The Angry Dieter

I was going to post some crap, changed my mind. I thought instead I would list some timewasting activities for those who are unable to sleep.

OK this is a looooong post. For those of you who make it to the end, warm fuzzies. If the rest don’t thats ok, but I can at times be an interesting read and others.. well, pardon me for wasting your bandwidth

1. Forums - I love my forums, I hang out on a couple, one of them is a swedish forum, another is for Broadband in AU, which completes the geek in me, another is SOTS* forum. That forum has helped me deal with X. I will talk about him further in a sec.
2. Watching late nite TV - I miss my crappy nite time TV as background noise, with hotdogs and the doof doof music as they try and get idiots to enter their competitions. This means that when we get customers who try and DAK* those numbers, everyone knows to ask me, since.. yes I watch it.
3. Video.google.com and youtube - for documentaries about anything. WW2, The christian right taking over america, global warming, discussions about athieim, inventions.. channel 4 BBC tends to have alot of that stuff floating around on the web.
4. IRC - I use Austnet, I am an ASD Manager there, oh that reminds me, I need to update the blog for Austnet with an explanation on how to become an ASD Helper. Some people were asking about it tonight. I can’t wait to resign from that position. I have been there far too long, nearly 3 years as a Manager! I am far too casual with it all. I want to loosen up on those internal rules about how we handle our staff and who can do what, reduce the need for monitoring our Admins like they are criminals. They all do a great job, let’s trust their judgement. So it’s been my goal for a while to not be too casual about the rules, but remember, they are guidelines people!
5. Wikipedia - I am just starting to get into that, what a cool place to wander around and learn things. I have set up my own wiki account so I can edit things and start to participate. Another online community that I would like to participate further in.

I just realised these timewasters apart from the TV thing .. are all nerdy and sad.

Non nerdy timewasters.

1. Taking photo’s - love doing this, I spent a small fortune on a camera which isn’t amazing, but it does the job. I am a frustrated artist.
2. Trying to learn how to play guitar - I think I have just about met my musical match, I can’t get my short stubby fingers wrapped around the frets the way I envision they should be.
3. Walking - I love walking, and can walk all day providing I have comfy shoes on, and my mp3 player, and my camera. One can not walk and not take a camera for those awesome shots of the day.

Work related Rant here now

My BTL* and I are still getting to know eachother. When I originally went for the position as team leader, there was him, another dude, and myself going for these interviews. I bombed at the interview, I totally sucked so much, I would have needed a change in vacuum cleaner bags. However I was told that if the next position came up, I would be offered it. Awesome. I ended up being offered a secondment, because I told them straight up “I can’t afford the paycut” No worries, I got what I wanted which meant that I ended up being the highest paid.. non TL of the department for about 4 months. Sweet!

So eventually my X TL resigns, she can’t really handle the job, and so BTL comes in on the scene. Totally re-arranges everything without consulting me, or the other team leaders. This does cause me some problems. He is always away from his desk, so if I need backup, he isn’t around. He totally focusses on his team, which is good, don’t get me wrong, but the purpose of having a BTL system, is so that if one of us is unavailable, our team, can go ask for help from the BTL. Except that he decided to email me, and tell me ask one of my consultants to stop calling him when i am not around to do any escalations etc. What the hell??

He and I had a chat on Friday night, and I just basically said to him that right now, I am helping another TL look after 2 teams as well as my own. Because that is my job. When any consultant on the floor comes to me, and asks me for help, I have to help. I am obliged to help, how unfair is it of me to fob them off? How unfair for the customer ? We got onto some other subjects, and then he paused and he said, Ignore the email I sent, it’s crap, I am sorry I sent it you are absolutely right. Yay for the good guys, but damage is done. i want a new BTL*.

OK lets talk about X. I don’t know if I have mentioned that he never actually told me that he was going to turn into a woman until AFTER I said to him, hey that’s it I am leaving you. When I walked in on him, he said it was a fetish, but really, I should have known. I found porn on his PC which kinda said it all, a couple of years later. I hated keeping secrets, which is what I had to do, until I ended it.

It was the week after the annual ball for work, and he said, give me 3 weeks to get myself sorted, maybe we can try again, and I was horrified, I just wanted to end it. He even said it would be OK for me to have a lover, but for us to still be together. What did he think I was? He came back after two weeks and said you were right. I moved out a few months afterwards, and spent months searching for help, and then one day I found it. SOTS forum. Significant Others of TranSexuals. I found a place where I could cry, rant, scream and get the help i needed.

If anyone reads this and is experiencing what I went through, feel free to comment and leave an email address, and I will write back. No one should be alone.

My final thoughts on my X are this, I have definitely put many ghosts to rest over the last few months. I am looking at starting a new chapter of my life, with MM.

I have a new friend in FC, we had a rather confronting discussion last night whilst exchanging witty remarks around the place, and there is a connection there. I was tempted many times to click on quit, but when you find someone new and unique, life would be poorer without them in it.

*DA: Telco term for deny all knowledge for those peons who honestly think that their phonebill has been taken over by some alien who has decided to either call, or randomly SMS someone from your phonebook. Look at your children or rotten best friends.

*SOTS - think I have mentioned this one already, but a forum for women or men who have had partners or have partners of people who are turning from male to female or female to male.

*BTL Buddy team leader. someone who is supposed to be your backup.

April 2nd, 2007 | Category: IRC, Thoughts, Work | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL