Recent Events: A study in Correlation

It’s funny how eerily connected events around you tend to be. I heard on the radio yesterday about an online furore where people displayed a high degree of animosity towards bicycle riders. To be clear, bicycle riders aren’t family groups going for a ride with the kids, we are entirely talking about the people wearing spandex. The folks on the radio were riders themselves and didn’t understand two key concepts:

• People on the internet can and will contribute whatever inane, and probably hate filled and bigoted thoughts they have, and fuck the consequences. I’m pretty sure it is why WWII happened and likely why (and where) WWIII will begin.
• People hate our bicycle riding friends with a passion.

To be clear, I don’t understand it either really. Or to be more clear, I don’t particularly understand the second point. I fully grasp the first point and at this phase in the ‘life’ the internet as a generic presence, it is strange that people are still looking at comments on a forum and attempting to attach logical reasoning to it. When denizen HugeB0N3r69 contributes to a discussion on global warming, I don’t feel anyone should be wondering at their motivations anymore when they inevitability call you an Asian cunt. We are safe to just accept that as a natural thing that happened in the online ecosystem. Quite beautiful really.

No photos!
Kidding. Video everything.

So onto bike riders: I’ve always worked for firms where this was a thing. People, for various, and quite often boring reasons, rode to work, then clippety clopped in their bike shoes through the building’s tiled floor to shower at work. As someone who can tell the time to a few minutes by the amount of sweat in their underwear, I just can’t fathom putting a suit on within hours of any kind of physical exertion. This wasn’t an option for me because mathematically, exercise + suit = excess ball sweat. I believe my point here is that physiologically I can’t participate but I have no issue with someone else’s junk flip flopping in their tight shorts as they pedal the highways.

Mildly inconvenienced.

As far as I can figure, the real questions at hand are from the bikers who just want drivers to be a little more considerate of their presence, and from drivers who find it difficult to articulate why they become irrational furious over mild inconveniences. They aren’t my questions by the way, I’ve just paraphrased the issues at hand, and they are so stupid that I find it mildly offensive that any input is really needed. Of course you don’t want to get run over and of course overreacting to mild inconveniences is the right behaviour.

Maybe it is simply because riders don’t seem to understand their place in the hierarchy of the road. This shouldn’t be news to you, but you are the bitch. In every scenario imaginable, no matter the cause, the consequences to the rider are the worst. This makes you the bitch. Getting hit by dense, heavy object going really fast and dying or at BEST being severely injured are not good options. You lose the ability to point to the law when you’ve lost a fucking limb. This makes you the bitch. If there is a universal right or wrong I’m pretty sure it would be indifferent to any point you are making, the onus is on you, and this makes you the bitch.

Harmless crouch
or Performance Art?

In an aside, which is totally not a poorly veiled metaphor, I was told that recently a [word-for-collective-group-of-vegans] of vegans mobbed a restaurant in Melbourne. They obviously shouted slogans, maybe threw around red paint and probably some tiddies were out as well, I don’t know why they do that last thing, fur is murder? We did what we always do and collectively ignored these type of stunts. Sure it hits the news, people click their tongues, “those wacky vegans are at it again”, but really aren’t motivated by the cause. Vegans understand this so they seek methods to increase exposure through an escalation in activities and looking to more extreme members to push the agenda. This in turn ensures an almost arms-race of extremism and right now the whole thing makes me feel stupid because it is just another form of performance art that I don’t understand.

Vegan message: Why do you want to hurt animals?
Public: We don’t. But we aren’t going to change how we do things due to our natures.
Vegan escalation: *Covers self in red paint and then begins chanting or speaking in tongues or something*
Public: Holy fuck, dude. Are you OK? Everything fine at home?
New Vegan spokesman: *screaming Youtube clip* Everyone is evil and I hope you all die! *puts on cow suit, pulls out cattle prod and shoves it up own ass*
Public: Well, we don’t like you anymore.
Internet Public: We are outraged but will continue watching.

Do you see the parallel here? I lied, it was a metaphor!

Bicycle riders message: Why do you want to kill us?
Public: We don’t. But also we aren’t going to change how we do things because at worst we may have to slow down. Slightly.
Bicycle rider spokesman: *Youtube clip of some bike rider screaming incoherently into a driver’s window*
Public: Well, we don’t like you anymore.
Internet Public: Hold my beer. *Wrists twitching with the need to respond with fiery comeuppance*

At no point is anyone coming off as reasonable in this debate and it really shouldn’t be called a debate at all. Nobody wants to kill anyone. However, due to the way of the world, that is happening and you need to stay safe. The true problem is that just like vegans, the bikers are being represented by screaming morons who fail to understand that you are not equal to trucks and complaining that you should be just triggers the internet, which as we covered earlier, is an entity now. The only way to stay safe is to shake off this unreasonable delusion of equality and assume everyone on the road is trying to kill you. But in a passive, ambivalent way. Ride accordingly, bitch.

