UK Watercooler 32: Fall Into The Meaning Gap

I wonder what people would do if I took out my book and started reading it?

Well, I half expected people to come up and go "YOU GOT NOTHIN ELSE TO DO THEN?", actually people sympathised. Nice people, great place to work locationwise and peoplewise, just no sense of urgency.

These things were sent to try us...

Maybe this is some kind of test, sent to teach me Patience. Except I don't believe in that sort of thing.

I suppose, this morning while lying half awake and half asleep, I set myself a kind of impossible task to keep myself occupied. It probably won't turn out to be that impossible, but it will at least keep me occupied for... a while?

I should answer my mail on OKC, too, I suppose. I'm still just flabbergasted that I've got any at all. I kind of don't want to blow it by actually speaking to them when they're clearly deluded into thinking I'm attractive in some way, shape or form.

If you have discovered that you are a Bad Person, should you accept it, try to change it, or revel in it?

As I say, you always feel like with all that 'down' time, you could write songs surrepticiously, but doing it at work just feels wrong, like ringing people while on the bog or something.

People expect too much of you, and you feel like a bad person because you cannot live up to everyones expectations and they blame you for it.

They forget all the things you did for them, and remember that one time you couldn't.

x-post Try to change it, if it's really true.

I ought to read that Perrett book - how recent is it? What became of their comeback last year?

Oh, the bad person isn't on account of work stuff (though another rejection letter yesterday isn't helping matters).

It's personal life stuff, grudge-holding, jealousy, envy, etc.

Yeah, that's what I assumed.

These do not necessarily define you as a bad person, Kate. Everyone feels these things - the problem is when they make you behave in ways that upsets either you or other people, or get in the way of your happiness. Not always easy, I know.

I always believe that actions speak louder than words. So I will put this in another way. I think I am behaving in ways that are causing upset, to me, and I think other persons.

I don't know, it's hard to describe without getting into specifics.

I'm having a problem with another person. We have attempted to talk it out, and that has failed. I don't dislike this person, but we just don't get on, and this is causing friction in a larger group. My reaction to this, based on past experience, is to withdraw. This other person seems to be continually trying to re-establish contact. I don't want to go there; this kind of behaviour flags personal "argh, stalker" bells, again, based on previous experience.

The problem is how to disengage. I think I have lost the larger group, partly due to this, partly due to changing/shifting group dynamics and mine own interests. The jealousy/envy is due to this other person managing to maintain their position in the larger group, while I either cannot or will not.

I want to handle this better than I have in past similar situations. But I fear that I am not going to be able to. Hence, I am a bad person.

n.b. none of this has anything to do with anyone on ILX.

That doesn't mean you're being a bad person in the commonly-used "malicious" sense of the term, though.

killfile email, block telephone #?

That would be an overreaction. I tried unfriending this person on MySpace, and they freaked out and sent me this message going all "why did you unfriend me?" and another friend request, and I felt guilty and accepted it. But then felt blackmailed into doing it. And then felt bad about feeling blackmailed.

I'm a bad person because I can't do groups. :-(

I don't know what it is that I'm worried about. What the other people in the larger group think? Why they respond to this person in a way that they have never responded to me? Because this person makes all the right noises and goes through the motions about being a good and friendly group member? Clearly there is something wrong with me, that I am having a problem when no one else is.

And now I have accomplished my difficult thing that I set myself to do today, and have nothing to do for the rest of the day.

And no boss to talk to about what needs to be done next.

Yes, none of this is 'bad person' stuff, just because you are finding this rather tricky situation difficult to handle. It sounds like you have to decide whether you want to reestablish yourself in the larger group enough to want to confront this person about the situation - which I think you'll have to do, as it sounds like ignoring/tolerating wouldn't work. It depends what they want from you, and they clearly want something - hence trying to engage with you repeatedly.

Alternatively - is there someone in the larger group that you can confide in?

Ooh, apparently our MD is going to make An Announcement About Something later today...

(we all know the gist of what he's going to say, but we don't really know what the implications are going to be)

I don't actually even know if I want to continue in the larger group. But there is really no way to tell, because the friction is making it difficult.

The person in the larger group, who *was* my confidant... well, that's a difficult situation, as well. We were friends, now I'm not so sure. Again, actions speak louder than words - confidant was all "oh, we're still friends" but never manages to return my emails, either due to busy-ness or their own personal life or (paranoia) they are no longer as close to me as they once were. And there is past personal friction between former confidant and the person with whom I am having the problems - but my former confidant's tack was to go out of their way to be overly nice to the person they were having the problems with. Which only makes me feel more slighted and jealous/envious.

I can't even talk about this on my blog - this person reads it, and emails to complain.

I don't know what they want. They claim to want to be my friend, but doesn't behave in ways that I consider friendlike.

