Say something nice

A good colleague and even better friend left last Friday.

They had an extremely emotional farewell for him at the local pub. They asked me to give a short send-off speech. I said:

'Personally, I'm glad you're gone.

Now there will be no Gold Standard to hold ourselves up to.

No impossible combination of really nice and really smart.

We can finally go back to all our old excuses:

That deadlines are too short, budgets are too small, and all clients are assholes.

We can once again tell ourselves that things are impossible.

Personally, I'm glad you're gone.

I just wish this didn't hurt so fucking much.'

It's thin ice time

I have never been fired from a job.

I remained employed throughout our last economic crisis, nearly a decade ago. I took my first copywriting job on what seemed like the eve of the recession and soonafter took a pay cut of 13%. The management promised to reinstate it. Nearly two years later, the economy improved (and the company worsened) sufficiently for me to quit. I don't know if anyone ever got their 13% back.

I'm slightly better off now, and I'm actually part of the kind of meetings I imagine my old company must've had before deciding to cut people's salaries. This morning's meeting painted a grim scenario, and laid out several survival  strategies. Money. Jobs.

This is a proving period. 

I'm going to be asked to do some grown-up things. 

I'm going to find out what I'm like in a shit storm.

I'm a little excited.

Surely this is the wrong reaction.

Today, I love you

When I ran about three hours earlier, the streets were clear of MPVs pouring school children onto the kerb. People have decided to stay in, out of respect because clearly, this day belongs to me.

Just 20 minutes ago, the view through my windshield showed the sky, painted the kind of perfectly colour-calibrated blue I’ve only seen in travel magazines. I see an airplane leaving contrail, a sharp line waiting for God’s signature. The sun, surprised to see me on the road so early this morning sends me a wink, achieved by bouncing a ray off the plane’s wing. A solar powered Elvis sparkle smile.

I shouldn’t be looking up, especially not while going at 90km/h. But there are about six cars on the road, all a respectful distance away. My Smart Tag beeps and the automatic arm of the toll booth raises, saluting. G’morning sir.

Five minutes ago, I walk into the office. I’m the only one here. The department is dark. I don’t miss a single one of them. I’m hungry now, and I walk over to my colleague’s cubicle. He seems to have appeared at my whim, almost as if his sole purpose was to offer me company at breakfast.

I’m posting this now, before the mood decays. Next week, the madness returns along with colleagues coming off their Chinese New Year break. They’ll bring with them their resentment and foul mood from having to end the always-too-short vacation. This brief lucid bubble of time punctured rudely by the office’s dominant, manic-depressive self.

But today, job, office, life, I love you.

I don't do resolutions

Of course, like everyone else,  I've done the whole New Year, New Leaf thing. And of course I want to do new things, do old things better.

But in recent years, I've had the same goal.

Each year, I want to be nicer to have around.

I had no list. I've never said it out loud. And I guess I didn't actually put it down in words till I was asked the other day. That person asked 'How many years have you succeeded?'

I don't know. That's a really good question.

That person has agreed to let me know next year.

Suddenly I have a resolution, a friend, and a tracking system.

I keep one, I keep them all.

Kewl.