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I Ruin then Ultimately Save Christmas

Well, I agreed to mind a friend’s cat for a few days. To avoid the wife experiencing unnecessary worry, I just had it arrive as a surprise. Because I care about her wellbeing. The integration with our own cats is currently going exactly how I expected; clusterfuck of magnificent proportions. I decided to wait until later to acknowledge ‘a few days’ is a liberal and probably condensed understanding of the ‘visit’ period.

The scenario has allowed me to reach a few logical conclusions though. Namely: male cat just wants to sniff and make friends. Girl cats both want to hiss and cause problems. With a sample size of three, logically, all female cats are bitches. I’d like to up the sample size a few more before I can safely jump to all females (generally) being bitches. But yet here we are. Awkward silence.

Also I have needed to point out that reportedly Steve Jobs only slept like 12 minutes in total a night and he got shit done. Which of course does nothing to placate angry wife’s mean sleep-deprived antagonism. Although maybe Steve just owned a few cats that didn’t get along, did you ever think about that? No. Only thinking about yourself and your dream of three hours a night sleep.

As I said though, here we are. It’s funny isn’t it, the old saying of a happy wife leading to a happy life. I always thought the saying was missing something important, you know, like what happens when you don’t have a happy wife.

I know now.

In any case, I am sandwiched in the middle of a home life of moods which alternative between passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive and a work life dealing with a new outsource team which, coincidently, can also be described as a clusterfuck of magnificent proportions. Strangely enough the background melody of furious cat hissing is present in both locations.

It being Christmas, I needed to pick myself up and ignore the sarcastic little voice in my head

whispering, “Most of this is your fault”. So I am currently doing what a normal person would be in my circumstance, using Gizoogle to translate all internal office emails into street slang before sending. Or as Gizoogle puts it:

It bein Chrizzle, I needed ta pick mah dirty ass up n' ignore tha sarcastic lil voice up in mah head whispering, "Most of dis is yo' fault". Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. So I be currently bustin what tha fuck a aiiight thug would be up in mah circumstance, rockin Gizoogle ta translate all internal crib emails tha fuck into street slang before sending.

Someone stopped and asked me why I was crying at my desk and I told them a ‘normal person’ is known as an ‘aiight thug’ in street talk. That poetry moved me. Although as they started walking away I clarified that I wasn’t getting any sex at home either. For reasons outside my own control. Then I told them it was “mysterious” while waving my arms around mysteriously.

My current policy on emails may need some revisions as I just called one of the senior partners a “biatch”. I am pretty sure I am going to get in trouble for sending that one, or in street:

I be pretty shizzle I be goin ta git up in shiznit fo' bustin  dat one.

No need to worry, I placated the situation by putting my Outlook out-of-office on a few days early. Then putting an Outlook rule so I don’t see any emails coming in – they are a problem to deal with next year. But as equally as I am someone who hates conflict and confrontation, I am also someone who thrives on contradiction and seemingly, confusion. So my out-of-office message was also translated into street:

Nuff props fo' yo' email.

I personally wish you n' yo' crew all tha dopest fo' tha festizzle season. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy, Dog. May tha egg-nogg be tha noggiest.

I'ma be returnin on 8 January n' is ghon be round dat time, dependin on tha hangover thang.

Try mah mobile beeper first if you urgently need mah crazy ass fo' anythang but will also be checkin emails.

Walk wit Jizzy

Merry Xmas!

Pictured: Die Hard, A Christmas Story

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To Be A Fly On The Wall

To live is to be at war and so every morning, the first step to a productive and rewarding day is to do battle with yourself. On the drive to work, begin the propaganda: today, no memes, you sit down at your desk early and get shit done and later, alcohol! But it is also a good idea to remind yourself that even the best general suffers a defeat and the first half hour spent looking for a good reaction pic is what the warmongers refer to as a tactical retreat.

Learn sick fidget spinner trick for the next half hour.

Well, seven hours to go.

Better check again. Yep, still seven hours. Fuck.

Briefly debate whether to have Zooper Dooper now, instead of at the regular hour. Instead, print reaction meme of Frozen princesses and their viewpoint on penis size and stick up in another team’s work area.

