Blue Saturday

actually the reality is i have a few "goals" that are so unlikely to be achieved that they might as well come under the category of daydreams

i shd probably focus all my energies on making life changes to get me where i want to go but a) what little energies i have are just about hanging on to the job i'm in and b) there's not meant to be any escape from this, silly

there's a bunch of physical/mental stuff happening at the moment that i'm trying to put right - can't sleep, can't eat, can't do much - maybe when i do that clarity will descend

books and sunshine and peace is all i want. surrounded by a mass acceptance that these are unreasonable demands.

i seem to be working in this environment with an underlying tone of "fuck weakness" which is totally not what this job shd be but also totally not okay for me. embrace weakness. let's all be feeble together and let the strong go off and butt each other to death.

this is our society now more than ever, be useful or get out

lol disjointed Friday meltdowns

Setting goals and working toward them is part of leading a normal life.

srsly i don't think i know anybody

<3 NV

Jobs are disgraceful, goals are disgraceful, unreasonable demands are the only reasonable option left. <3 u

thanks :)

just got that fuzzy head, don't know what it is. do other people regularly have whole days where they can't think straight to the extent of not being able to do work tasks properly? i'm trying to straighten my sleep out and hope that makes it go away but it's horrible tbh, i can't explain to not fuzzy-headed people that being crap isn't a lifestyle choice.

stupid rhetorical question. i know people get this thing. what is it and how do you make it go away?

Fuzzy head with intervals of sharp self loathing and blowing streaks of uselessness is my number one side effect of sleeplessness. It gets really rough for me during the seasonal change times of the year, like in 40 years my brain hasn't figured out that days get shorter and then they get longer again. :-/

i seem to be working in this environment with an underlying tone of "fuck weakness" which is totally not what this job shd be but also totally not okay for me.

Time will tell but my current employer seems to hire for, and respect, emotional labor, and their motto for how employees should feel is "safe, warm, and secure." And this doesn't seem to be just talk? It should be a condition of most/all workplaces, to respect the humanity of humans, but it feels revolutionary.

do other people regularly have whole days where they can't think straight to the extent of not being able to do work tasks properly?

With me this is usually down to some kind of depressive episode, I've had quite a lot of days like this over the last couple of months. Should mention that was largely down to my own failures as a human being so it was a deserved depression if there is such a thing.

we're not always fair judges of ourselves when we're depressed tho

at least i'm catching this early and taking steps, i dunno what else one cd do

I got signed off work for a week and went to stay with friends for a couple of days, and the doc temporarily upped my prozac although I didn't really maintain that as long as they wanted me to because I don't feel very good on anything over the minimum dose, but that helped a lot. I'm not saying that would help everyone of course and not everyone has access to friends who are able to put you up at short notice like that. In my case it just happens one of my best friends is currently off work with M.E. so they were around and could've used some company anyway.

Re judging selves, yes totally agree normally but in this case I did actually act objectively badly. One could argue that was down to my depressed state of mind at the time but in this particular case that's a cop out, not that it always is in such situations.

no i know what you mean, i feel like sometimes i walk a fine line between excusing my own worst instincts and beating myself up for the comfort of confirming them

nv i found sleep issues to be another effect of the drifting rather than anything else, am sleeping much better since starting study.

no idea how i kicked out of drifting and into decision mode ito actually getting to the stage of now being a student tho

dmac otm tackling the sleep problem can be be the key to solving a lot of daytime issues

easier said than done of course <3

It might just be the insomnia talking, but I am really not feeling it at the moment.

But I don't know what else to do instead.

