Short story long

or why not to date on the job...

Yesterday, I talked about how "getting involved with a colleague" was "bad for business and for her". Let's go back to that.

First, let me state that I do not date on the job. Not usually. It is already hard enough to get things rolling the right way without involving personal feelings in the first place, so better stay professional and keep it at that. But, sometimes, just being professional may lead to mutual attraction. This is what happened with Miss J.

Summer of 2008. The days are grey, and it is raining cats and dogs, interspersed by a few bouts of mean sunlight and 90°. The air conditioned office is nice and cosy. And we are busy putting the finishing touches to a challenging project while everyone else is away.
In other words: it was a very positive time of accomplishment, expected success and hard pressure. Dealing with the unexpected, changing requirements, miscommunication and missing resources was hard, but we were seeing the end of it. We were making it happen. We were doing something together, building something that mattered. We couldn't but see each other inputs, qualities, shortcomings, had to rely upon each other. Stress may break people. For us, it just gave us the opportunity to be more than good, to build a sense of common achievement. Sometimes, you do not need more to become real close to someone. I had already experienced this kind of situation, albeit in a wholly different context. And I fell flat on my nose. I should have known better.
A few dates later, it became quite evident that there was something growing. And, when I came to my senses, that I didn't wanted it. There were good and bad reasons for it. Ten years is a big gap. We didn't speak the same languages fluently, except for engineered ones. Lifestyle differences. Cultural differences. We were working daily together and I didn't wanted to bring work at home, or the other way around. And I just couldn't picture myself living through this situation. Dealing with the colleagues. The hierarchy. Then the fallout. The inevitable part where I was to be the bad guy.
But I didn't told her that.
I told her that our relationship was against policy.
Which was true. But not true enough.
By the next week she had a solution: temporary personnel reassignment. She was enthusiastic about it, the job was more to her liking and it had it all: good compensation, learning and career opportunities. To me, it just meant that I wouldn't have to see her much, and not at all during the cross training period. So I played along, and took some space. Grew distant. She kind of went along with that for a while. But when the dream job turned out to be far less interesting than she expected and became quite horrendous, she turned out to me for support. Which I provided her with.
Around the same time, I had a chance encounter with Miss I. She was parking her car. I was bringing back some DVDs. We shouldn't have met: I am never around this part of town at that time, but I was driving a colleague back home, so this day I left the office earlier than I usually do to avoid the traffic jams. We had always been friendly to each other. I liked her, we had common friends, a bit of an history, I didn't knew her much, but she was "safe". So we scheduled a date.
The next time I saw Miss J, I told her I was seeing someone else.

What follows is in here, somewhere ;-)

In the end, what have I got? Miss J is back to her old job and is turning into being a psycho bitch from hell whenever I am concerned, how sweet of you to remember the anniversary darling ; and I have managed to make me lose Miss I, the one and only "true" woman I know.
Tell me about killing two birds with one stone...

Miss J wanted to get close to me, got burnt twice and is back with a vengeance. Just because I couldn't tell her "Thank you, but it stops right here and right now because I do not love you, I just like working with you.", just because there was an easy way out: "There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility.". Ad now, my dear boy, I am paying the price...

I wanted to get close to Miss I for the wrong reason. Then I learned to know her, grew fond of her. But I was thinking that she was just a pretext, a convenient excuse. Then she became a problem. Because I had taken a very wrong start. When I finally realised who she is, that I loved her, it was too late for me to regain my footing, make things right. I had the reason, I had the motivation. But I had lost the tempo. So I tried to go on with what we had, but I never really gave us a chance to build something: I started too late, was hesitant when I shouldn't have been, because at the time I thought it was at best an act, at worst a lie. And I got burnt. Or, more exactly, I have managed to burn myself.

