January 14, 2005

Work 2

If you've been reading WalkyTalky for a while -- and let's face it, if you've made it this far into this entry you probably have, since new arrivals tend to be looking for something that they immediately realise they aren't going to find by reading blog postings -- you might have noticed that I have a rather complicated relationship with work. I'm not claiming this as a particularly distinctive characteristic. I've known workaholics and I've known committed idlers, but the majority of people are a swirling admixture of both. In different proportions, of course, but also at different levels of emulsification. In my case, it's pretty fucking blobby.

Work is, unquestionably, a curse. At some level it is always driven by the overseer's whip. It is both a product of necessity and a social construct. We work to live; we live to work.

Things were not always this way, but this is the way they are. Like the biological organs that fuckwit anti-evolutionists propose could never have developed by natural selection, work accreted its own scaffolding, and built itself, and then dismantled its supports to the point that it almost seems to have arrived by fiat. It is, in that sense, an Act of God. An Intelligent Design.

(I so hate those fuckers I can barely type... but that isn't the story for today.)

On the other hand, work gives life shape. Usually a pretty crappy shape, but a step up nonetheless from being without form and void. Come here. Do this. Go there. Do that. I have a ten o'clock meeting. A four o'clock seminar. I need that report by tomorrow. This has to be done yesterday. Sorry, I've got to take this call. Can I put you on hold?

When she walks she's like a samba
That swings so cool and sways so gentle
That when she pass--

Thank you for continuing to hold. All our operators are busy at the moment, but your call is important to us so do keep waiting. You are currently number 36 in our queue.

--give my heart gladly
But each day when she walks to the sea
She looks straight ahead, not at me

I am not, exactly, unhappy with my current employment. It is stressful and time-consuming and difficult and frustrating and sometimes I feel like I want to drive a sharpened pencil through my throat right there in the open plan office, but there are also times when I am actually achieving things, however irrelevant those may be. The people are friendly and -- as I may have mentioned once or twice before -- the commute is unbeatable.

It's also like being on an alien planet.

For instance.

I am 37 years old and this is the first job I've ever had where I feel like a fucking closet case. I have been there for five months and, to the best of my knowledge, three people in the office know that I'm gay. I can't believe I can even put a number on it, let alone that it's that small.

One of those three asked me directly, at a drunken post-work pub outing (an unusual event). The dialogue went something like this:

- Are you gay, Matthew?
- Yes.
- No, I said are you gay?
- Yes.
- People don't just answer "yes" to that question.
- They don't? What else am I supposed to say?
- Do you want to fuck me, Matthew?
- Er...
- Because I want to fuck you...

As you might imagine, there was a lot more to the conversation than that, but not for public consumption. I didn't sleep with him. He's very attractive but he's a work colleague, which can only mean trouble, and also, as far as I know -- which admittedly isn't far -- has a girlfriend. This was in the midst of a lot of other work people, but the music was loud and we were vaguely separated, and I don't think anyone else heard. Certainly, word didn't spread.

This was brought back to me the other night when I went for a meal with some people from the office; six colleagues and me, including both of the others that I know know.

Socialising with workmates is a hit and miss affair and this was a hit and miss evening. We drank, but since we were drinking beer, which I loathe, I drank slowly and then not at all, and ended the night sober. We ate, which took an eternity, in a tasteful but completely deserted Indian restaurant off Brick Lane. I was pathetically hoping to get home in time to watch Desperate Housewives, and declared as much up front, but the whole thing wore on and on and sometimes there's no polite way to leave, so I didn't. (There's a repeat.)

Much of the evening was very pleasant. There was a lot of conversation, not all of it work-related. People were nice to me even when I didn't deserve it. No-one was malicious or offensive. No-one, in case you were wondering, was overtly homophobic. Fun was had.

But.

I gradually found myself feeling more and more alienated from these people. A creature from another world. We had lots of common ground and the idle banter flowed freely over it, but it became apparent to me that they didn't -- and don't -- have the faintest clue who I am.

It also became apparent to me that I don't think I want them to.

Travelling home late that night, in the freezing cold, I was really angry with some of them about things that I can't even describe. Completely unreasonable things. Shivering and despondent, unable to flag down a taxi on Commercial Street, raging, raging against the dying of the light. I suppose it all boiled down to: how fucking slow on the uptake can you be?

I mean, look at me:

closet case

Right.

So here we are.

My job is another world, and I seem to be actively trying to keep it apart from myself. Partly this is the nature of the company I work for -- certainly it's not the most cosy and social of environments -- but mostly I think it's just me. I like these people well enough, but I don't want to give them anything more. Work occupies so much of my life and so much of my time that in the end I just want say enough, already. Enough.

Validate me. Make me real. Pay me. Leave me the fuck alone.

Don't ask. Don't tell.

As I said: a complicated relationship.
Posted by matt at January 14, 2005 08:40 PM

Comments

Trite though this may sound, I feel your pain. Your description is very akin to what Pakistani workplaces are like (excluding the propositioning).

Posted by: Sin at January 15, 2005 10:49 AM

"- Do you want to fuck me, Matthew?
- Er...
- Because I want to fuck you..."

All you versatile people baffle me.

Posted by: Faustus, M.D. at January 15, 2005 01:30 PM

Well, you fixed-role types are a bit of a mystery to me too.

I'm not convinced this guy was being that literal, though. He could have been using "fuck" to mean more generally "have sex with."

Either sense would have been fine with me :)

Posted by: matt at January 15, 2005 06:29 PM

I tried to post a comment but unfortunately wasn't allowed to post it because the posting software considered it contained "questionable content" (which it didn't).

Posted by: Frank at January 16, 2005 10:47 PM

Are you sure?

If you want to send me what you were going to post, I may be able to identify and fix the problem.

Posted by: matt at January 16, 2005 11:24 PM

I think you should have done the colleague.

Mainly because I believe in making life deliciously complicated and that work is at its most exciting (and therefore least dull and most bearable) when such inappropriate shenanigans are afoot.

Especially if he has a girlfriend.

Posted by: Eurodan at January 16, 2005 11:34 PM

I'm in agreement with Dan. In a world cluttered with annoying and imperfect things like work, gratuitous complication can provide a wonderful distraction from the horror of it all ;-)

Or since you describe the colleague as "very attractive" perhaps you could just fob him off on one of us?

As for your "alien planet" comment, I've been patiently awaiting the return of the mother ship for some decades now. On its arrival I feel certain that everything will at last make some sort of sense.

Posted by: Shyboy at January 17, 2005 12:39 AM

Add one vote for doing the colleague. If he has a 'girlfriend' might also be a useful part of some belated process for him.

Posted by: Max at January 17, 2005 03:09 PM

It could be worse. You could work where I do where almost everyone is 50+ and married. Going out after work is not done. Better to have a casual acquaintance life than no life at all.

Posted by: Trish at January 19, 2005 02:36 PM

Comments for this post are now closed, but feel free to email me if you have something interesting to say.