weeks ago that he’d sort it out, I didn’t have any reason to think otherwise.
The only reason I knew that the four weeks were coming to an end was because I’d spent three of them waiting for data, specifications or even a conversation with Elsa about the new database. I started chasing for information about my contract on Wednesday, but by Friday, she’d not managed to reach her boss, or speak to his boss, and was settling for grunts and shrugs. When I asked her, mid-morning, if there was any news, she asked ‘What about?’
Back to the knife. I initially brought it in back in November for my birthday; though I don’t eat cakes or anything else sweet, I bought two cakes from a luxury bakery for my colleagues. The knife never made it back home, and has since been used for lunches and slicing lemons. It wanders around my desk, but it wasn’t until Friday that I had to make a point of hiding it from view, lest I get too tempted to take it on a tour of the office. Dezirée, formerly the environmental assistant, was holding her leaving party that afternoon, as she’d finally managed to secure a job in the prisons service. When I mentioned the knife to a friend, she joked that I’d be seeing Dezirée again soon.
So it started at 8 am, when I was standing outside the office, finishing a cigarette and reading a newspaper, my usual routine. Elsa’s boss being on leave and unreachable – much like her memory and reliability – I’d suggested the previous afternoon that she check the status of my contract with his boss, Geoff. Geoff arrived shortly before I’d finished my cigarette, an ideal time to pounce, I thought. Nobody’d approached him in the last month. ‘But we extended your contract for a month,’ he said. The month was expiring in 8 hours’ time.
A further complication was a very blonde deadline. A week before, at 2pm, Elsa had emailed me a spreadsheet to import into the database, which would then have to be broken down into 16 further tables, not to mention all the tweaks needed to convert the database into something vaguely usable. She planned to launch it at 9am on Monday. I was on the phone at about 2am on the Monday morning wailing that I was dreading the deadline too much to go to sleep. At 9.30 am I was told that it’d been cancelled, rescheduled for this week, with a trial launch Thursday lunchtime. As two spreadsheets took 4 days, rather than about 4 minutes to import into Access, I was left with a few weeks’ work to cram into about 2 days. In the meantime, Elsa was too busy bonding with her new colleague to appreciate how stupid and impossible the deadline was, and despite the deadline being her giving a pretty presentation on the database, she only saw it for the first time 10 minutes before the presentation was due to start, to which only 1 of the 5 or so invitees attended. Not only was it the first time she’d held a discussion with me about the database in over a month, it lasted 2 hours as the sole attendee had to spend much of that time educating her about what she should already know about her job. I left with a page’s worth of notes of changes, but decided around lunchtime on Friday that if she wasn’t going to discuss them with me, I clearly didn’t need to make any of them ahead of the database’s launch and presentation to the top-level managers tomorrow morning.
Back to the deadline now. Okay, so I love being busy and working hard. What I definitely don’t like is working so hard I see new grey hairs emerge every time I look in the mirror, falling asleep on the train home at 4.30pm, and being too exhausted to bathe for a week. I’d send Elsa frantic messages about how badly things were going, but she was probably too busy chatting to her new colleague to notice. Or care. For me, it’s important that my work is as good as it can be, so I’m hardly going to be satisfied with her launching a piece of crap if my name’s going to be associated with it. When I ‘thanked’ her for the most hellish 5 days I’d experienced in a long time, she simply said, ‘You’re welcome’.
So that’s the background to Friday, or at least part of it: scary deadline and uncertainty over contract. If you want, add to that the uncertainty over who I work for (I have five contenders for who I might be working for), which team I work for, what I’m meant to be doing, much less working towards. In nearly 6 years of temping, this truly is my first run-in with ‘hands-off’ management. I don’t like it.
I suppose you can guess the outcome, but let me take you through the day, all the same. I remember emailing Katie, my adopted sister, first thing, and I think that was my last sane moment of the morning. I had built a database earlier in the year for a lovely older man called Ian, who commutes down from Ipswich, and we’ve become good friends since. He was the first person I talked to, after Geoff, and somehow he managed to calm me down, which only lasted the few seconds it took to return to my desk and growl at Jenny. After too much growling, I returned to Ian for another fix. Again, it only lasted a few seconds. Around 9, I decided I needed a serious nicotine fix to rehumanise me, and to take my mind off of my knife, and bumped into Elsa. I’d texted her at 8 with the news, but she just shrugged when I asked her, ‘Well?’, and shrugged again when I spat, ‘Spending the day jobhunting, and I’m deleting your database.’ I crossed to the other side of the office and bumped into Laura, who I used to walk to work with every day back in the old building. We chatted for a few minutes, then I asked her to grab me before she returned to the other office. While outside, I decided I’d walk her over, I could do with not being in my office for a bit.
It’s very strange that, despite the near-incestuous company culture we have, these days, when I hear someone’s leaving, my first thoughts are ‘Congratulations!’ rather than ‘Awwww no fair’. Laura told me that a good friend is finally leaving, and I’m thrilled for him, as I know he’s been unhappy for a long time, extremely sad though I’ll be to not have him around any more. I spent about an hour over there – I’m usually almost neurotic about never leaving my desk these days, even if it’s just to boredly search the Internet – probably the longest I’ve spent with Laura this year, and exactly what I needed to stop snarling (her offering me green tea helped too). Usually when I go to the other building (it’s only 5 minutes away), I’m there for hours catching up with all my friends there, but on Friday, I felt I should at least pretend to care about my nightmarish deadline.
By 12 or so, I’d finished typing up my list of things to do on the new database, which was only about 45 items long.
I’m getting a bit bored – as it’s pretty late – so let me return to Elsa for a short while. As I said earlier, I’ve been temping now for nearly 6 years, which means I’ve worked for a very large number of companies. I’d like to think I’ve got a good idea of what defines professionalism – if nothing else, the assumption that I’ve been hired specifically to fill a role – and so I violently object to those who misinterpret that to believe they’ve been hired to surf the internet for trainers, talk all day on the phone to their family in India, plan their next diving or skiing holiday, or, in the case of Elsa, talk first, waste everyone’s time second, and work if there’s any time leftover. She and I were good friends – we met in the smoking room, so I owe my 6-week contract extension to Marlboro – but particularly since her new colleague started, let’s call her Eliza, I’ve avoided her, as I can’t bear the 15-minute wait for her to acknowledge me, chat, work, chat, chat some more, wrap up, unlock her desk, dig for her cigarettes, lock her desk, send messages to her colleagues, chat to her colleagues and wait for the lift, simply for a 3-minute cigarette. She often wanders over with me to the Oxo Tower to get my lunch, but one day, it was at least 15 minutes before she and Eliza were both ready, and although I walk slowly at the best of times, I was a few minutes ahead of them the whole way there. I got annoyed, and Elsa has stopped talking to me since. I’d already been avoiding Eliza since I stopped to say hello one day and got rescued an hour later by Elsa’s boss . There’s lots of other stories to fill out the background, but let’s just leave it at there being increasing friction between Elsa and I over our definitions of how to behave in the workplace.
Theoretically, I love my job; I definitely love my salary, which is about double what I could get anywhere else. If there was no Furball (ex-boss) or Elsa, I would unreservedly love it – but then I remember the chronic mismanagement and disorganisation. I don’t sit near whichever team I now work with, much less for, so I figured I’ll keep doing my old job – working for up to about 10 teams – but also building the snazziest database I’ve built yet, which would be a great note to leave on. Apart from Matt and the Furball, I think pretty much everyone is desperate to leave as soon as they can. Elsa had promised to have me kept on till May, but I was already aware I’d be unlikely to survive more than a few months, which would be drastically reduced by the amount of contact with her. A pub trip on Tuesday (they kindly changed it from the wine bar, as I hate wine, to a pub) is the first indication I’ll have of actually having colleagues, but I’d need a lobotomy before I set foot in there.