Finally, people arriving into work. While not overjoyed that there are now people filling the empty office, still overjoyed that the empty and pointless platitudes thrown at each other are using up valuable time spent not-drinking. “Yes, it is early, how astute”, “Oh god yes, morning coffee, amirite!”.

Listen intently as catholic Indian lady from bookkeeping begins story with, “Husband kept me up late, now I have a sore back” but then doesn’t relate a sexual mishap, so lose interest, but then says it was because she was cooking curry, so interest back, but hasn’t brought any curry or the rumballs she promised, so devastated. Fucking rollercoaster of a conversation.

Look suitably appalled when people notice a Disney picture hanging in the audit team area. Begin a debate on whether it is more appropriate for Anna to be the shocked one rather than Elsa, because you know, Elsa always seemed more cock hungry. Reiterate again how disgusted you are and how this is inappropriate in the office. Suggest HR be alerted.

Look for and find the work intranet and yes, there are HR templates. Begin to complete a harassment complaint about the picture but notice we have a job opening for a Graduate Accountant so start an application for that instead. Two things at once! Feel mentally drained.

Lean back and tell person in next desk how overworked we are. He agrees and then spend 15 minutes complaining about the management not providing us with the staff we need, which of course is a reminder so tell him you need to get back to “it”. “It” or course being the graduate application for the vacant position in his team.

Finish job application and celebrate hard work with a Zooper Dooper. Be absolutely amazed they have a ‘Jaffa’ flavour and further amazed that the flavour is on target and pretty good. Setup up reminder in Calendar to write them something nice, too busy right now.

Like a steam-roller now, more work-cyborg than man, open client file and begin reviewing work prepared by outsourced team. Lose interest in continuing work in this profession and shortly after, life, because it seems to be submitted by accident, as if someone vomited onto a spreadsheet, the bile and half-digested food metaphysically manifesting into an excel file and then, probably through achieving sentience, sending an email saying it is ready for review.

Be pissy and ask catholic Indian colleague to ring up her cousins or whatever relatives they must be in Outsource team and call them useless fucks. Call her racist when she refers to “white-man” problems and remind her about missing rumballs and the almost palpable taste of betrayal.

Find solace in iced coffee and chocolate éclair from over the road. While eating, remind colleague what a rough day it is.

Create pact with former personal assistant (who was shifted to corporate team, because reasons) to follow a meme and replace all instances where you want to say “fuck you” with “OK, great!”.

Be asked by the GM to write up a general feedback/review of outsource team. Tell GM that this is likely going to take a few hours because there needs to be an angry version and a sanitised version. GM doesn’t have half an hour to debate the point so leaves you to be you. Draft feedback confirming the current procedure has left us as emotionless husks; empty vessels circled by shrieking ghosts and hyperbole.

Have spirited discussion with other manager on feedback provided about Outsource team. Find out other teams do things differently, or to be phrased more appropriately, they are wrong.

Due to being swamped with just, everything, have late lunch of zucchini slice made gluggy with gluten free flour. Find out from google whether gluten free anything is a war crime.

Research how to have something declared a war crime.

Home time. Celebrate hectic day of intensive whatever it was by drinking and dying on the inside, just a little bit more.

I stared too long.

It burns.

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Under My Wing

Holy fuck, I have been asked to provide guidance on some software changes to our offshore team who we affectionately refer to as the “Inglorious Indian Basterds”. Well I call them that anyway. For some reason our wise management was happy for me to liaise with the ‘Basterds directly, which showed a great deal of faith in me, or in another more accurate way, it showed an uncommon lapse of judgement on their part.

Dear Team India

Thank you for your feedback, we take your comments very seriously and in me you can be rest assured that the firm has provided their best resource to guide you. Well in truth I can’t claim to be the best, but on a good day, at least in the top 20. In any case I will be your guide and champion, like some offended mother goose spreading her wing protectively over a new clutch. If anyone or anything bothers you I will hiss and chase those pricks off the network, honk’n and spitt’n, my solemn word to you: I will fuck them up.

So yes, we recently put through some global migrations to the ledgers and because this is the real world and because our software vendor is like a black hole of stupid, some fixes are required. Before you throw up your hands and call everyone a bunch of thieving cunts for making your work life so much more difficult, for effectively stealing your time, I should warn you: that doesn’t solve anything. I know that because I did the same thing. As your guardian-goose, I am free to offer minor and offhand criticisms during this and all future commentary and right now I feel you are lacking in one important life lesson:

Assume you are about to be fucked over. Assume that in the next minute, hour or week, something will happen which will cause you to throw up your hands and wonder why this and why now. Here’s the crux, God is not real. Your elephant God with the titties isn’t real. This is life and life is cruel. It punishes us for having the gall not just to exist, but to live. You get out of bed and look forward to a bright day? Don’t just expect to be challenged for your own hubris. Demand it, because you are a fucking warrior.

