Living Purgatorially

Grrrrrr! It's been a couple of weeks now and I'm still awaiting the outcome of my work based "Internet indiscretions".

I'm not a happy bunny about this. I want this sorry, laughable procedure out of the way so that I can crack on with my life as it should be. I don't expect to get the bullet for this episode and am most probably looking at, a written warning at worst. Still, there's a honeymoon to be booked and I want to know that I can pay for it without the worry of whether household bills will be terrifyingly significant or not.

What's really sticking in my craw is the fact that I even remotely care about it at all. When I get to the very heart of it, I hate my job and perhaps being released would be a blessed relief. The sad truth of it all is that due to my rather poor academic record and general all round underachieveriness I don't actually feel worthy of much else beyond the realms of bottom rung clerical gubbins.

I often wish I could tap into that one thing, that special talent I may posses that might set me apart from the rest of the crowd and deliver unto me a job or career worth doing. It is easy to get swept away by all the petty problems that swamp the everyday mundanity of office life, but I know that in reality it all means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. I am just wasting precious moments of my life drowning in a bureaucratical ocean of pontificational pointlessness. People "talk the talk" (management speak) and I just want to throw up... on them.

The worst part is, for lack of any imagination on my part, I have attempted to drag myself up a rung or two on this turgid career ladder. To the extent of which, I am part of this year's Development Scheme. And, despite my current situation at work, I decided against throwing in the towel and have persevered, so much so that I have spent much of the past week working on one of the projects for the scheme.

This has really pissed me off. Feeling as though I have precious few options in the job market beyond the realms "paper shuffler extraordinaire" I find my own personal time being consumed on a project to help me go further in a job I don't actually even like. Where did it all go wrong? Probably in my haste to leave my education behind me... sigh...

...I am sorry, my thoughts about blog as catharsis are generally "Don't do it" but this is not the "Showbiz Blog" (Which, ironically and frustratingly, I have had a number of ideas for during the time spent on the works project) and I just needed to string a few of these thoughts together.

Father's Day Thought

Well 'tis Father's Day.

This is a day that for many years I have been able to blissfully ignore. The lack of anything that remotely resembles a father figure for largest extent of my life is to blame/thank for this.

Of course, having sired a sproglet from my own loins a couple of years back has changed all this and now it means I get a sort of extra Birthday thrown in for free in the middle of the year.

Truth be told, I was still largely unaware that Father's day was even on its way, well, I was until I began to notice a spate of TV advertisements all hawking a vast selection of Dad Rock compilation albums, most of which appear to contain almost exactly the same MOR rock staples and increasingly more recent Indie fair that would appeal to the younger dads. Of course it's all a sham, any chap worth his musical salt will already own the better tunes as part of the original album etc. These are gifts designed for the lazy and unimaginative children who don't really know their dads all that well.

As part of my Father's Day package, I was afforded the luxury of a lie in. Aah bliss. It's not all that often I get to enjoy the pleasure of wrapping myself up in the duvet free from cover struggles with my better half, or Bed Nemesis as I tend to regard her in such situations.

Lying there, swathed in solitudinal quilt comfort, a thought struck me.

Now I'm aware that how comfortable you are when you are asleep is an entirely subjective thing. My good lady would argue that I'm never comfortable unless I am embarking upon some form of semi conscious, Olympic style sleep twists. The truth is, I personally am most comfortable lying on my front whilst sleeping, or at least whilst trying to get to sleep.

Well I say I'm most comfortable when lying on my front. This isn't entirely true. There is a certain anatomical, male protrusion that prevents outright comfort when lying face down. It is of course somewhat miscomfortable to be lying on my cock and balls.

However, this morning, with the duvet rights held exclusively by myself, I was able to create a comfortable space in which to tuck my proverbials. The undeniable comfort gifted to me by this gap undoubtedly resulted in my falling quickly back to sleep and enjoying a further solid forty five minutes of beddy-bye bliss.

I woke up well and truly refreshed and inspired by my sleeping pose. I feel compelled to write to a number of mattress manufacturers and encourage them to include in future designs a well positioned gap to accommodate all front sleeping males and their usually squished nethers.

Hopefully sometime soon we will see the introduction of Silent Night Mattresses and the with my patented Cock Trough design included.

How To Hang Yourself With a Hobby

Phew!

Well, I'm glad that's over!