Back to Friday. It’s after midnight, so I’ll need to wrap this up; I’d also planned to do much jobsearching in five countries before I go to sleep. At noon, Geoff had only just returned from an all-morning meeting in the other building and was munching on his lunch. I decided to give him two hours, then two and a half hours before approaching him for an update. Then three. At 3pm, I came back from a lengthy cigarette break to be told that Geoff and the Furball’s boss had been looking for me, which meant News. The Furball’s boss, erm, Mike, was adamant that he’d be unlikely to be able to extend my contract beyond two weeks, not the ongoing month I’d been assured. He also acknowledged that I had some outstanding work to do for the environmental team, however I need to discuss it with their manager, who won’t be back until after the two weeks are up. Mike also told me that I should prioritise jobhunting and interviewing. Geoff said that Monday’s deadline had a snowball’s chance of actually happening. Elsa gets a nearly-finished database, and I get grey hairs and distinct ringmarks in the bathtub.
Two weeks. Two people approached me on Friday about potential new projects; well, one was Ian, and the other one is a former colleague who’s drowning in paperwork. I never did finish Ian’s database anyway, so that needs doing, but he said he’d spend the weekend thinking up further improvements I could make.
Two weeks. I gauge one week will be spent jobhunting and interviewing. The other week will be handing over all of my databases to poor Matt, who, if nothing else, will be left completely at the Furball’s mercy without sympathy or backup. So when do I get to finish off three databases and possibly develop a fourth?
And yet, I never heard so much as a peep from Elsa during all this.
Her boss is back tomorrow, so I’m anticipating, at the very least, an argument with him about his complete inability to secure the contract of someone who presumably works for him. There’s maybe another three or four arguments to be had tomorrow – I should probably leave my knife at reception – not to mention a complete lack of clarity as to how I should spend the next two weeks. If, um, Doug can’t be arsed to renew my contract, and Elsa can’t spare the time to kickstart what was originally a life-or-death project, then presumably I shouldn’t be wasting my time on it.
So it’s after midnight, and I’m sitting in semi-darkness as I can’t bear to face tomorrow. I loved my job, I adore my colleagues, but after a month of the Elsa-and-Doug experience, I’d have been grateful had Friday been my last day after all. I know that tomorrow will start with confronting Doug about why he wasn’t able to do his job, followed up with why Elsa’s allowed to get away with not doing her job.
The ironic thing is, I keep getting told that my contract’s not getting extended as ‘there’s no work for me’. I know I’ve just crammed a few weeks’ work into two days, but I think the three months’ work looming ahead of me contradicts that fairly well. I had worried if my bad habit of contradicting and arguing with the Furball might have had some influence on my contract not being extended, and probably, my blatant disapproval of Elsa’s behaviour probably doesn’t help.
I want it to be Monday evening. I want Elsa to be taken off the database, and for my contract to be extended for long enough for me to find a glorious job in France, Spain, Holland or Mexico. And also for Matt’s copy of The Book I’ve ordered for those who suffer most from proximity to the Furball to arrive. But above all, for Elsa and Doug to revert to simply people who lurk behind a filing cabinet and rarely talk to anyone outside their own team.
And Christ, the Furball’s back tomorrow. Our fun’s over.
Posted by chantal at 12:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 16, 2003
WLTM
It began with Elizabeth. A 65-year-old American ‘professional divorcee’ on her fourth facelift and on the hunt for a man, any man who would make her life more complete. Other than the one who’d flown from Washington to Guatemala to accompany her back to the States. Who adored her yet was invisible to her, although not to her friends who were called in to entertain him for her last few days.
I’d been hearing about Match.com for some time, a website many of the expat women in Guatemala would use in the hope of changing their chronically single status. One woman used it in terms of where she’d most like to go on holiday, so that she’d know someone when she got there.
That all changed when Elizabeth returned on the scene. Feeling hopelessly incomplete without a man, she asked my mother to help her set up an account, profile, scan in photos, select candidates from those on offer, and vet potential admirers. Most, if not all of the men she contacted never replied, to her incomprehension; all messages she did receive faithfully arrived in my mother’s Inbox within minutes. For a woman who’d been married on several occasions, I was stunned by her inability to handle her own love life independently.
When I returned to London, I found that my flatmate had put an ad in a newspaper – for Friendship – and was receiving a lot of response. She wasn’t sure how the paper had decided to include rock music among her interests, but it didn’t seem to deter those who left messages for her. She’s spent much of the last few weeks on the phone; it sounds like initially, she talked mostly to a man in Birmingham she didn’t hit it off with sufficiently; the latest one lives in far north-west London, so at least they get to see each other more easily – presumably, why she’s not here right now.
Those were my prior ‘experiences’ of online or other such forms of dating. Last Friday, I was walking one of my colleagues to Leicester Square tube station, when she happened to mention a dating website she’d joined, and how recognising one of the men from the site had meant she’d stopped going to the gym in order to avoid him. In fact, it was someone she’d known as a small child, and not something as frivolous as a sudden aversion to a new impromptu admirer. It was only a short walk to the tube station (we’d just dropped someone else off at Covent Garden station), so we didn’t get much further, I think, than that and the URL.
It’s been eight days now, and I realise I’ll probably never remember what I was thinking when I logged onto the internet that night. As I put it to someone today – bearing in mind I’d looked at Match.com a few weeks ago (having chronic jetlag has meant I spend a lot more time online than usual) and primarily thought ‘Ugh!’ – I logged onto the website, and did a simple search. Oh! – I need to sign up to see more. So I did. Oh! – I need to pay some money for nonspecific features. So I did. I’ve received over 160 messages to my account already, and I’ve lost track of the emails which have arrived since.
I know I’m not the best test subject. I’m hardly looking for a relationship of any type, and have been steering clear of any profiles or messages leaning in that direction. One profile was vaguely reminiscent – apart from the age and nationality – of someone I used to know in Costa Rica; since receiving a message from him saying ‘if you’re as pretty in the flesh as you are in your photo, phone or text me….’ I haven’t exactly bothered to reply. I do think it might be interesting, say for research purposes (and so be able to write a more interesting, more balanced piece); all I can think to say is that those of you who know me can easily imagine what a disaster that would be.
My initial thinking is that this would be a disastrous, artificial way to meet people – your sole common interest, from the start, being shared knowledge of this website. Yes, you can vet people according to their looks, but that too is dependent on their having a jpeg photo available, having had it approved and posted, and it being sufficiently flattering to attract attention. Most people are too tongue-tied and modest in their profiles to warrant much interest – I’ve received numerous messages from people whose profiles simply say ‘Hi, I like your profile, let’s meet up’ or words to that effect. Others show an alarming passion for life, travel and the gym. Unfortunately, a lot of them also write to say, ‘Hi, I liked your profile, check out mine, hope to hear from you’; given the alarming bulk (which has thankfully tailed off) of messages I’ve received, that’s not sufficient information to warrant any effort in following up.
That’s not to discount those who I have met. I’ve just forwarded a friend a number of profiles of those I’ve been in touch with. One thing that has perhaps amused me is the direction conversations take; many along the lines of programming and work, as many seem to work in IT. With another I discuss a writing course I was interested in taking; with another, Turkish music and custom guitars. He, specifically, came as a large surprise, recommending an album I’ve never heard of elsewhere, ‘Astrakan Café’ by Anouar Brahem Trio, which I bought several years ago, the chances of which being….. ? Also, a lot of the subscribers seem to have moved to London approximately the same time I returned here.
