The good guys don’t always win
Posted on June 13, 2006
Filed Under Summer, Rant, funny ha ha, wet Wednesday rule | 5 Comments
On Sunday, I wrote about a pretty girl who made me smile. Yesterday, in a different context, I swapped a few pleasant messages on fjl’s evocative post about a sunny afternoon she spent with her family. Sadly, the good weather has now departed and my happy thoughts have exited stage left as well. Sigh.
On the way home from work, I met the woman I secretly fancy. I have to ‘secretly’ fancy her because she turned me down awhile back. She doesn’t know I exist (I know that’s a contradiction but you know what I mean). Anyway, today she was a vision (ahem) in a purple top, grey trousers and a blue jacket. The purple top should have worked with her dark hair but, sartorially, it didn’t. Normally I wouldn’t comment on a woman’s appearance (because I equally wouldn’t comment on a man’s appearance). I think she had similar reservations about the t-shirt because she was wearing a jacket. I asked her why she was wearing a jacket on such a humid day and she said the breeze was making her cold. In fairness, it was a bit breezy but, somehow, I think she had similar reservations about her t-shirt but only realised it after a couple of hours and a couple of miles from her home! I think there must be something to this pheromone lark!
It’s not often that I remark on a Tuesday that I’m glad the weekend is almost here. I’m on annual leave next week (when did we stop having holidays?) and I’m 99% certain I’ll go on a driving Grand Tour of Cornwall and Devon. It’s only for a week (the Grand Adventure doesn’t start until August) but, hey, it all counts. So if anyone in Cornwall or Devon wants to offer me a cup of tea in exchange for a chat, please post.
The past month has been pretty demanding work-wise. The company I work for has experienced a lot of problems in the past year and fixing them has involved lots of upheaval. About a month ago, and after several similar promises, ‘a line was drawn in the sand’. Certainly, things have improved. Part of my job involved drawing that line and then communicating it to my team (some of whom are not direct reports, to use the jargon). It is pretty difficult trying to convince a totally demoralised group of people that things will get better. That it’ll only get better if they help (i.e., work harder) in the process and, oh, if they mess up, they’re in trouble. Have a nice day and don’t forget, I’m here to help you! Sigh.
My most memorable meeting was with one guy who felt that the entire staff (i.e., everyone (me too)) were lazy sods. Of course, he wasn’t a lazy sod. He genuinely felt, ‘how hard can it be for them to do x,y,z‘ when he’s working from dawn to dusk. I really scraped the barrel and had to use my mother as a learning example. My mother has 4 siblings and has fallen out with each of them in a big way. The ‘Don’t darken my door again‘-type of falling out. Now, who is the likely culprit in my family example? My mother (at the centre) who has a problem with 4 separate individuals or the 4 separate individuals who have a problem with a single individual? I dunno. Tomorrow, I’ve got to do the same again. Sigh.
Four weeks of fighting/communicating/cajoling/ordering/sacking/negotiating (and I haven’t even looked at a thesaurus yet) – it takes its toll. Especially when I get to live in hotels like The Quality Stonebridge Manor. ‘Quality’ is the name of the company but it’s just a name; it does not signify anything else. It should really be called the ‘four walls and a door beside a motorway’ hotel. Sigh.
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Another colleague announced his resignation today. In a very competitive market, he increased turnover in his division by 50% over the last 3 years but he was headhunted. Like the other good guys who have left recently, the company have allowed them to go. Now, the company can’t find replacements because the word is out. The sharks can smell the blood in the water and far too many colleagues have left in the past 6 months. And more will leave. Sigh.
In my last post, I deleted a letter from the word s*x because I didn’t want people coming here via that word. I’ve just found out that, in a previous blog, I used the words ‘having‘, ‘horses‘ and ‘s*x‘ in completely different paragraphs. I didn’t delete the ‘e’ from that word in that post. I can’t believe it but if you search the technorati home page for the phrase, ‘hav1ng s*x with hOrses’, you’ll find me there! (I’ve changed some of the letters in the last sentence so I don’t encourage the search engines). I_really_can’t_believe_it. Sigh.
Sorry for the rambling but sometimes the good guys don’t always win. Hope it’s sunny tomorrow.
Some (or all) of the above may (or may not) be made up. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Comments
5 Responses to “The good guys don’t always win”
Cheer up, with your level headed attitude you’re going to come through, and you’ve got your blogmates.
I read your comment on the deep family divisions with interest. What is it about us old celtic descendants that this seems to repeat? Well, if I knew that I’d solve the whole disharmony question. There’s abit of the same in my family, and it’s definitely been heartbreaking and pointless. There’s afew who flatly refuse to forgive, or back down.
Maybe it makes comedians and poets of the rest of us
Cheer up and good luck with purple-shirt.
I’ll start with the easy one! – purpleshirt. We have what might be described as a ‘transactional’ relationship (& no, she’s not a shopkeeper!!). We meet, we exchange information, and we go our separate ways (we’re not in the same social network). Within this paradigm (?), I asked and she said no. If things change, it’s up to her to do the changing…Maybe I’m wrong?
Re the family ‘thing’…what can I say? It’s what we (Irish) do. My third cousin passed away today and the talk is whether ‘insert relative’s name’ has to go. Does one go to the removal and/or the funeral? Do ‘I’ have to go to either?
I don’t know, we women like you to make the effort two or three times. The courage we expect is ridiculous, really. It’s all about proving that we’ll be safe with you, and that you’re sure of your choice. Why we can’t explain ourselves simply, as we are constantly being begged to do, I really don’t know.
Via a vis family. It makes me so sad that we’ll some of us be in separate graves in separate places and that even the funeral organisation will be separate and distinct. I know just what you mean. If only people could get over themselves in this life.
LOL. I don’t know if I’ll make the effort two or three times with this woman – she knows karate. And she has a temper.
Update: Last night in the pub, purpleshirt (who we don’t see that often) told a gang of us that she’d gotten engaged. This was amazing news as (a) we didn’t know she was seeing anyone and (b) she wasn’t wearing an engagement ring.
After she’d left, we all got very excited and argued about it for awhile. The eventual consensus was that the vst, vast majority of women would not make an announcement without (1) the ring as evidence and (2) a short (& not so short) spiel of how brilliant the boyfriend/fiancee was.
More gossip required, methinks.