Now, for the conclusion, well, I don't know. I am not finished with Miss I, because I do not want to. I do not want to get hurt again, so, as I said yesterday, I have a few issues of my own to address and I'll see how things will turn out. Unfortunately, Miss J is not finished with me. I'll have to live with this situation a few more months. And I do not know where Miss I stands. But I can guess. And this one I'll have to live with far much longer.

A good case of "Do as I say, don't do as I do" ;-)

Magic

The long and dreaded Pickle post. It seems that I absolutely have to write something like this each year. Well, there is no escape, so let's do it.

By the end of last year I was quite decided to put a stop to the Pickle affair. I was, and still am, convinced that she is a nice person, that her qualities far outweigh her few defects and that she is as close as one can get to my ideal woman. However, things were going nowhere I wanted them to, I was frustrated and somewhat in pain. I was feeling that I have had enough, that however nice she is our relationship was essentially detrimental to me, mainly because of my own shortcomings. So the plan was to just shut her off and go where the grass is greener. I asked for advice, even got some I was not asking for, saw other people and just tried to get over. Do I really need to mention that my endeavour was met with less than resounding success?

Then there was the new year eve. I have a standing invitation with Mr. G., and her wife, the dreadful Mrs. G., has got in the obdurate mind of her that the HR Gal and me are a perfect match. Nobody wants to cross Mrs. G. She is a red haired smiling petite Manx barely five feet tall who is usually very sociable, agreeable and polished, and who can also harbour long lasting grudges that she occasionally frees in a flurry of heavily accented Gaelic and/or acerbic and unwarranted comments. The and/or part comes from the fact that it is quite difficult to say what she means when she curses, but, from the sound of it, it must be bad.
So the HR Gal and me played her game, the HR Gal because Mrs. G is her boss's wife, and me out of abject fear. It was not so bad: the HR Gal is a great flirt, and had a few titbits of sound advice. It wasn't really the kind of chat I had in mind, but she broached he subject by going back to our last talk, so I went on with it. Most of her advice may be summed up by "Why would some things be different? Nothing is fully innate. When you know that your understanding is lacking, you learn. The 'For Dummies' series is a good starting point.". I even got a few professional references from her own library . The pro had spoken. This coincided quite well with the Kindle for iPhone becoming available, so now I am reading "Intimacy for complete idiots". I figured that it should be fitting, and it actually is :-)

Since then, the Pickle and I have met twice. And I am still convinced that she actually is a lot of what I allow myself to see. Am I deceiving myself? Possibly: I am hardly objective when she is concerned, but I am not that blind to myself so self deception is very partial. Do I need to stay in a relationship that, from my own admitting, is painful? Certainly not. So three points need to be addressed.
The first part is working on my own shortcomings when I build a relationship. I have never realized how truly I have been blessed in the past when I dated long lasting friends. A lot of things went unsaid because there was never really a need to say them: we knew each other so well already. And when I dated someone new, well, we all knew, or possibly I knew and/or was intent, from the start that it was not to be an everlasting affair. No wonder I am on such good terms with my exes: either I never gave them something to hurt me, either we do not have to. Failure as its own reward, what a nice person I am. Mr G. once told me that my foremost quality is fortitude. The Archi told me it was resilience. Great in the field, however, translated into woman speak, it must mean something like stubborn and opinionated. Not that I do not like it or wish to be any different, being me is still a lot of fun, just that I probably should consider being a trifle more empathic and open ;-)
The second part is about bringing some objectivity. Why the Pickle? Why now? So let's do some magic, label magic. "Change the brand, change the good." The Pickle is dead, long live Miss I. Miss I is not an issue, she is a person. I know what I want with perfect clarity. It is true that it wasn't so when we first started to date. Long story short: I was getting involved with a colleague and didn't wanted it to go any further because it was bad for business and for her. "bad for business and for her"(sic)... This one just shows the depth of my feelings... Anyway, Miss I was never an issue. I had one. I had to make a choice, and I made it. But I never acknowledged my own conviction and I kept seeing our relationship as an alternative, not a firm decision.
The third part is about the relationship itself. Staying in it as it currently is is clearly not an option. And seeing it as it is, namely a failure, would be an improvement. The failure is not complete, but what I have is not what I want. It is not an abject failure, but a failure nonetheless. And it is a failure because I am allowing myself to see it that way. A lot of things would be easier if I had lesser expectations. So let's cut back on that.