It seems to form a strange sense of community. I don’t check out enough profiles arbitrarily, only of those who message me and a few more besides, so I can’t be more informed about all of the different sectors who sign up. The ones who contact me fall into: fairly wordless, cheesily romantic, fairly cheesy one-line comments on my profile, those who say more about themselves and are clearly more interested in people beyond a quick flirt, and those interested in friendship only.
The one-liners don’t really go beyond more than a few messages (occasionally making it to two-liners) so I don’t have anything to say about them. Oh well, maybe I do. There are those who I’ve described above, who are looking for Serious Relationships, but who say so little about themselves I have no idea what their success rates are. Usually they’ve said extremely little about themselves, though I’ve been hearing from an older European man who asked me out on the second two-liner and who recent wrote to say, ‘um, was he being a bit pushy? Would still like to meet up’ etc. When asked, they struggle to say more about themselves, and are generally never heard from again.
One man’s profile described at length all the different women he’d met through the website and gone out with. Either he, or the website, therefore, are not necessarily designed for long-term relationships. Anna, the colleague who recommended the website, decided not to post her photo (so will be spared the mass inundation I’ve been receiving), but is decidedly looking for a relationship, so those messages might be of more relevance to her, but probably not by much. Instead of cheesy chatup lines in a bar, they’re simply being done over the internet; at a safe distance, where they’ll be spared rejection or indeed reactions.
Back to a point I mentioned earlier, I’ve been intrigued by the number of programmers I’ve come across. Newly being promoted to a programmer myself, I’m pleased at the common background, but also somewhat alarmed at the high proportion of them. More accurately, out of those I reply to, most are programmers, which indicates that many of these have come to programming late, via other careers and interest, else have explored sufficient during their career to maintain interesting conversations and lifestyles. A colleague explained this by the fact that they spend most of the day in front of a computer, and therefore have wider access to (and knowledge of) the internet than others, hence their subscriptions, also their chronic image as people who do not get out as much and mix as easily. I would say that is likely to have more to do with their colleagues and the desire to meet others from a different background than with failings in their own social skills.
Contrary to that, perhaps, the website is explained as an alternative to the futility and humiliation of chatting up people in bars, where you’re not necessarily going to have any idea of what you’re going to find, but interaction is at least more honest than hitting on someone at a bar. Also, if you often socialise with colleagues, you are likely to be all too aware of people’s backgrounds and experiences in advance, and also sufficiently wary of mixing further with any of them; conveniently, the website provides a portal to meet others outside your normal spheres.
I’m currently in touch with somewhere between 5 – 10 people off the website (not including those I contact erratically). Although it’s done wonders for my social life, it’s also killed all my free time through emailing, and encouraged me to slack off at work when needed. One is specifically interested in friendship alone; as a welcome surprise, the website is not exclusively limited to those seeking relationships, but has also been a useful tool in building new friendships. And I would say that those I am in touch with seem to be working on friendship first before anything else may or may not develop. Although I’ve already met two, and liked each one a lot, I’m hoping to meet up with the rest (as much as is possible) next week, and put facial expressions, gestures and accents to the words which arrive in my Inbox from time to time. I’m pleased that I’ve met an interesting set of people to offset my former friends and buddies, something I never expected from this website, also people who are either not looking beyond friendship, or looking to it for now with no specific expectations beyond that.
Still, I can’t help but think that this is too one-sided, and that I should try some of the cheesier men specifically for research purposes. Despite that sounding too much like suffering…
Posted by chantal at 04:00 PM | TrackBack
April 16, 2003
Petty Annoyances
Autumn, 1998. Hurricane Mitch hit Central America. I had just left Guatemala a few days before; a friend of mine was staying in La Ceiba, Honduras, the coastal town where the hurricane hit. For the next few months, I worked for one of the relief organisations; one day, some of my colleagues were discussing the overwhelming response from the public. ‘It’s because it’s not Africa,’ one of them said. ‘They’re bored with Africa; they’re responding because it’s somewhere new.’
Four and a half years later. I’m gripped in work-related despair, and note the grievances of those around me. Trains delayed or overcrowded, hangovers, put-downs from colleagues, dissatisfaction with their bodies, being irritated by colleagues and depressed by the turn their careers are taking, problems with their families, missing documents, unwanted phone calls. Perhaps people are more willing to complain about external annoyances, joys and happy experiences being too personal to share with all. Yet Londoners are notable for their high stress levels and intolerance levels, where a red light, a slow walker, a delay of a few seconds are unacceptable and unforgivable. Yes, Londoners are cynical, but I suppose I’m not just talking about them; Londoners are simply the race I know best of the ones I’m considering. Then again, I can recall newspaper articles and the American passion for litigation, to the point where strangers are almost afraid of assisting others in case they find themselves sued. A small mistake, a lack of courtesy being sufficient for a frivolous court case and inflicting unnecessary stress and hardship on others.
I spent Saturday lunchtime hanging out with a Lebanese woman married to a Turkish Cypriot, a Cuban woman, a Jamaican woman and an English woman. While discussing the media coverage of the current war, the Lebanese woman commented that local youths have suddenly become experts on the geography of Iraq; thanks to the pre-war propaganda, we’re aware of the dire human rights situation of Iraq.
What people are less aware of are the Ethiopians who were protesting outside the Royal Institute of International Affairs a few days before war broke out, trying to raise awareness of their own human rights and humanitarian crisis, nor of the ongoing war in Liberia which never so much as makes the newspapers despite the fresh waves of violence. People from such countries often only impact on us in the form of refugees, a pet target as the media are able to manipulate them into freeloading, dangerous, unworthy recipients of Taxpayers’ Money and stealing jobs which in reality nobody else might want. These people’s backgrounds are ignored; we have been taught to feel little or no sympathy for them despite what they may have been through or what might have driven them to seek refugee status in this country. Interestingly, at least in context, an innundation of Iraqi refugees is expected, and I wonder if they will receive the same reception as those who have preceeded them.
Here in the West, we have our public services, our choice of careers, our comparative social and political freedom, our opportunities to our passions, and the tools to build a secure cocoon around ourselves, blocking out unpleasant realities from other cultures which might filter into the world we have created for ourselves and produce an imbalance. America as a whole is a prime example: an immigrant nation, proudly clutching at the nationality of their ancestors, but openly hostile and mistrustful of modern-day immigrants. Even with their diverse cultural mix, they appear to be racist, xenophobic and bigoted, denying themselves the rich cultural influences they could draw on and instead embrace. But it’s all too easy, returning to my previous idea, to invest our energy and money in ways to indulge ourselves, perhaps taking the sting out of the day, perhaps as a necessary tonic to maintain a sense of wellbeing. But in that way we can allow ourselves to be extremely restrictive in what we allow ourselves to take in or involve ourselves in, whether through lack of awareness or interest, protectiveness around our free time, abhorrence or resistance, I don’t know. Perhaps it’s not the generic definition of a good time; perhaps it’s simply not something someone’s going to mention at work when discussing their evenings or weekends with colleagues.