To what am I referring? Oh yes, of course, I forgot to include my other reason for withdrawing from "the other place". I had meant to post something about this during the week but had little or no opportunity to get round to it. Some of you that I have talked to directly over the past week will already know a little bit about it.

Last Thursday at work, I had dropped into my lap a rather comprehensive folder relating to my breaching the electronic communication and web browsing, and the Equality and Diversity policies. I had apparently forwarded tasteless material, undertook trivial non-work related exchanges with colleagues and external contacts and was involved with e-mails that contained abusive language or swearing whilst using work related e-mail and Internet systems.

This came as quite a shock, as I'm sure you can understand. As I have a number of former colleagues subscribed to the blog at "the other place" I decided that it was only sensible that I withdraw from that particular space for now, along with a bunch of other reasons I may or may not have already bored you with previously.

So I was notified that I was to attend an investigatory interview. This interview took place earlier today. I have since, spent the past week shitting the proverbial brick as to the possible outcome of this interview.

Having attended and gone through the various points raised, I feel that I have given a fair representation of myself and have, wherever possible given good justification or defence relating to some of the charges that were laid against me.

I had decided within seconds of reading the document that there was no point in denying the charges or even attempting to plead not guilty. After all, the evidence gathered by the IT security team was pretty comprehensive and from my perspective made for some pretty gruesome reading when it was laid out before me in black and white.

In reality the evidence provided was simply a list of items from my work's e-mail In and Out boxes. There were actually only 9 mails contained within my Inbox, none of which I had requested and the majority of which had been forwarded by my (not so) good lady. These were mostly silly jokes or funny picture attachments, most of which get largely ignored by me and ultimately deleted. I had however neglected to delete these mails quickly enough and so they remained there as so much electronical data file carcass for the eager IT Vultures to devour.

There were 11 mails contained within my Outbox. One of these mails contained a PowerPoint presentation spoofed desktop item. This I had forwarded to three colleagues. The other ten? Well, they were all word documents containing blogs in progress. These were the attachments that contained the abusive language and swearing. I should point out that every single one of them were only ever sent to my home e-mail address and not issued to any colleagues or other external contacts. They were for my eyes only.

Thankfully, the majority of these mails were sent during lunch or prior to working hours. I was also able to explain that I had created the documents myself and had never considered that I was violating the IT policy as they were contained attachments issued only to myself.

However, this doesn't detract from the fact that they were dredged up by this investigation and subsequently read by my area manager making the entire experience all the more uncomfortable. All those silly little ramblings, writings, observations and clever little turns of phrase certainly don't seem all that clever when being held under scrutiny in respect of such a matter. The worst example being the blog bollock one, described in the report thus:

Word Document containing a transcript of a weblog written by Mr X (Yup, that's me) which contains:

• inappropriate language
• html links to three external sites
  
• inappropriate photo image of naked male genitalia

...those of you that may know to which this image refers will hopefully realise that this is not actually as bad as it reads. I am however, fully aware of exactly how badly it reads, and know all too well that it may be my ultimate undoing, depending upon the outcome of the decision based upon today's findings. So a truly monumental bollock dropped there then. I still can't believe that I left that particular image pasted onto that word document!

There was also a report into my web usage. At the Top of the Pops was "the other place" with a staggering 40+ hours since the turn of the year. I then made assurances that this time had largely been accumulated at my old office, as I very regularly arrived at work 20-30 minutes before work commenced and I also often used to access the Internet on my lunch hour too. I also know that this can be verified by my supervisors at both offices.

As it transpired, this entire investigation has been triggered by initial concerns that were raised almost upon arrival at my new office. A report had been made by a concerned colleague that I was potentially accessing unsuitable material whilst at work. I knew that this concern was most probably largely in relation to a particular default image. At the time I had apologised for the concern this had caused and immediately removed the offending image and had advised my new manager of this at the time. I had hoped and thought that that was the end of it all.

Not so, it would seem. And my final undoing appears to have been selecting to discuss my hobby as part of a presentation skills course, electing as I did to take along a handout containing blog promotional banners and an assortment of images used throughout my blogs. Although the presentation went well, I was reminded that much of the image content contained within my handout was deeply inappropriate for any future based work presentations and could be regarded as offensive to the eyes of some people. I can recall that exact moment most clearly, for in that moment, my stomach sank to the floor and a sense of foreboding washed over me instantly. Of course, there and then I had apologised profusely to the entire group, stating that it had never been my intention to cause offense and that it was down to a complete lack of forethought on my behalf.

