A-hoy-hoy.

I'm not dead....man do I have a hell of a lot of stories to tell; and sure, sure I'll get to telling you about them soon. I am planning on doing an update to the site, an update that Ive been planning since i actually bought the domain thewallz.co.uk. So, when I get some time to revisit internet tech I'm sorting that.

Reflections From The Other Side

The lift doors judder close behind me, making sounds that if I wasn't used to from having ridden in this lift hundreds of times would be somewhat alarming; It only occasionally breaks down trapping people for hours so it'll probably be cool. I gently tap the button for my floor with my finger before raising my gaze from the floor.
The man stares at me from behind his glasses. He looks, well not so much old, more worn; when Bilbo describes the rings effect on his longevity he describes it as like butter scraped over too much bread. That would seem apt. He seems stretched out.

He blinks his blue eyes as he in turn studies my face, his right eye looks a bit watery and unfocused, it squints a bit. The area round them looks dry, red and sore. The area round my eyes feels itchy just looking at them and I suppress an urge to itch. It's not just his sunken sallow eyes that look like that though, its his whole face. It's red and dry and cracked and has a haunted look to it. It springs to mind a guy who I used to work with; we called him the Sea Captain because it was an accurate description, if you saw him you'd know. He was always a jolly chap, a pipe in his mouth and a salty cackle of a laugh on his lips; but towards the end when things started piling up on him and the stress grew it manifested in a very physical sense, adding years on to him in the span of months. Things, didn't end we'll for him.

I glance around and hum The Little Spanish Flea and try to avoid further eye contact; but slowly inevitably my gaze is drawn back to him. He quirks an apologetic half smile at me, a few grey hairs have taken up residence in his beard along with a few strays around his ears. His smile fades and he returns to his apparently default sorrowful look.
The lift stops and the doors open, it’s a good six inches below the actual floor; a new personal best for it! Maybe one day it will actual stop at the floor level. I give the man a wan smile that he returns.
“34” We say together, before I step out of the lift both knowing it's not just an age thing.

You know nothing, new dad.

I get it, your a dad.

You've managed to spawn a living creature. I'm sure it's wonderful and magical.

I'm sure your looking forward to parting all your wisdom onto your new born.

However.

I'm older than you and as such have been round the block a few more times, I've sure as hell been doing this job a lot longer than you so don't come over here giving me your smug cocky half smile and head tilt telling me to try something I already know and did,

Stop trying to act like the big cheese with me because.

I.

AM.

THE BIG CHEESE!

Everything you say to me, brings me one step closer; I'm about to Break

There has been one question that has been going through my mind of recent; How long?

I caught up with Breaking Bad (late to the party I know!) recently with my wife. There’s a scene in it after Walters gone missing from his family for a while to do various illegal activities. He tells them that he had a break down and ran away for a bit, when pressed and asked why he ran he replies with a long list of plausible reasons why he would have a break down and run, including:

“..I am an extremely overqualified high school chemistry teacher. I make $43,700 per year. I have watched all of my colleagues and friends surpass me in every way imaginable…”

As I sat there watching, I was mesmerised. Maybe it was just Brian Cranston once again nailing the dialogue in a superbly written show, but it summed up exactly how I felt about my life at this point.

I don’t wish to sound too big headed but I am a smart guy, who is doing a job that is now incredibly easy and mundane for me, at which my take home salary is a pittance. I've seen pretty much all of my colleagues get assigned more interesting and challenging assignments and be promoted; most gratingly about this is that, in another Breaking Bad parallel, afterwards I've found out that in a lot of cases they got these things because of my ideas, and work I've done to help them out that they have “forgotten” to give correct credit for.

I've slaved for the last decade under an incompetent, egotistical, brutish, bully of a manager because nobody else is willing to work or have anything to do with him[1]. My organisation is crumbling down around me due to political machinations and incompetencies by an seemingly endless parade of seagull[2] senior directors who come in mess everything up and leave with a golden hand shake.

So leave? I tried, I applied for voluntary redundancy but was denied and without the financial security that the payout would provide it would be very difficult. So I really need another job. However this company has invested nothing in my training over the years, so on paper I have no more qualifications then I did when I started over 13 years ago making it hard to get a job compared to fresh faced out of University applicants.

So the question is. How long; how long am I going to put up with this? 
Because I can't do it any more, something is going to give. If I was smarter maybe I'd be cooking blue meth by now and sitting on fat stacks with Jessie. 

So that’s how things are with me. How are you?

Oh, I also introduced my wife to Wil Wheaton’s TableTop. She loved it and we've had great fun watching it together. My wife is aces. So I've got that going for me.

[1]Yes I have complained about him. Any complaints I've or anybody else have made about him have been brushed off as I work for a public organisation and because his anger issues are “funny” and “that’s just how he is”.

[2]See Seagull Management style: Fly in make a lot of noise and shit all over the place.