Filler 5

On the way to have dinner with my mother, sister and a few other members of the extended pseudo-family last night, I found myself sitting opposite a rather cute young man. Couldn't have been much more than half my age -- maybe 22 at the outside -- which isn't necessarily my thing, but he did have very pretty eyes.

Those facing seats make it quite difficult not to look at the person opposite you, especially when there's nothing nearly as attractive anywhere else around, so a fair bit of eye-contact was made, and held for longer and longer periods, and then the odd sheepish smile exchanged, until eventually we were both rolling our eyes and grinning stupidly at each other.

I got off at the Angel, and somewhat to my alarm he did too. So I took the opportunity to introduce myself and he turned out to be called Matthew as well; I swear there are more of us around all the time -- before long the entire male population of the country will bear that name. When we shook hands he kept hold of mine for much longer than tradition dictates. A few desultory lines of conversation were made, but we clearly didn't have anything much to say to each other, and as I was already late I just thanked him for being so smiley and sweet and made my escape (having ascertained that he was going to get off at that stop anyway to change onto the 19, so I didn't have to feel guilty about having lured him off the bus under false pretences; which I don't think I did but it's always hard to be sure).

I suppose I could have given him my number or something, but that would have turned the whole thing into something it wasn't, and also opened up endless possibilities for rejection or misunderstanding or whatever that would have soured the experience considerably, so instead I just walked away with a distinct spring in my step.

I know it is shallow and self-defeating to be buoyed up by the idea someone else might find you attractive, but on the other hand flirting is such fun :)

On a completely different note, I'd like to take this opportunity to fulminate about a company that I'm supposed to be working with, which I will diplomatically refrain from naming and instead just describe in terms that should be a dead giveaway to anyone in the know.

The UK interactive TV industry is not large, and apart from the TV networks themselves, one company above all others has been around for longest, made the most noise, and done most of the stupidest things; a company that has slowly dwindled from several hundred employees to only a handful, with the result that if you ever meet anyone who works in the field (other than me) the chances are high that they used to work there; a company that has pissed away millions upon millions of pounds of investment cash; a company that is just about to relocate from its large (but hideous) offices in West London, to somewhere considerably smaller. If you don't know who it is after that, the name would mean nothing to you anyway.

As if my dislike of this company wasn't clear enough from the above, I have to say they really are the most useless and despicable bunch of cretins you could ever hope to avoid encountering. (Well, I'm sure some of them are very nice, but there's bound to be another round of redundancies any time now to clear the last few of those out.) Their dizzying levels of incompetence and unhelpfulness are a wonder to behold. Every time I have to deal with them I just want to stand on a table and scream.

This afternoon I was on a conference call with them -- an appointment they have failed to keep on four previous occasions dating back to last Thursday, just to give you some idea of what they're like -- and in these situations I can sometimes be a little, let's say, undiplomatic. But I was co-calling with someone else who is typically the soul of diplomacy, and she thought I kept in line pretty well; mind you, she hates the main person we were talking to more than I do, so who knows? The call was, at any rate, a little tense.

The funny thing was that they were proposing a really ugly and expensive solution to a deployment problem we have, and I was countering with a simpler one that they actually suggested last week and yet now deny all knowledge of. And as a result of this apparent bolt from the blue, they became really quite testy, even though it is not only a better plan, but their own. Which might have made sense if there was some profit for them in doing it the worse way, but there isn't.

Sigh.

Anyway, I think some kind of agreement was reached, and we all managed to get off the phone without screaming abuse. But it remains to be seen how much more of this we can take before somebody snaps. My boss, one of the most ridiculously unflappable and easy-going people I have ever met, is seriously at the end of his tether with this unnamed company, and sooner or later it's all going to end in tears.

Personally, I'm hoping for sooner.

On yet another completely different note, Kill Bill: Volume 1 opens this week. Woo hoo! I can barely contain my excitement :)
Posted by matt at October 6, 2003 06:18 PM