So again, we thank you for the screenshot of the ‘error’ message you provided along with a garbled email that I assume you typed out while having a stroke. Going back to my point above, I recognise the half hour I spent deciphering the message not as karma, but as existence itself challenging me. Well played by young gosling. Well played.

Pictured: IT Department Head

To answer your main question, the error message wasn’t an error at all, it was just a slight change to the wording. As an Australian we have a healthy fear of the unknown, of dark, unknown places where we are expected to place our hands (even if metaphorically). This is because these dark places are full of shit that can kill us (even if metaphorically). I remind you that you are a warrior so click that shit with the confidence of someone born to conquer. If you get bitten, well just ensure you have a good excuse to give to the IT department or at the very least a scapegoat because the IT department has no time for existential excuses about bets between you and the universe. They aren’t normal like us.

There are a few main problems to fix and of course there will be individual challenges in each ledger as well, but I know you have taken my advice from above to heart. You won’t lament when you find these, you will accept them as your due for walking, talking and mastering the fucking electron. Then, knowing you, my young goose-padawan, you will email me a long-winded email which meanders through conflicting statements and questions without reason. But I accept that, because that is my due.

I could explain how to address these main problems, I could even create a “procedure” and document it in the “intranet”. In fact, I should do both of these things because that is what I was asked to do. But what would you learn then? Instead I’m going to offer you exactly the same thing I was provided when I faced these same challenges, jack fucking shit. You pick yourself up and either be the professional you are being paid to be or alternatively find a way to move numbers around and talk fast enough so that it looks like you are, really in this world the only difference between the two is how you sleep at night.

Also let me know if someone is giving you grief here, I will literally stoop down, point out my neck, hiss and bite them right in the groin while flapping my arms around. It’ll be fun.

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A call to Parent

The perfect storm of karma hit me today when my wife’s work Xmas function coincided with the girl’s Xmas dance recital. As a parent who supports his family through various positive affirmations and encouragements I was honoured to be the caregiver chosen to represent us. I cheerfully packed my outing-with-children supply bag which was pretty much the laptop, a six-pack of Daniels cans and a scarf (in case I got cold). Long ago I learned to do this when the wife wasn’t around, so it was done immediately after she left for her drunken night of debauchery. I was set and as a bonus I could document the night AND catch up on new memes. I hope they had good internet.

Initial findings

They do not have good internet.

First 2 dances

I’m not an expert, but these six year old’s on stage are pretty bad or maybe it’s just some expressionist stuff I can’t understand or maybe the first few dances were bottom rung. My wife was all about the girl’s tutu this week, it had to be laid out perfectly on the bed to find form or some shit and we had to shut the door to the room because the cats love eating the tutu for some reason. Anyway, these girls must have had parents who don’t understand that the tutus need to be shaped as they were poking out in weird directions. One little girl had the thing flung up and she could barely see over it. Also, the guy beside me keeps sighing which is making it harder to type. He sighed even louder when I offer him a can of Jack and then whispered something to his wife (I assume she was being a bitch about the whole thing).

I'm not sure Google got this

one right.

Roughly half an hour in

The girl had her first dance number, ballet, and she wasn’t terrible. Don’t get me wrong, she was terrible, but compared to the others she was Sergei fuckin Borishnikov. I think I understand now, when you send your kid for five or six hours of lessons each week there is a separation of result

between them and the kids who turn up for a half hour lesson. I started smugly looking around at everyone else in the theatre, my little munchkin was marginally better than theirs. Then I remembered that these classes cost money. Now I’m just sad.

A little bit after the last entry

The guy besides me has hairy legs. I know, because he shifted in his seat and now his leg is touching my leg. Feels weird and he wasn’t moving it either. Was this a play? I’m bad at defining social cues but whether he is making a move on me or whether he has no fucking comprehension of personal boundaries, this wasn’t appropriate. If I was normal I would I have told him to stop, instead I am just scared.

39 minutes in

I fucking love tap dancing. Tappety tap tap, and then they do this shuffle thing and it goes faster tip-tappety and they were almost in unison this time as well. I’m glad someone else’s parents dealt with all that practice though. That would end me at home.