Looking back on the last year, I see that we haven't changed a lot, even though our particular circumstances have. We have a lot of different worries now, and, all in all, more complex lives than a year ago, because we are facing different challenges. From my point of view, I am getting richer by being confronted to them as well as by observing how she is coping. I think that we may bring a lot to each other, but not necessarily what I initially envisioned.

Now, armed with my new found wisdom, I should be able to take things as they come.
Do I need her? Well, objectively, no. I do not need her like I do not need andouillette or cigars: I can live without and I know that it is bad for my heart, but it is so good ;-)

2010

New Year resolutions, two weeks late, better late then never ;-)

I had a list of all things I wanted to accomplish this year. I had topics, schedules, milestones, control actions, corrective and emergency plans, resources allocations, scope, dependencies and priorities. A sterling job. Then I realised that it as mostly contingent on circumstances, other people decisions, or, worst of all, decisions that I was not committed to. All the hallmarks of civilian management at its best. I do not want to plan my life like a corporate project: we all know how badly they usually go.
So let's get back to basics.

1. Maintain a comfortable and clean living place for daily use. It means no more living in an office, no more escape to sanity by the sea, and use ashtrays instead of empty Coke cans.
2. No more Coke.
   
3. No more smoking at the office.

These should do ;-)

Rise and shine

Flu time.

I have been down with the flu for the last eight days. Now I am a coughing mucus machine. Quite an improvement from my previous status of febrile pus Niagara ;-)

Anyway, I haven't done a single thing in a week. I was too tired to read or talk. My social interactions have been limited to the Pickle, whom I have met for lunch once, more on that in a later post, and the local convenience store cashier to get my daily three litres of water and a family pack of tissues.

As I took some Sinutab, I have been living cat days: sixteen hours of daily sleep, interspersed by bouts of confused action. My sleep pattern is utterly screwed now.

So, what have I been doing, beside sleeping? Mostly using tissues. Then I listened to some Rameau. It would have been a nice time to start on the latest Iain Banks but my concentration was shot. Speaking of Scotland, I do not have spirits at home but I do have a few gift bottles, already wrapped. I had to make myself a grog before starting on Sinutab, and opened a gift pack. It was my favourite: Ardbeg. I decided not to make a grog with it and just have a glass. My nose was so ruined that I didn't even smell it.

I also tried to play "Empire Total War". It was a gift I received a year or so ago and never installed. I do not have a dedicated gaming machine, and my computers running Windows are all somewhat out of date. I gave it a try on a two years old laptop, the setup went well and it runs adequately with some graphical options turned down, which is fine by me.
I am a long time Civ games fan and I really like the TW series. The TW designers usually do a great job to incorporate age specific challenges in a well designed game mechanic.
Rome was great, and Medieval a big disappointment, mainly because they completely screwed the crusades. Anyway, I haven't been that far in the game, but here are a few things I have learned:
- keep at least one year of trade revenue at hand: it will help you go through a blockade;
- try to keep your army expenditure below your taxation revenues;
- make friends;
- keep at least two fleets: blockade busters and blockaders;
- money is the name of the game: always build;
- once you start on building, always build to the max;
- during a war with a major nation, first interdict enemy trading ports, then its military ones. Use your ground troop to either smash its if it is weak, or use cheap ones to devastate its towns, starting with the happiness enhancing ones, force it to spread, use your rakes to bomb its happiness enhancing building. Once it can no longer afford to rebuild them, push it into bankruptcy by devastating its economical base. Of course, you should really try to make peace before that, because there is no turning back once at this point and your enmity reaches epic levels...