I still to this day do not consider that handout to have contained anything out rightly offensive, but I am now all too aware that views of this nature are entirely subjective and I will never place myself in such a precarious position again.

As I said at the beginning, I feel I have represented myself well and accounted for the charges brought against me and was sure to apologise for making such an investigation necessary. If common sense prevails, hopefully I will receive just a written or even final warning and get to keep this poorly paid job, that whilst being poorly paid, still pays the bills nonetheless.

All I know is, this past week has been personal hell for me, and has had a subtle but quite profound effect upon me and my family, even my daughter appears to have picked up on the tension and has been very much not herself as a result of all this. I hope that whoever felt it was their duty to air their concerns originally did not do this out of malice as frankly, I wouldn't wish this unnecessary anxiety on anyone who didn't truly deserve it.

I will most probably have to wait for up to another week to ten days before I know the ultimate decision and may even yet be subject to a suspension and a further disciplinary hearing. I can only hope it doesn't come down to this.

Although many of the mistakes have undoubtedly been my own doing, much of it is simply down to a series of misunderstandings. I guess, to an extent soured the experience of blogging for me, but I know, once this sorry debacle is all over, I'll dust myself down and get right back on the old blogging mule and ride it into an hilarity fuelled sunset.

Years from now, I'll look back on all this and laugh...

There's More Than One Way to Spin a Rabbit

Pfffooooh ye bugger!

On my tremendously short commute home this evening, I was belting along quite happily at a wonderfully unhindered 65 miles per hour. Driving bliss.

Up ahead, I noticed a piece of debris lying a quarter of the way across my side of the road. What was it? A chunk of wood? A rock? An abandoned artificial limb?

Due to the speed I was travelling the mysterious object's mysterism was very quickly demystified. It was the tiniest, cutest biggest eyesest lump o' vermin I ever did set my eyes upon whilst travelling at 65 miles per hour.

It wasn't dead, in fact, it was even very nearly dead, so much so it was very clearly full of life but also quite clearly stupid with it. As a car was speeding towards me in the opposite direction, there was no chance of attempting to swerve past the little varmint, and so, I had little choice but to grip the steering wheel, grit my teeth and cling to the hope that I was not about to crush bugs junior with my rubber burning, wheels o' fury.

It was a tense couple of seconds. Images of a bursting, blood spattering bunny, crushed under the pressure of my tyres raced through my mind's eye. For a split second, I couldn't bring myself to check the rearview mirror but morbid fascination always wins out.

There, displayed in the mirror remained a fully intact baby rabbit, only he had been flipped and was now facing in the opposite direction.

An almighty sigh was duly released.

Shart Blog

What's this? Two blogs in a day with little or no space between postings?! What the Hell's all this about then?

Well, it's about the fact that this is my blog and as such I care little for the concerns of other people, unlike how things were on my old blog. So, supplemental to my Nup-Date blog posted only a few minutes ago, I have also decided to catalog further evidence of my continued slide towards being a typical middle aged shuffler.

Evidence item one: I made my first ever clothing purchase from Marks and Sparks. This had nothing to do with Bryan Ferry or his removal from being the face of M&S clothing for men. Surely I should only be buying food from Marks & Spencer's on account of their sexily voiced and alluring food ads? M&S is where yer dad buys his clothes from isn't it? Well, I've got news for myself. I am a dad and so it has begun. At least I'm not quite at the cardigan fancying stage, although I suspect it's only a matter of time.

Evidence item two: When I got home and decided to try it on. I usually always do this in the shop, but we were strapped for time on account of the groom to be fitted appointment and also, it was the last medium sized shirt on the rack. I almost put it back, as I so often do, expecting it to be there when I return, which it almost always isn't, so Eleonar insisted upon buying to save her from listening to me whingeing about it later.

I put on the shirt. It is a pale blue and white striped, short sleeved linen shirt. Perfect for the summer months and could be classed as both smart and casual wear. I also know that like many of my favourite that have gone before it, it will be part of my wardrobe for years to come.