It's just awful, and the way of things is that I am going to end up losing the whole group. Which is a shame, but I don't really see another way to deal with this. I can only hope that it will all blow over.

Oh god, Tzr want me to do another review - Diamanda Galas. Yes, I would love to go to that show, but I don't want to do any more music criticism!

Well, it's not going to be an indie dive, right?

Indeed. The Southbank Centre - I would get to sit down and be civilised.

I'm never very sure how I feel about sit-down gigs - they remind me too much of classical concerts, which jars slightly.

The only gig we've got planned coming up is Low, at the Sage in Gateshead, and I suspect it may well be a sit-down gig too.

Diamanda Galas is practically classical music, albeit, well, modern composition.

I like sit-down gigs, but this is because I'm old and my back and knees give out if I have to stand up for too long.

Has that announcement been made yet, or will that be after lunch?

One of these days we'll get to the Sage for an actual concert. (do they do gigs? Prob not)

The Baltic, sage, sunday market, etc is one of my favourite places to be. Might well get there this weekend.

The announcement is still unmade and hanging...

I'm getting old enough to want to avoid tightly-packed standing crowds, myself. The last gig we went to, we lurked right at the back.

hey do you guys have a bank holiday weekend fr/mon? is it easter there already?

Yes times two...

Yes mitya, both days.

I saw van der graaf generator at the sage, it was very good, the acoustics in the small hall are excellent.

I'd probably have seen other bands, but promoting their gigs has never been one of the sage's strong points - the VdGG gig was 1/2 empty, all the other tour dates were sellouts, I only found out it was on about 2 days before. Hopeless!

Ooh good, Low are in the small hall.

We went along to buy our tickets directly, last month. We got to the front of the queue and asked about the Low gig, and the chap behind the counter said: "I thought you looked like you'd be wanting tickets to Low - I'm going to it myself!"

...typical. I said I'd do it, and now I don't hear back from him.

Ah, I've got an hour to start thinking about what I want to have for lunch. Sag paneer again, no doubt.

Hello, all, busy morning. I am growing slightly disgruntled with the job here, it is feeling like the old place a couple of years ago. The software I have to support is a dog's breakfast with 4 main code trunks, a number of actual products and a layer of branding over the top with is, to say the least, confused.

Recruiter who got me this job called me this morning, I asked him to call back later, I hope he is calling to see if I am settled and not to put evil thoughts in my head.

Do you think that other places in the same line of work would be the same - that it is a problem of the nature of the business? Or are these places both just badly run?

i.e. is it something that you could change - either through working things out at this job (learning from the past mistakes of the old one) or at getting another job - or is it just the nature of the beast, and something you'd have to put up with anywhere? (And therefore career change would be more necessary for being re-gruntled?)

I am eating Sag Paneer. Numness.

I think it is common to places that had a lot of money very quickly and spent it badly, of which there are many in my industry. Not sure if it is something I could change but I can try and influence

I am a little worried that, working in any VC backed company, the VCs may lose interest if returns aren't forthcoming. In addition I don't think that the CEO they parachuted in is doing enough to change entrenched ideas and practices. I worry that in these situations it tends to be last in, first out.

I talked about some of these issues at length with all three people who interviewed me, but they put a very good gloss on it.

Things are very serious today, let's have a picture of a mean looking cat:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2152/2345477432_b8ca7c8eea.jpg?v=0

I am happy, because I have accidentally discovered the best site on the interweb:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/

I was actually googling for "the nature of consciousness"* (because I was discussing it with one of the OKC suitors) and it had a link to an article there about neuron firing.

*He says on his page that he is interested in this. I certainly hope that he means in the scientific sense, because googling also lead to some um, rather philosophically unsound looking cultish sites, and articles about philosophy. I suppose this is a problem one can come at from many different angles. Scientific, religious, philosophical, sitting around really stoned going "wow, duuuuuude."

Oh dear.

That cat is saying "I wuz promised FLAT PANEL dude"

Cats don't like flat panels because they are not as warm and impossible to sleep on. My bandmates' cat is very fond of sleeping on top of their old iMac because the monitor fan makes it so warm and cosy.

My cat was very fond of sleeping on top of my old CRT monitor, too - until the day he apparently knocked it on the floor while I was out.

My cats sometimes lie on our laptop, which isn't very good as it's a piece of shit Dell that's prone to overheating at least 5 times a week.

Sorry, I'm lost in reading about DARK MATTERS and GIANT COSMIC VOIDS!!!

A giant gaping hole in the universe, how great is that?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070823164846.htm

Are cats just better/more popular than science?

:-(

Harmonia are playing Glasgow in July. and supposedly Cluster will be playing later in the year too.

It'll be Kluster next

Then Lilienthal

Are you coming up for it?

They're playing here first, of course, these provincials *sigh*