The problem is, there really is a big, bad world out there, and a very big one at that. The Lebanese and Cuban women talked about being shocked at the pettiness of the attitudes they came across; I like to return to Central America frequently, not only for personal reasons, but also to remind myself of a different perspective and of what really matters in life. In the meantime, I translate for a human rights organisation, and read the Guatemalan newspapers daily, although they appear to have been somewhat muzzled and I’m aware that the only way to find out the stories of what’s really happening is through reluctant hearsay. A Japanese tourist gets killed during a mugging; a group of missionaries are kidnapped in the north; a bus driver of tourists is lynched in a mountain village for taking photographs of the children. A friend hitched a lift in the east and found himself and his friend at gunpoint in the middle of a field. The wider picture is of government corruption and impotence, of social uncertainty and instability, where you’re more likely to be mugged or attacked by the police than aided by them. Where if you stick out physically, you’ll probably be robbed or kidnapped; if your reputation sticks out, you might receive death threats. And yet that’s a picture of a country at peace, post-conflict. Stories of countries in civil war are more painful to absorb, but at least awaken us to the injustice that reigns outside our protected society, and which only slightly fades once peace is restored. Peace doesn’t mean that the problems and human rights abuses fade, if anything it means that the international attention is switched off, and we become blasé, imagining a situation parallel to our own, and switch off ourselves, quickly forgetting the passion we had for the plight of that country.
If we ever did. I guess the point I’m getting at – I want to get to bed and curl up with a book – is that these Western nations live the lives of the privileged few, where the petty annoyances and political injustices are insignificant compared to those elsewhere in the world; we would be horrified and outraged at what other societies take for granted as the cost of every day life. Although I learned years ago that personal suffering does not necessarily outweigh another’s, what shocks me is the lack of perspective, the lack of awareness or interest in stepping outside the box into the larger, perhaps more disturbing world outside, yet inherently more real. Maybe it’s cosier in the cocoon, but what can be ultimately gained from indefinitely blocking the world outside?
Posted by chantal at 03:46 PM | TrackBack
October 30, 2002
Wallflowers
Despite having been insecure and low on self-confidence when I was younger, I can’t actually understand or tolerate either in others. In teenagers and children, it’s often endearing or ‘sweet’, however in adults it’s unnecessary, irritating and tiresome. Perhaps some of these adults are relaxed enough around their friends to display their true feelings and insecurities, however the world around them is not generous or forgiving enough to reward this openness. Nor will there be many opportunities open to them if they present themselves in such a manner; no matter how important first impressions are, one should never discount second, third, or indeed every impression you make.
There is a psychotherapeutic expression, ‘Act As If…’ Act as if things are not the way they actually are. Hard advice to accept if you feel your world is falling apart, but if you truly feel like a frightened, threatened little child without a road map inside, then the only thing you can do is pretend that you are completely in charge and need no further assistance. For one, you are a prime candidate for mugging or assault, for another you might be trying people’s patience unnecessarily. Those you interact with will retain the image of the hypernervous little child you might have been, leaving no traces of the adult you are.
I’ve been a magnet for the insecure for as far back as I can remember. Particularly short, balding, aging, murmuring men who I call munchkins. How many of you have heard of Charlie? When I was on the acoustic music circuit, as musician and dancer, I attracted endless men who would mumble and look at me in awe. Oversociable and perhaps, at the time, underdiscriminating, I was rather too free with my business cards. My long-suffering flatmate screened my calls for me. For several months I would return home to see a note that Charlie had called. I had no idea who he was. Ellie and I would talk, and mostly laugh about this; she’d get fed up and tell him I didn’t know who he was, please stop calling, but he persisted. ‘Who’s Charlie?!’ became a catchphrase for us. I actually spoke to him once, for maybe twenty minutes; at the end, Ellie looked at me questioningly and I shrugged back. Still no clue. The calls finally died down, and then died altogether. I was walking through Chinatown with a friend at Chinese New Year a few months later, when someone tugged my arm and wouldn’t let go. I’d never seen him before in my life. It was Charlie. Thankfully he only called for several weeks that time before giving up.
I don’t think people are forgiving enough by nature to accommodate another’s insecurities or disorganisation on a regular basis. One of the things I notice Londoners complaining about the most is how busy their friends are – or how much they value what spare time they have, only allowing for narrow windows for each friend. Myself, I used to complain about the mentality of going home straight from work and spending the evening watching TV, rarely going out during the week. I’ve not actually thought about that in a long time, but I realise that I appreciate my home enough to be extremely protective towards it: only two people outside of immediate family know my landline number, and I’m increasingly grateful for the division that’s been created between my home life and social life. (In case that sounds weird, that’s what you get for living in New Cross. If you haven’t had the misfortune to hear of it, all I can say is this: more people get killed in Peckham.) Quality time is something of high importance to me, and I hardly imagine I’m unique in that respect: I don’t want to waste what little time I have listening to someone’s excuses, self-recrimination or indeed silence if they have gone missing in action. It’s also extremely disrespectful and discourteous, as it indicates a lack of regard, respect or awareness of your friend’s feelings or plans. I can tolerate friends who want to moan about the turn their life has taken, but my heart sinks at the thought of a session devoted to fluffing up someone’s non-existent ego or having to bite my tongue every few seconds. Not my idea of quality time and, ultimately, not the type of person I want to be wasting my time and energy on.
Strength can have its drawbacks, however, if accompanied by the same lack of regard, respect or awareness of others, and I’ve dropped more than one friend for this reason. I know that the world is a terribly overcrowded place, and belief in ‘survival of the fittest’ remains firm, but I think it needs modification. Even the fittest can find themselves isolated and ostracised without understanding why. Perhaps they were bullied at school and have sought to remake themselves, not realising that all they have done is exchange one source of exclusion for another. They will undoubtedly also attract the meek, who will only stay long enough to see through this person and hastily move on, grateful that at least their own integrity is intact.
One thing I am conscientious about is the impression I make on others. I haven’t stopped glowing since I left Dublin (sorry Aidan!), and I’ve been struck by how pleasant all the people I’ve encountered have been. By contrast, my last day in Dublin was memorable for the two heated arguments with complete strangers. Perhaps somewhere there is a cosmic database of all the thoughts anyone has ever had of you – a modern-day Santa’s list, or a more real prospect if you’ve worked on helpdesk. The opinions of those you know matter more, but that doesn’t devalue people thinking what a tart you are when you’re dressed up to go out, or how rude you are when you barge through them unseeingly or snarl abuse at them randomly. By the same token, I don’t want to be the person either who encourages a wealthy pacifist to mug. Perhaps you find the attitude of those around you unbearable and aggressive – to use my mother as an independent example, fights would spontaneously break out wherever she went, and bus drivers constantly swore at her or slagged her off – but how much of that is due to what you are feeling and what attitude you project? Perhaps people bully you because they sense that they can; perhaps they are openly hostile because they are picking up on the aggression rolling off you in waves. Or perhaps they smile and chat, because both of you can appreciate it. I remember how downtrodden I felt when I came back to London after a month in Central America at the start of the year, and how every encounter I had only reinforced that. Not only are you what you eat, but you’re also what you create.
More relevantly: the opinions of your friends. I don’t really know what my friends think of me, although I can probably make some educated guesses. I’m also observant enough to pick up on signs from them, even if I don’t always know the reason why. Robert Burns once wrote something along the lines of ‘Give us the power to see ourselves as others see us’; I’ve often fantasised about mini computer monitors in people’s foreheads which show us what each person is actually thinking. It would clear up so many unnecessary misunderstandings. If you don’t know, then, perhaps this is a more relevant question: how do you want others to see you? And do you know the answer to that? Are your friends still fuming over some things you said in all innocence, or criticising you for past behaviour – are there things that have bothered you too which you have not brought up with them? You don’t know when friends will decide that they have had enough and start to evade you, nor will you learn – or want to learn – the reasons why. So it’s more important to work on building a quality relationship without wasting valuable time taking their patience for granted and repeatedly abusing it.