:(

brains shd have evolved some kind of downtime override that doesn't involve Drambuie

There are days that ILX is a really fun place to hang out and chat with my mates while ignoring idiocy. And then there are days when the overwhelming negativity and relentless low-level hatred is just a sucking chest wound in my already depleted emotional reservoir. Admittedly, the difference is me, and how much breathing room I have. Not getting enough sleep, not getting enough external social contact, not getting enough basic Maslovian needs met... I am feeling really shitty about my job search. And feeling shitty about it leads to searching less, which means fewer and worse bites from headhunters which means feeling even shittier about it. I don't think *this* helps. Right now I'm not even sure what does (answer: drawing boys) but good god, some reliable way of getting 8 hours instead of 4, that would help.

i got nothin' that i cd turn into a twinkly Facebook motivational jpeg but you've got all my sympathy BB

https://31.media.tumblr.com/025f7f8da6b7e19c23e4f8f77f222b16/tumblr_inline_n2rlweCEi11qklnhw.jpg

"Here's mud in yr eye fingers in your bang, kid"

meanwhile somebody scanned the Book of Kells

http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php?DRIS_ID=MS58_003v

which is a bugger cos it's kinda hard to look at discreetly whilst at work

books and sunshine and peace is all i want. surrounded by a mass acceptance that these are unreasonable demands.

― pings can only get wetter (Noodle Vague), Friday, 14 March 2014 10:20 (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seems perfectly reasonable on a day like this. make some excuse at work, grab your book and take the bus out of the city.

Oh yeah that Kells online thing is amazing and good trippy fun. But not exactly work appropriate, unless your job is actually, Medieval Monk.

Why can't my job be Medieval Monk. I'd be perfectly suited for it. Sing hymns, draw strange beasts, read books, flagellate self. Why is this no longer a career option.

But now looking at the picture of Kessler with a glass of whiskey has awakened whisky rage in me and I waaaaaaant whisky.

I have sunshine and peace and instead of reading books, I'm fretting online. I am a fucking idiot.

I need to ask cause its been bugging me, who does that guy look like? I think I'm thinking of an actor.

Road trip guy, maybe

I looked at it in work! But I work (v. tangentially) on some less glamorous l*br*ry d*g*t*sation projects so I was all set to say "just checking out the competition, yo" if anyone asked. Which they did not. Which is good because that might be the most work-related thing I've spent more than five minutes on all morning. Oh dear.

Had a quite productive Tuesday, although it was a day of new tasks constantly rolling in and being dealt with, not actually getting any longer-term tasks done. All downhill from there...

it is a beautiful day in Hull. just spent an hour of it discussing how to manage other people's naughty behaviour. god the ironing.

Stoner dude from clueless! Right? Kinda.

I have never seen Clueless or Road Trip so I am useless at this game but I don't think anyone would appreciate it if I just posted loads of pictures of dude so you could guess who he looks like some more.

Also, headhunters, christ it's terrible when they don't call but it's even more terrible when they do and I am tired of talking to headhunters.

this thread has had lots of tawdrier things than pictures of dudes you want to commune with in a fingerbanging scenario tbh

His GUITAR TONE. I want to commune in a fingerbanging session with his ~guitar tone~.

OK, it would help if he made this face while doing it, but sure.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/1742fe0f5dee956c768ee77ca9d792d6/tumblr_n2rrlekWTg1r6cs0zo4_r1_1280.png

I have been for a walk in the sunshine and it is glorious. I have communed with some blossom and inspected my orchards. Now I have a painting to finish.

I have never seen Clueless

m8

just spent an hour of it discussing how to manage other people's naughty behaviour. god the ironing.

Just spent 45 minutes in a meeting where the manager talked about why it's other people's fault that work isn't getting done. Oh the ironing manager's transparently obvious skiving.

OH GOD I NEED TO GO AND DEAL WITH THE COUNCIL TAX PEOPLE.

SPARE ME. JUST FUCKING SPARE ME FROM LAMBETH COUNCIL.

I have managed to sort through a year's worth of unfiled billed and bank statements and found the supporting evidence that it is how I said it was, and they fucked up. (I wish I had kept copies of the letters I sent, but stupidly, I did not.)