42 minutes in

The seniors jazz troop started with a voice-over saying the piece did have choreography but most of it will be free form by the dancers. I vocalised my displeasure by groaning which helpfully made the guy beside me shift his leg away for the first time in five minutes. Two thoughts on the dance; firstly they did pretty good. I expected shitty improv but got instead OK improv that was well coordinated with the music. Secondly, I couldn’t help noticing the sheer level of makeup each was wearing. If it was meant to make them all look alike, well, working as intended I suppose.

1 hour in

I’ve finished three cans and I think I need to begin rationing the rest. Who knows how long this thing will go for. Also, the bear beside me keeps shifting his leg away and then slowly it begins falling back against mine. Each time, I freeze and just sit there, wide-eyed and staring at the stage where, admittedly, something is happening but pretending this hairy contact thing wasn’t happening to me. Sexual harassment is obviously a useful tool for making people focus on something I suppose.

But can he rock this shirt?

27 minutes later

Well the last three acts were terrible, not adorably terrible, that had been most of it so far, but more a “they are enjoying themselves so fuck it” level of terrible. Of course I added this sentence for a little drama. I really hadn’t been paying attention to the dancing as I was trying to get circulation back into my legs. The boy had told me a while ago that birds were pecking his feet which my wife translated

as the pins-and-needles feeling. He was right, it did feel like birds pecking my feet. Poetic little muppet.

Intermission

Everyone mingled around outside. I noticed there was a lot of hugging, people using real names with confidence, like they weren’t just guessing, and probably because of all the harassment that had been going on I really didn’t want to get involved in that. So, I found something important on my phone and went off by myself. Admission: I was just staring at the home screen and moving the windows around without making eye-contact with anyone.

The next bit

I don’t think it unfair of me to admit that I was running out of patience with this whole thing. More to do with the fact I was finishing my last can of Jack. In good news though the air-conditioning was getting cold so I put on my scarf – always be prepared. My bitterness was probably more to do with the fact the theatre had haemorrhaged half the people during intermission as the husbands who had seen their kid dance were released back into the wild. The guy beside me had gone as well and I was miffed, after what I had gone through a goodbye was probably in order.

Two hours in? Something close

Honesty first, Tree-cat.

Time really has lost meaning. The girls second dance, a razzle dazzle jazz affair, came and went. Being a parent makes my independence questionable, but I can confirm without bias that they 

weren’t terrible. There was a huge talent/practice gap between some of the dancers and like everything in life it sadly turned out to be money. Money was that difference. However, looking down at her happy, smiling little cherubic face I could honestly say I would give that all up in an instant for the dance tuition fees back.

17 Hours In

I had my phone balancing on my lap and then suddenly it was on the floor, somehow I had lost minutes, maybe (hopefully) even hours. I initially thought it was a glitch in the matrix and began looking around for escape points but then I yawned and figured it was more likely I had briefly fallen asleep. Also, there were tappers back on the stage, which was probably why I woke up, so I am focussing again. Tip tappety, *jazz hands*, tap tap. Fucking marvellous.

Four billion years in

The girls last dance just finished, which means second last dance of the night according to an uncanny voiceover in my mind that sounds suspiciously like my wife. Either I am hallucinating or she has learned ESP. As I am sure that we are mere seconds from the heat death of the earth, because we had been sitting here for 4 billion years, both options are plausible. In any case I got to see a horde of little midgets capering around on the stage, hip-hopping with attitude. Again, more or less the timing was spot on, everything about the routine suggested ‘practice’ and each one of them was trying their ass off. Trying and achieving. Who the hell had taught her to try?

Within purgatory

You remember when your Mum had a conversation with another Mum and you were totally bored but it sounded like it was winding up? Then they started up a new conversation and it just wrecked you? Well that’s how I felt when they began presenting awards once the whole dancing thing finished. Inwardly I groaned and in my mind I heard my Mum say the same thing she always did, “be patient”. Then I remembered my parents had come as well and I must have groaned out loud and she had given that response from a couple of rows down. Also, when I got bored earlier and begun throwing bits of paper at the bald spot on the head of the guy in front of me it all made sense his retort of ‘grow up, you are 40 years old’. Thanks Dad, but you are going bald.

As of now, it is an hour or so after the event, and the wife just messaged me from her Xmas party, she is ready to be picked up. So now I need to drive her home, which normally resolves into a wrestling match in the car as I try and stay on the road and fend off her drunken physical attacks on my man-parts. I’ve been molested enough for one night, woman.

No, Woman, I wont relax.

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