In the IBM training course, we were asked to consider four personality types of customers. I can only remember two: aggressive and timid. My group decided that they would prefer the timid variety, without considering what extreme hard work these people can be. They need coaxing, reassurance and more coaxing simply to obtain something that doesn’t resemble a straight answer at all; most helpdesk staff are too jaded and fed up to manage more than monotones and autopilots, not allowing for the extra work that is needed to be put into someone of this type. If someone says something like how silly or stupid or ignorant they are, then you can almost guarantee the person on the other end of the phone will be agreeing with them. If you make that kind of statement, you won’t be receiving reassurance, only further confirmation. You’re the expert on yourself, and you’re also the one who determines how others see you. If you choose to mess them around or outstay your welcome, then you have to ask yourself what your motives are for this and what impression you are trying to create. And more importantly, how you would feel if others treated you in the same way.
I don’t have a summary, only a very strong urge to get back to my video. ‘Moulin Rouge’, about bloody time, yes I know.
Posted by chantal at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)
Lose-Lose
When I think of London, I see my living room by night: Chinese curtains drawn, yellow lamps lighting my potted palms and punching bag from below, Chinese lampshades shadowed. A strong sense of contentment and peace. When I think of Dublin, I see the kitchen, again by night: the drinks and glasses cabinets lit individually, the skylights darkened. If I turn around and return to the living room, I’ll see the peach walls, black leather sofa suite; maybe Olivier will be playing a computer game, Yannick will be reading, or both will be working on guitar songs. Before I left, I teased them that they’d know Dave Matthews Band’s ‘Crash into Me’ perfectly on my return; I thought then that it would simply be a matter of days.
It’s a harder decision that I could have anticipated, giving up my life, however brief, in Dublin. Truly, the main thing to draw me back there is the lovely house in Drumcondra, and my housemates there; also I miss some of my colleagues at IBM. I miss their energy, and the chance to get to know them better. Even without the more annoying ones, things don’t seem quite right somehow. Dublin at least promises the potential of a new life, however less satisfactory, but perhaps one where I have to work harder to gain the things I want. The day before I left, I finally found and bought the A4-sized map of Dublin and the surrounding countryside; finally I can pinpoint my potential dance classes and plan getting to each. The music scene? I don’t know. I’ve been given the phone number of someone who might be able to help, but I’m not optimistic. I’ve played my harp only either on request or out of protracted boredom. I’ve been invited to play at three traditional sessions, and have found flimsy excuses not to go to any.
The music scene in London is far broader, but my feelings towards it are more complicated. I enjoy the atmosphere of the folk circuit, but even after a month or so it is feeling limiting, and I do not know for how much longer I’ll be able to manage spending three hours at a time commuting for the sake of a very short set. However, the diversity I crave is in as short supply, thus denying me the opportunities I am really after. Those who know me know of my passion for Arabic, particularly Raï music, which I have still been unable to find, after three and a half years in this city.
I know that greater opportunities are to be found on the acoustic circuit, however it was on the acoustic circuit that I burnt out, and am still apprehensive of returning. I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t miss the musicians I used to hang out with, and that my life is far healthier and more stable without them.
When starting out musicially, I was attracted to the challenge of playing unlikely music on unlikelier instruments, never realising the challenges and limitations that might cause. I should have known, however, as the same reasoning was applied, if subconsciously, to my work as an archaeologist; one of the main reasons I quit was because I had found myself in too narrow a niche field. On the music scene, however, I am a novelty, and it seems that I will only remain one: a harp is as unusual an instrument in Dublin as it is in London, but people seem more interested in listening to Celtic music played on it, hearing it played solo than trying to work on ways of incorporating it into their own music.
I know that I will be able to pursue my dance training here in London; as soon as I have the money, I will be able to do four contemporary and two Egyptian dance classes weekly, all at the same school. It’s too late now for me to enrol on the performance workshop, which gives me a few pangs, but I don’t regret having my evenings free instead and not written off by exhaustion. My last week in London was the first week of term at my dance school, and it pained me not to be able to go to even one class before leaving. Had I had more, or indeed any money on my return to London, I would have done two or three classes by now, but am forcing myself to be practical and responsible instead.
In ‘London’, I asked for how long you can repeat the same activities and still maintain a sense of integrity and development, and I am very aware of how little respect I have for those at the dance school who have been taking dance classes for three or more years. I’m not used to staying anywhere very long, and feel a certain amount of – shame? resignation? – in returning to the dance classes I have been taking, more off than on, for the last few years.
Certainly, I had hoped that in moving, I would be able to find new dance teachers who would be able to expand my training beyond the level that it had reached here. Instead, what I found was a teacher who made me consider commuting back to London on a weekly basis so that I could remain with the teacher I trusted and respected.
When I left London, I thought that I had said all my goodbyes, to friends and to the last years of my life. After all, isn’t that what I’ve been doing all year? – severing all links so that I could move spontaneously and suddenly. And permanently. And yet, since even before my return, my head has been filled with plans of all I will do, never taking London for granted again, and looking after my poor neglected home, both long overdue. I’ve met up with two friends who were at my leaving party – having to cancel two others who were also there – and met with four others who I haven’t seen for too long. I didn’t know how the friends I said goodbye to on my last night would respond to my hasty return, and maybe now I won’t have to worry. One of my reasons for leaving Guatemala was missing being with friends who actually knew me, who I’d known for months and years rather than day and weeks. And I have done so many spring cleanings of friends that I know that the ones who are left are ones I value and don’t want to leave just yet.
One thing that worried me about being in Dublin was how antisocial I became. I am used to people commenting whenever I am quiet or unbubbly, and yet in Dublin nobody knew how unnatural it was for me to seek out solitude and avoid mixing. Towards the end, I did make more of an effort, but also knew that within a few days, we would be separating into different teams, and I would lose the contact I had with those I liked the most. Going out at night put me off of going out at night: each night, I was determined to avoid the people I had met, or rather the men who had hit on me on previous nights.
Perhaps readers in Dublin will dismiss this, having seen me only as I was for those two and a half weeks. What they don’t see is my reputation for being oversociable to a fault, being able to meet a large number of people in a very short space of time. Two and a half weeks should have been sufficient for me to meet most of the smokers; instead, I only met one. I did enjoy the diverse mix of people in our training group, something which would be nearly impossible to replicate elsewhere, and which I have craved for a very long time.
I quoted today something I had read in a book: ‘When trying to make a difficult decision, make a very thorough list of all the pros and cons. Then tear it up and follow your heart.’
What strikes me the most is the irrepressible good mood I have been in since returning. I describe Dublin, by contrast, as a condensed stream of bad luck and experiences. On my last day, I found out that I was to be suspended from work, was overcharged by a tiresome taxi driver, and the woman at the Aer Lingus check-in desk picked a protracted and nasty argument with me. Most of the time, I was depressed, frustrated, angry and bored; the three happiest moments I remember were the two times I returned to London, and finding our lovely house. After less than a week, I realised that I did not like the person Dublin was turning me into, and resolved to moan less, to maintain or force a more positive attitude. I tried to be positive on my return to Dublin after my first trip back to London; it crumbled in the face of not returning to the room I had booked and paid for several days before, and the mystery and improbability of someone actually managing to steal my twenty-five metres of bubble wrap.
I don’t know if the choice I’m making is the right one or not. I’ve avoided thinking about it, but thoughts keep popping through, and I have to keep deleting ‘London’ each time I type ‘Dublin’ or indeed any word that starts with an L. It’s still very hard for me to pick up the phone to call Yannick and Olivier to tell them I won’t come back. And yet they don’t answer, and yet the only work I have managed to find here so far does not start until the day I am due back at work in Dublin. This is clearly a decision I have to make by myself, instead of hoping, as I am doing, that events will lead me one way or the other. I’m sad at the thought of not returning to Windele Road, of not seeing the local population of magpies, of the view of and from our street, and the utter silence on waking, but I also know this: each evening, I’ve looked around the living room and thought, ‘My god, it’s so wonderful to be back home.’