As I stared into the mirror, I decided that I was quite happy with my new shirt. Sporting it, as is the fashion with my entire generation with the tails hanging out, rather than tucked in. However, this was the point at which I realised I'm at tipping point of real dad-dom. I felt compelled to tuck this shirt in, because it looked much smarter that way...

Aaaaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!! The end is nigh!

Nup-date

Well, yesterday the family and I headed into town later in the afternoon to get me and my best man Greig suited and booted for the forthcoming nuptials. It wasn't my choice to head in at that time of day, I hate how busy centres of rampant consumerism can get at a weekend, and Newcastle certainly didn't disappoint. The place was heaving.

I feel that it is also worth noting that the family and I actually made our merry way into town on the public pauper truck, or an Arriva bus as most normal people would call it. In the past I would always have taken the car and paid for parking. However, thanks to the advent of cheaper competition, Arriva set their return prices back by over £1.50 and so the economical balance of this resulted in us choosing to take the bus at a total cost of only £6.00. Surely all public transport should look to offer the kind of affordable fares that at least challenge us all to think "Well, it would be just as cheap to take the bus" rather than the meagre concessions that always seem to weight us towards deciding that our cars would be quicker?

Anyway, we met up with Greig and his brood and made a beeline for Greenwood's Menswear in order to meet our 3 o' clock appointment. The gentleman assisting us with our choices of wedding day sartorial splendour was a most amiable fellow. However, I was slightly taken aback by his constant personal amusement at Greig's and my willingness to allow my good lady to make all the decisions. Not having been married before, I began to wonder exactly how many other chaps actually went along to choose their wedding garments without instruction or approval of their soon to be other halves.

I certainly can't think of anyone that I know that wasn't happy for their wives in waiting to simply organise almost every facet of their wedding day. I suppose a few may have made an occasional objection to certain sartorial suggestions and the like but not one of them outrightly had any real say or involvement. And as all males know, organising the wedding day is largely the preserve of the woman as apparently she has been planning it since she was approximately four years old... possibly younger.

This irksome detail aside, the choosing of our outfits went smoothly thanks to the amiability of all parties concerned. As it turned out, the get up we actually ended up ordering was almost item for item exactly the same as an outfit displayed in the wedding brochure. So it would seem that we are simply mindless, easily influenced fools, but I'm sure we'll look dapper enough on the day. Also, Greig may as well have not bothered turning up to be fitted, as, by pure coincidence, it appears that we are almost exactly the same size and shape, right down to our collar size. Sadly, I'll have to put this fact down to Greig letting himself go a bit and subjecting his waist size to an extra beer or twelve here and there. And as an added bonus, it means that even if we get our togs mixed up on the day, it won't matter a jot.

What with the acquiring the suits I almost feel my contribution to the big day is over. No bad thing in my book really. I'm happy to let the missus crack on and sort it all out, and she seems largely happy to do so. So everyone's a winner there then.

A New Dawn of Blogitudinalism

Aah, a blogging rebirth.

How refreshing.

I most probably should have done this ages ago. Having spent the past year or so on one of the more popular social networking sites I have decided to join the exodus of the great and the good that have tired of it. The added bonus of having created this nice and shiny, brand spanking new blog is the anonymity that it affords. That and the wonderful spell check facility that was not provided to my old blog system. Not to mention the autosave option which to my mind is a miraculous item.

Yes, having built up a modest following on the aforementioned site, I have found myself somewhat constrained. At first it was most pleasing to have relative strangers take time to read the shamblings and ramblings I had posted and respond to them in a largely positive manner. Indeed, I became somewhat intoxicated by the whole process and began to actively seek a larger audience.

What I hadn't considered was the side effects of gaining a larger audience. I began to place quite a bit of pressure upon myself as to the kind of material I delivered and whether it was entertaining or funny enough. I also felt compelled to post far more regularly than I could really deliver and so towards the end I began to feel as though I wasn't even meeting my own expectations and so the joy and the spark inevitably faded. And with that, I have turned to the loving embrace of Blogger.com for solace.

So now that I have my new space, I can blather away 'til my heart's content, unconcerned as to whether my postings have any value to an audience other than myself. Of course, I'll most probably send a link to this very page to a select few people that may care to peruse whatever it is I will post here. I'm sure after the first couple of pondersome exercises in naval gazing, they'll end up giving me a miss too.

So it's talking to myself I'm after is it? Is it yet time to report myself to social services?