hard day at the office? ·
10 April 06

Well kind of, although not really. I can’t really be buggered to decide what it was. I woke up at the break of dawn. I lie, I didn’t sleep, not because I was nervous or excited by the fact that I may be going to work. No, I just couldn’t bloody sleep, whether it was the medication or simply anxiety, I couldn’t tell since one of the side effects is bloody anxiety. Or not forgetting insomina, which I suffer from without the bloody medication any way! So I got up, got ready and called for my friend at 8.30am. I wasn’t sure how to dress.

To be perfectly honest I put on so much weight since the previous medication that only three out fifteen of my jeans actually fit. Even my jackets are going around my waist now which does wonders for my confidence having had my weight go up and down as a kid, then growing up as someone who was the right weight with a great metabolism. Things have changed though since I’ve been medicated and it has affected my metabolism and my eating patterns no end. Still this is by the by and deviating from what I was talking about. Which was work. I think.

Like Harry Potter waving his wand around, I magically appeared in front of my friend’s place in a puff of magic with glitter and stars, and thunderous orchestral soundtrack announcing I was there. He bolted from the door, crouched on one knee and asked me for a merciful plea of forgiveness. I smocked him with a rubber hose and told him to wake up, and that I wasn’t the bank manager here to claim the money back so I could feed my overgrown kids sandwiches with rocket, wild lettuce and premium mayo.

He kept bringing up our ten years of friendship, well it’s been about twelve years now, and how I know him well enough that we would work well together

It would be funny if that happened, but all I really did was turn up, ring the bell and stand outside his gate watching this rather large thing head towards me sporting a white striped shirt. We greeted each other, and headed off down the road towards the bus stop, with him recapping on what the heck had been going on, how business was good, then he left, it went down the pan and he left a well paid job to pick it up. He recapped this again as we headed home with more, but I’ll perhaps get to that later. Or I may not, it really depends on whether the little green imps stop jumping up and down and demanding that I feed them smoked penguins on a line of cocaine.

Thing was it was a really weird day for me. It wasn’t really work, and it was. Most of the day I spent working on one website and learning how the hell to use Dreamweaver. I used Dreamweaver once I remember, back when it was version 4 or something, and I hated it on contact. It just seemed so fiddly. I’m used to using notepad for both the code and the css, so learning to use Dreamweaver was a pain staking experience. I felt so restricted in what I could do, and yet what I ended up with as a final result absolute shit. Now, the guys want me to brush up and learn on how to code in Dreamweaver, code well, do nice fancy graphics and everything within a month or something like that.

As soon as they said, “we want you on board” I ended up shutting down and turning off. Thing was I thought this a trial thing, like I’d come in now and again, they seem to think it a more fixed situation, where I work for them. Now don’t get me wrong, I definitely think there’s potential and these guys are going to go places, they’ve already secured Government contracts which are fantastic as they’re usually hard to come by, and they’re working on database systems and more. I just don’t know if I’m cut out for it.

To top it all off, I burnt my tongue this morning, over twelve hours ago, and it’s still singed

My friend said, he spent working sixty hours a week helping build someone else’s business when he could have done the same for himself and his business, but it’s not my business, and it won’t be our business it will be theirs. Even if I do become a part of the team, they’re expecting wild things from me, they have such high hopes of what I’m capable of and how quickly I’ll pick things up, but I know sod all about design, and they should know this by now. Yet here I am, being given kudos long before I’ve even done anything. It’s frightening to think what they’d say if I did come up with the goods.

So, there’s a real opportunity for me, I guess in becoming something, part of something bigger and more exciting than a mundane nine to five job. On the other hand I’m used to working nine to five, getting my pay packet at the end of the month and going home none the wiser. Am I getting old in wanting things simple? These guys are about my age, just barely a bit older, yet they have the zest and somehow the will to be living off what a frankly pretty low wages, but working at times they want. THe times they work tend to be in the twelve hour range, however, and that’s something I can do but I’m not sure in my current state I have the capacity to do.

Yet again, though, they think I’m some sort of super human robot. They think I can walk for miles and miles without rest, live of small amounts of food for weeks, turn water in to wine, and 1001 other magical tricks I picked up from the back of a matchbox. I can’t, I’ve tried to explain it, but it seems to go in one ear and out of the other.

To top it all off, I burnt my tongue this morning, over twelve hours ago, and it’s still singed. I think I’ve quit smoking though as it tasted rank so that’s at least one vice I’ve given up on, and can safely say I won’t return to in a hurry. I remember seeing those adverts for nicotine patches and you see the smoker outside pelted with rain and gale force winds trying to like a smoke, but isn’t able to whereas mr smart fucking pants sticks his patch on or chews his gum. What was I talking about anyway?

The journey home was revolting to say the least. I sat in the back like a tamed dog not allowed to speak to its owner. I was worried I would ruin the upholstery just sitting in my friend’s uncle’s BMW, or that the sweat on my hands would ruin the rubbery plastic coating on the side panels. When his uncle asked me what I’d been doing for the past few months, I was stumped for words. I mean I could have said, I’ve been hearing voices, thus negating the need for a mobile phone. Or I’ve been talking to people, networking as it were.

not forgetting insomina, which I suffer from without the bloody medication

Fortunately my friend stepped in knowing now about my illness (that came as a shock to him) and said I was now working for them. See there it happened again, always the blood asumption that I’ve accepted my fate as some sort of slave to everyone’s trade. He kept bringing up our ten years of friendship, well it’s been about twelve years now, and how I know him well enough that we would work well together. Another friend asked me to go into business with him too, though I don’t know how serious he was about that. I’m a very fucking cool, very reliable and sincere friend.

I’m almost one a kind, because I know those friends usually have another trusted friend, and I can be like part of the fucking furniture if I spend long enough in someone’s presence. But seriously, what the fuck is going on? I swear I’m going mental.

I have to finish a website by Friday and make it look good. Interesting, that means I can fuck up and say look guys I’m not right for this as I’ve been saying all along. This could work in my favour. On the other hand if I do well, and can do well, then why fake it that I can’t, because I could become part of something very nice indeed. They have a backlog of thirty websites to be done, and all of that is money in the pocket. I don’t know what the fuck to do. I’ve got to apply for jobs on the other side of the coin due to my benefits for incapacity (what you get if you’re fucked up like me and can’t work for a while).

I really hate this shit.