I guess I’m staying.
Posted by chantal at 03:41 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2002
On Writing
Copied from a napkin:
From Why IT? To Why Not IT?
I can’t hide the fact that I’ve worked in almost every industry there is; I think that’s what you get when your only career criteria is: Not Archaeology. After three years of this, I tried to analyse my strengths, in the hope that this would help me determine my true career. I decided that what I’m best at is languages, dealing with people, and writing. In helpdesk, which is what I’m currently doing, this means that I can soothe angry customers, understand their problems, and not massacre the English language when writing up the details afterwards. And send very expressive emails when I get the chance.
In fact, it was my family’s idea for me to move into IT: learn a programming language, earn lots of money, and work anywhere in the world. What I actually want to do is to be able to go anywhere in the world, talk to people and observe, and write about what I’ve learned. There’s a story in everything; I want to tell it. I’ve been writing since the day I could pick up a pencil and use it, and haven’t stopped yet. Truth be told, I don’t want to be fixing people’s technical problems or designing databases – at least, not once I’ve gotten all the stories I need out of it.
I wrote that last week to support my application for a writing job in Twickenham. Actually it’s a very good summary of all I planned to write in this piece. Certainly I’m more used to defending my decision to work in IT when I’m a qualified archaeologist; I was a bit stumped initially at having to describe why I was looking for a writing job after working in IT.
I’ve always written. I wrote a play about dinosaurs when I was about four or five, and forced the rest of my family to participate. Before I hit double figures I was writing a series of two-page pieces on the people in my life. At high school, I was working on a serial piece with my friend: each evening we would take turns in furthering the lives of our two characters. I think its overall name was ‘The Deteriorating Talent of Mog and Chi’, our nicknames, but actually, thanks to Cornelia’s contributions, it ended up being called ‘Times out of Bed.’ Since A-levels I’ve been hard-pressed to write fiction (the result of too many history and then archaeology essays), although I had a spurt at the end of last year when I was extremely bored at work and trying to churn out one fiction piece a day, if only to brush up my skills and redefine my style.
I had just been going through the soul-searching mentioned above. Temping really is deadening and soul-destroying. It may surprise you about the industries you thought you would never want to work in; also it can give you an extremely strong aversion to the industry you are most passionate about. My main problem was, I had been doing secretarial, admin and PA work for so long, I was very certain I hated it, but very unfocussed as to what else I might actually want to be doing. My father at the time was trying to help me, trying to define my potential career for life. When you’ve never had a job last longer than five months, that’s a scary concept. I think it was around that time that I bought Michael Crichton’s ‘Timeline’. I haven’t reread it in a long time (actually I think I had bought it a year before then, but it fits the storyline nicely), so don’t know if I would actually recommend it. What struck me about the book was its bibliography: four and a half pages of minimum-size font. If you look inside one of his book covers, you will see that he has covered a wide range of topics. What this guy does, it seems, is pick a topic, research it to death, write a bestseller, earn s**tloads of money then pick another topic. That guy’s my role model. Plus I can write better than he can.
I seem to be destined to jump from one industry to another – one of the customers in my last job emailed me her career summary, and asked me for mine. I wrote her a heavily edited version, but it was still almost two days before I heard from her again. Before helpdesk, I was working in Social Services. Before that, running a dance information service. Before that, Red Cross then a housing association. You get the picture. Plus I’m varyingly active on the music and dance scenes, and too friendly and talkative for my own good. Do you see a theme here? Continue these uncontrollable career swings, but actually make an effort to get some material out of each. How great it would be to be able to indulge each of my hobbies or interests, knowing I can write a bestseller on each and not worry about having too schizophrenic a CV.
So it was around that time, end of last year, that I started writing again. Even in lulls, I’ve been a prolific letter-writer, then emailer and text messager. By contrast, I hate phones and avoid them at every chance. I spent a month travelling all over Central America over Christmas and New Year’s, hoping that I would be able to speak to enough people in enough depth to obtain enough material. I’ve written two travel articles, and partly blame my lack of writing on my lack of travelling. I spent hours talking to a Nicaraguan ex-soldier, but felt that his story alone would be too biased. Only one of those stories have made it onto my website and weblog, ‘Choices’, although I’m considering posting another, ‘Fantasia.’ I guess partly I’m worried about trying fiction again in case I turn out to be another Charles de Lint wannabe.
I know that I have enough experiences and stories in my head which I could write about alone: backpacking through Mexico and Central America when I was 15, my mother managing a rock bank after our return. Working as a belly dancer, being London’s only jazz/flamenco/reggae harper. Dancing for bands on the acoustic circuit. Being fired for not being accepted into the office clique, or for swearing at the switchboard. Working on the set of a Discovery documentary. The people I’ve met. And yet I shrink away from writing anything vaguely autobiographical, resent the pieces I’ve posted so far for being too personal.
I’m aware that the pieces I’ve posted may read like pre-prepared emails, but I’m hoping that that will even out with practice. Part of the purpose of my weblog was to narrate my observations and experiences in Dublin, and certainly I’ve referred friends to my website rather than actually reply to their emails. In one of my long talks with my brother before I moved here, I told him about how my ideal job would be as a writer of some sorts, probably as a columnist, and he suggested weblogging. I’m hoping it will give me the practice and experience I need, perhaps even exposure, whilst also allowing me to write about all the things bumping about in my head crying out for expression. Although there’s little I love more than a good conversation, and I definitely don’t have nearly enough of them at present, I prefer communicating by writing as it helps structure my thoughts, research ideas and express myself more clearly. For a year or more I did counselling by email, which allowed me to do exactly that: I had my little library by the computer, and would spend an hour or more on each email, ensuring I’d studied their email thoroughly and analysed the situation to the best of my ability.
My brother emailed me today to say he’s worried that if I leave IBM and Dublin, which at present I have every intention of doing, I will cease to write. I don’t think so. When I first arrived in Dublin, I would sit cross-legged on my hotel bed, typing out each new piece. Okay, so it’s harder to do that here, in the new house: it’s antisocial, whether I write in my bedroom or in the living room. I need silence, so tonight Olivier is wearing headsets while he plays a computer game; on Saturday, when I spent five and a half hours writing, it was to a backdrop of Coldplay so I’m not sure how coherent those pieces actually turned out to be.
If I return to London, at least I don’t need to suffer passively anymore there. I’m far more active there, which means participating in a lot more activities and meeting a far wider range of people than I ever will here. I’d hate to give up writing now that I’ve started again. I might be too busy, or too tired, or just too engrossed in something crap on TV, but still I should hope that I can allocate my two-hour sessions to produce something worth reading, worth writing. Hell, at least I’d stop whingeing about IBM and Dublin….
Posted by chantal at 03:15 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2002
Markers
Physically scarred people have a different understanding of permanence, how momentary events will leave a permanent mark on them, no matter how brief the accident or incident. At least emotional scars can be hidden, over time; in time, people can learn how to disguise and distance themselves. Physical scars fade slowly, so that long after they have faded from memory, they are still visible to those transfixed by them and their story.
Some people tattoo themselves to illustrate the mark of time; others choose to tattoo themselves to hide how life has marked them. Tattoos can represent photos for others: permanent visual ownership of periods in their life that will always retain a significance and a story over the years. It also represents a proof of resilience, the ability to return to the tattooist’s needle time and again, and suffering the pain until the ink has settled within the body. Admittedly, I’ve never actually seen any tattoos covering scars; I wonder if the skin is of unsuitable quality, too tough, but actually I see too few tattoos anyway. I imagine that a large image would have to be selected, ostentatious enough in itself, as the location would not necessarily be a logical place to have a tattoo. Also, due to the different texture of the skin, the ink would not take as well, producing irregularities within a small space. The permanency of the tattoo would then become by association an extension of the original scar, which would fade and vanish far sooner than the picture on top will. Each time the owner would look at the picture he would be reminded of the original incident, a reminder he would be stuck with for far longer, but which would be far more easily explicable and insignificant to others.