But I am trying to gather together the nerve and the confidence to actually walk down to the nearest council office (probably to be told that they cannot handle it, and I have to go to Brixton) and attempt to sort it all out. ARGH.

too late now but keep copies of everything in future, yeah, they are evil for "losing" paperwork

It's entirely possible I have a scan somewhere, but my computer files are even worse than my physical ones. For a pack rat who keeps *everything* I sure am shit at finding things again.

i lost a bunch of v important work papers this morning and was right on the cusp of contacting HR to admit i was useless and unsuited for a position in management when i found them

never felt so alive for those 10 minutes

Think I need a Red Saturday (or possible Red Monday) thread. Just being in the office makes me constantly annoyed/irritable/sarcastic/a dick.

I need to focus on small mercies like being allowed to cut short my 3 month notice period in half, so at least I only have another 20 working days with these morons. And maybe anger management, but I'm about to start doing CBT next week so maybe that will help I dunno.

Argh, that "I've lost this important thing!!!!" panic, that was yesterday.

I went up to the Community Garden like I always do on Sunday afternoons. I dug up / turned over / pitchforked (we have 200 seed beds for you to weed, right?) this massive plot of earth then went over to drink tea with the other workers. And someone asked me about my bag, and I realised in the course of talking about where I got it, that the pocket where I normally keep my wallet is FLAPPING OPEN with no wallet inside. Cue massive panic because, well, I don't actually think my wallet has been stolen, I think that while I was working on one of the 200 seed beds, my wallet flopped out of the open pocket and got hoed down into the earth and bye-bye bank cards and bus pass and ARGH and I do not want to have to dig up 200 seed beds looking for the damn thing (like, have you seen the damage a pitchfork can do, for real.)

Anyway, they told me to go home and just check and ARGH PANIC RUN THE WHOLE MILE HOME and phew, it was in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing the night before when I'd gone to buy biscuits.

But yeah. Panic. And now I have eaten lunch and have no more excuses and have to go deal with the council. For real.

(Isn't there a "thread where we work out our notice period" for that sort of hell, but if there isn't, argh, Poo, I feel your pain, that sounds shit. Just remember it will be over soon.)

And lo, this is how I now become benefits scum. This country!

I paid my council tax a bit late last year, but I paid it in full. However, because I paid it by cheque, it cleared in a day past the deadline, and triggered an automated process whereby they took me to court for an amount that was already paid, and whacked me with £127 for the privilege.

And apparently no human being on earth, in the customer service centre, or over the phone, can revoke that charge once it goes on. "I can't pay this! I'm unemployed!" I moaned. "Oh, you're unemployed, you say? Right, then you can apply for Council Tax benefit, which covers the whole amount." I don't want to cover the whole amount with benefits. I want to pay my council tax, but not have to pay a £127 late fee for an amount I already paid. That isn't possible. I can go on benefits for the full council tax, or nothing.

So I am now applying for benefits I don't want to be on. This is fucking stupid.

Here you go. How much of modern management technique is descended from slavery:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/01/16/the-messy-link-between-slave-owners-and-modern-management/

Fuck councils and their 'automated processes'. Every time I'm £10 in arrears on service charges I get a computer-generated letter threatening the beginning of a repossession process. Imagine some mentally ill person getting one of those and having a fucking heart attack.

I've managed to get my way with the council over bullshit charges by adopting the 'frankly, you can whistle for it' line, but my borough still allows people to escalate issues direct with managers who can make decisions. That said, I always phone the automated payment line for my council and pay them that way, not by cheque.

oh god that sucks. I don't trust them with a direct debit after they fucked up once, so I do it online every month, but am not too precious about making sure it is cleared by the 1st or whatever.

They have fucked up far, far, too many times to ever get a direct debit out of me. And you can't even pay online with Lambeth. There's supposedly a phone payment system, but I'm not paying them in any way I don't have a receipt and a proof of the date I paid them. Guess it means going down to Gracefield Gardens every month until benefits (30 day wait) come through. :(