Notes from Saturdays

My colleague stinks.  That’s it. End of the story. Nothing I can do about it. I feel the stink slowly spreading itself and forming a sticky film over all surfaces, the desks, chairs, my clothes, the inside of my nostrils. I pack up and migrate to level 7 hot desks where people have long conversations about shit I don’t understand and smell of nothing. My colleague continues to stink and conquer the space one unwashed day at a time. 

Incoming email: Hi A, Thanks for the responses. I’ve given the matter a bit of thought and can’t reach a definite conclusion based on the information. I think it’s worthwhile having a quick workshop to clarify a few questions I’ve added in red. Can you all please confirm your availability this afternoon at X:30.  X:30 pm (Joining the Teams meeting of 8): -Hello. X+1:15 pm (Unmuting, muting, unmuting): -No, that was on Level 10 but yes, fairly s... (interrupted by Bob from Christchurch) X+2:30 pm -Thanks everyone. Bye. (Sigh, removes headset like a torture device)

I spent about a day creating this fabulous series of spreadsheets that talked to each other. I automated all the design so when Brian changed the input daily, my design & output would flow like a beautiful stream through the smooth paths meticulously engineered in Excel. Every one of the 4895 cells was revised, refined, tuned. I even got some help from some smart kid & automated it even more, so now 3 programs talked together flawlessly with one click. Hazza!  Brian went and renamed the main folder where one of my spreadsheets resides from Foundation to 9.0 Foundation. Fuck!

I've got a company phone & a company sim card. Every now and then, probably once a month I get a text message that reminds me about an appointment or check-up. Except the messages are for Ann-Marie, who I guess was the previous user of this sim. At first I paid these messages no attention. I pay most messages I get little attention. Everything just whizzes past my eyes. I've been getting a reminder from a dentist I don't go to for 5 years & I can't care enough to reply & say dude, move on, I have a new dentist. But gradually, the messages started to paint a picture. There was once a reminder to take a pet to the vet for their vaccine. This sounded like a message she didn't want to miss.  But more importantly, I could have a doggie! I could have finally got my life together and moved to that suburb near the beach where I bought a house with a yard and took my doggie for beach walks. I was reminded to contact a doctor for a test. Could I have melanoma? In ...

I've proven yet again that I am in no position to judge Bridget Jones. I dropped M off at the airport & sent him to the islands on his mission. I was sad, the usual amount, about not having him around for a whole week. I was also depressed about not having a single friend in this godforsaken city or country, who I can call to come over and have a sleepover or go shopping or whatever the fuck it is that besties do together. I consoled myself by thinking I'm leaving this godforsaken city in less than a year & maybe I'll find friends where I go. I can dream.  On the drive back from the airport I managed to move on from my depression and proceeded with planning a glorious weekend of self indulgence. In the remaining half of the Saturday I managed to consume a significant amount of wine and chicken, ate a quarter of a black forest cake, watched 3 trashy movies that are going to screw up our Netflix algorithm forever -oops- and have woken up with a deep and sticky headach...

  Every year April delivers the familiar bitter-sweet-stale flavors. Summer is well & truly over. I've grown another year older. The air is highly volatile and pregnant with emotional pollens that fill you with excitement and devastation simultaneously; the two significant events responsible: the annual performance review and promotion rounds & the annual engineering society conference that looks too much like a school reunion. The combination increases the potency. I've been to almost all of these conferences in the past 10 years, authoring or contributing to papers and I am yet to fashion a way to not give a shit about the reviews of my performance, specially since people's opinions directly impact my salary and the illusion of professional worth. Here's the annual drill: for the performance thingie, over a period of 2 weeks we are randomly and discretely summoned to a small meeting room for a little chat. There, the manager of the time expresses their utmost ...

I am many things but consistent is not one of them. I have the most sincere intentions, I make plans, lots of them & frequently -because I like change- but I don't follow through. at least not in useful stuff. In a sense I am consistent in not sticking with anything. One of my other great qualities is the tendency to get bored with things that don't seem perfect, which is everything. The early-onset boredom may be the cause of inconsistent behavior.  It's been 10 LONG years since I left my home & family, plucked all my roots, lost many fragile branches and came to this faraway land. 10 years is way too long to discover and understand this land. But I had to do time to get the golden pass to the rest of the world. Now that I have it, I can't wait to get away, to see what else is out there, what else can annoy me, shock me & maybe even splendidly surprise me. I'm running out of everything that sane people get through life with. After all, you can't do ...