I don’t think people really appreciate how situations and events affect them. No matter how comfortable you become with a situation, the fact may be that you have had to teach yourself how to adjust, and a period of deadjustment needs to follow. Even in negative situations, where you are surviving on a day-to-day basis, mere freedom is not enough: a lengthy period of reeducation and readjustment are still needed before you can truly feel you have left those experiences behind. Leaving before you are ready is not enough, does not jumpstart the process or buy you extra time; nostalgia is an unfortunate human habit, and the desire to leave an unfamiliar situation for a familiar, however unsuitable one, is all too natural an instinct.
How many people bitterly hate their jobs, yet cannot bring themselves to relinquish the stability and security it offers them? Is it an indication of insecurity, that for as long as they go to work every day they have the company of those who understand and listen to their suffering, whereas if they were to leave, they would be faced with the uncertainty of unemployment and the realisation that their job actually had positive aspects they now cannot replace or regain? Or does their job, even their dislike of it, identify them to such an extent that they do not have the confidence to seek a new situation where they have to start over completely, forge a new identity within the workplace where others may not have as much time for them? Certainty the instability of the job market plays a large role, I know, and the scarcity of jobs per potential employee does not help, but the security of a guaranteed income, and the demands of a full-time job can be deterrents to consciously seeking an alternative. You can always assure yourself that your current situation is not so bad, that there aren’t necessarily better and more suitable opportunities elswhere really.
I have read in several places that every cell in the body replaces itself over a seven year period. That means that the body we own bears little relation to the one we knew seven and a half, even eight years ago. If genetic markers were not so strong, would that mean we would look in the mirror to find a different hair or eye colour, that we might grow in height or shrink? Yet if our bodies remain externally the same, how frequent are the psychological overhauls, besides the obvious answer – when we make them happen? We can read self help and personal growth books and pay no attention to them besides their presence in our bookshelves; we can focus while reading them, appreciating their lessons and striving to achieve the goals set in each.
But what of the people who do not have such resources? Who experience ongoing turning points in their lives, yet are unaware or unable to take advantage of them as, perhaps, their situation is not one that can be easily altered in any way. Their life and the world around them is screaming at them to wake up and change; perhaps they look another way, perhaps they reply wearily, ‘Can’t now. Might have time next week.’ And then forget, absorbed in a new set of indicators that things need to change.
A few months on, not being in that situation any longer does not necessarily bring them any happiness. Yet all others can see is how fortunate they are, how grateful they should be, and why aren’t they? Physical turmoil is so much easier to be aware of than emotional, yet both have deterrent effects. Scars of either type need to not define a person in others’ eyes; physical scars should be accepted and fundamentally ignored, while emotional scars need to be acknowledged and accepted. The woman whose parents divorced unexpectedly needs to know she can talk about her feelings about this, no matter how long after the fact, without fearing she will lose friends due to their aversion, or that she is simply boring those she chooses to confide in. Because friends’ lives have moved on, they cannot always accept that some aspects of others’ lives move on, too, but at a much slower pace.
After all, do you complain that soap operas have no awareness of their own history, how they studiously avoid referring to past events? A good friendship is the opposite, where there is the continuity and remembrance of each other’s past. Knowing hidden parts of friends’ lives does not change who the person is that you are friends with; if anything, you have been granted a deeper understanding of them. And what does it say about the people you have chosen as your friends when they would prefer to avoid you on the grounds of simply having listened to you talk about what it is you have yourself suffered and lived through.
My point: transition is not an instantaneous action, a snap decision is not always that.
The person who decides to drive home after too many drinks and finds an accident coming his way will know that his life will never be the same again, maybe to such an extent that people treat him differently due to his appearance, forcing him to acknowledge his previous judgement of similarly damaged people. Or if the accident is narrowly avoided, will he continue to drink and drive or be more conscientious, having realised in that split second all he stood to lose? People can build their lives too heavily around regrets, too obsessed with what went wrong or what did not happen, to realise that they are missing out on what life could offer them, or indeed the lessons of the events holding them back, because their perspective of current opportunities is filtered by their resentment of previous ones. They cannot turn back time in order to change each to their preference, nor can they disacknowledge their entire past as every identity needs a background.
Perhaps a brief event – finding yourself in a threatening situation which you manage to escape – does not have as serious repercussions; the moment at which you escape may be one of exhiliration, a taste of strength, freedom and all that you are capable of. And that moment of truth at that point is not something you are likely to forget easily, regardless of the lesson. It taught you about choices, caution and self-worth, among other things; by the time the shock wears off, perhaps the resolve and exhiliration have as well. Again, it may have been an important opportunity for you to review your life and the changes that needed to be made, however our natural reaction to trauma is to bury all emotions and memories attached to it.
If you see someone with fading scars, it’s likely you won’t find out the story behind them. Perhaps the person is someone eager to relive past trauma, or perhaps they do not see how events of the past bear relation to who they are today, except in how it has changed and redefined them. Someone who can acknowledge their past difficulties and leave it at that may or may not be specifically that, however there is no social etiquette or rules for these situations. Being able to see beyond the person’s scars or stories is more important than fixating on them until that is all that you can see. What you’re seeing is the ghost of the person in front of you, perhaps swallowing your vision until you can no longer hear what they’re saying.
Posted by chantal at 03:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 20, 2002
Helpdesk
‘Good morning, Chantal speaking, can I have your staff number or call reference number please? Hi, how can I help you?’ And so it continues. I have several pat responses for every stage of the conversation: if they apologise for not having a call reference number, or cannot remember it, if they have a standard problem, if they cannot explain their problem to me. If they ask me where I am from, where we are based – I’m not exactly allowed to say I’m not a PwC employee, if they apologise for their complete technical ignorance. Elements of weariness and sarcasm escape unbidden, but the customers seem not to mind. A number of the jokes I crack go unappreciated; no matter how simple and untechnical my I render my vocabulary, I still manage to baffle most of the customers. Ask yourself this: do you know the difference between a forward slash and a back slash?
Even when I ask people if what they are looking at is the one next to the Z or under the question mark, I find out they are looking for both on the screen and have no idea at all what I am talking about. Another customer asked me why a particular problem had occurred. It soon emerged that no matter however untechnical or simplistic an explanation I gave her, she was physically incapable of understanding it. I’m not sure I quite understand how people who are employed to use computers to carry out their job description can be so paranoid about all aspects of their computers’working or all matters technical.
Providing technical support to a company you have never visited, to customers you never have nor never will meet is a strange enough concept in itself. Perhaps so is the idea of phoning a number to humbly ask for help from a complete stranger. It isn’t really in human nature. Many of the customers, probably assuming we are internal staff and therefore aware of their reputation and status, are disappointed when we treat them with no more respect than we would their lowly secretary. Given that it is the company’s partners who determine our fix deadlines, it is often amusing to hear them rail against our inability to fix hardware problems on the spot over the phone, or page someone to run down the corridor to their desk before they have completed their next sentence. Frequently, and especially when a call turns out to be lengthy – dialup problems invariably take half an hour to fix – we chat and exchange personal details and stories, never to hear from each other again. Should they call and reach me again, my head will be too full of other customers’ stories to remember their own. For us, it’s a strange parody of friendship and social contact, perhaps a bit more participatory than a soap opera, but still as illusory and ephemeral.
Some systems seem to have been designed specifically to increase our workload and reduce productivity. Still, nobody has seen fit to alter procedures accordingly. For example, explain an encryption system which requires you to enter a password on switching on your computer; should you forget your password, or should it not be accepted, you face being unable to use your computer for up to two days until it is reset by the local IT. Or other teams working independently of everyone, leaving us to apologise to angry customers for their negligence of their service level agreements. ‘Nobody from the Lotus Notes team has called me, I was told they’d phone me within two hours!’ Yes, well, they don’t. Won’t. Save your breath, save it for when two days have gone by and they still haven’t fixed your problem. Given most of our calls were about Lotus Notes, that means much of our time was spent apologising for, or blaming the Lotus Notes team. No, maybe half; the other half was devoted to clearing up messes caused by our colleagues in another office who did not really know enough to sit in front of a computer and telephone and consider themselves qualified to fix people’s technical problems. During a telephone interview for another helpdesk job, I was asked what frustrated me about this line of work; without hesitation, I complained about teams who are unable to carry out their work and colleagues who are too incompetent to do their jobs, thus increasing our workload unnecessarily.
Helpdesk: the combination of technical knowledge and highly developed bluffing skills.
Who chooses this line of work? I consider myself atypical; maybe others do as well. My last company hired people with a fundamental level of technical knowledge; this current one does not appear to have any real selection criteria, linguistically or technically. It seems fairly unanimous, however, that careers in technology offer the best opportunities and growth potential, no matter how lowly you start. They do not seem to consider what a limited field technical support is, however; certainly, you can move into training, problem management, incident management, networking or cabling, but how many of my helpdesk colleagues want to continue working in such fields? Working at IBM should be able to open future doors for me, however if my future employees were to realise the low technical level of even its technical staff, I think I would be back to unemployed. Being able to diagnose a hardware problem or know your way around the control panel does not indicate high quality management or programming skills, and being on the phones eight hours a day does not give anyone the opportunity to work on programming or management projects to build up their experience and portfolio.
If anything, judging by two sets of colleagues, helpdesk is simply something you do to earn an income while looking for another job. Perhaps this is not an entirely justified observation; when I joined my last team, we knew we were likely to be out of our jobs within a few months, and even the permanent staff with job security – our team leader, and the problem management team - were unanimously job hunting every chance they had. My current team has just completed its second week of training, and a suprising number of us are already looking for other work. Fortunately we are sufficiently bored during the day that one of the few things we can do to keep ourselves occupied is scour every job page known to us. Once on the floor, however, it is a different story; almost everyone I have spoken to has been working on the helpdesk for at least two years; too long for any helpdesk analyst. What does this tell us? That we are about to enter a role without promotion or career development opportunities. We can look forward to earning each of our ‘Love The Customer’ flags and ‘Love the Customer Awards’; however, too long on phones surely makes staff too jaded and weary to force the necessary positiveness and enthusiasm into their voices. One moment at my last job that I found hilarious was listening to one of the analysts mumble in a monotone, ‘Good morning Manolito speaking can I have your staff number oh sorry it’s afternoon, good afternoon Manolito speaking….’ without the slightest change of expression or inflection. He had been on the desk for over two years. Within six weeks I was talking like that as well, reacting with surprise when the customer turned out to be friendly or cooperative.
Several of the other trainees are extremely nervous about taking their First Call – perhaps as much due to linguistic difficulties as to the nature of the work – certainly, I postponed my first call for as long as I could, then was in the middle of laughing about something when the phone rang. The most important skill, I think, is to be able to say in a very cool and confident voice, ‘Bear with me for a minute while I put you on hold’, knowing you can squeal, panic or rack your brains in the lull. Sometimes I would go to someone to ask them for advice, only to chat about completely irrelevant topics until I managed to change the conversation to the problem at hand. At other times you might put someone on hold while you howl with frustration, or mutter under your breath. I don’t see why they should be so nervous, however; as newly trained staff – and I am starting to think the training period is an initiation in itself, more than anything else – we are not expected to know anything, and asking countless questions is simply a matter of form. Having reassuring excuses to put customers on hold will be as important as any amount of technical knowledge.
The other important thing I think to bear in mind is that the reason these people are calling you is because, ultimately, you know more about computers than they do. On this helpdesk, I am not entirely sure that is necessarily the case, but at least you have the power to assign their call to someone else who is expected to be able to resolve it within their allocated deadline.
Some problems are simply generic; you become so familiar with them within the first few calls that you forget how to resolve other problems during an epidemic. One of our phenomena was the ISP generating irrelevant error messages which simply meant ‘this line is busy’ or ‘this number is not working, please try another.’ All we needed to know was that they were using the Freephone number, and we could have the problem solved within a minute or less. A lot of technical support, however, simply seems to be a matter of common sense. Even if you do not know what the problem is, or how to fix it, knowing which settings to check is a logical first step. Perhaps a lot of what we do, at least initially or with an unusual problem, is basic guesswork; we are simply better informed than those who are not hired specifically for their intimate knowledge of menus and the control panel. Although both companies have online databases with solutions to most known problems – at Cap Gemini we rarely wasted our time using it, at IBM apparently it is worshipped – the entries are usually too lengthy to read, the solutions too complicated to dictate over the phone or time-consuming to implement when there is probably a shorter solution somewhere in our memories.
One of the things that worries me about working for IBM is its overtly strong company culture. Perhaps I was too spoilt in my last job, where there were few rules but enough allowance for our common sense to be able to work professionally and efficiently through our own initiative. The main rule was our opening speech; too much of what we say and do at IBM has already been predetermined, with no scope for deviation from the company line. I am reminded of the stereotypical telesales managers who ardently believe that if each employee recites the same speech, they will guarantee a sale; if they fail to, it is obviously because they digressed or ad libbed in some way, whether deliberately or subconsciously. Our trainer has already recited the list of rules, which exclude virtually any form of distraction or brainpower although we have also been told unofficially that these are not very rigorously enforced. I can’t imagine many people capable of deriving their life satisfaction from awaiting each new technical problem to solve, although that appears to be what awaits us. At least at Cap Gemini we could take pride in our technical ability, however what the situation appears to be now is that there is a very firm line between who has technical knowledge and who does not, and we are on the wrong side of that line. I’m not interested in an entry-level job, no matter how illustrious the company; what I want is to get back to what I do well, before my brain disintegrates in the face of Powerpoint-equivalent presentations.
I had meant for this to be an anecdotal, narrative piece. Here’s an anecdote, then. I used to sit next to Mano, who was acknowledged as being the most technical person on our desk. I listened in on his calls when I first started, and had never quite lost the habit of looking at his screen for something to read. One morning I looked over to read ‘Customer has funny little balls coming out of his new laptop.’ Apparently they were also kind of squishy and kind of bouncy, but he didn’t add that to the call details. We had a good laugh about it after the call finished: quite literally, there had indeed been funny little balls falling out of the laptop. About an hour later I had to ask our incident manager for advice on a problem, and overheard our team leader saying something like, ‘well, it does say ‘funny little balls’ in the call details, um…’ as he tried to negotiate over the phone with an equally baffled and annoyed member of the hardware team. When I returned to my desk, our team leader was discussing the matter with Mano. Apparently, at a loss, he had assigned it to the local IT, who had taken one look at the call details and decided that funny little balls couldn’t possibly be a software problem, must be hardware. The hardware team paid a visit to the customer and, similarly, had decided that they weren’t hardware, must be software. No idea what to do next. The funny little balls were simply remnants of packaging material that hadn’t yet been removed.
Mano received a Quality Issue for his description of those balls.
Posted by chantal at 03:20 PM | Comments (1)