Change has to come from within. My epiphany came quite late, at the end of my first year at university, aged 21. That was at the end of an academic year spent in the company of an alcoholic, a decade older than me. We’d had some good times, it’s true, but we had some very …
I suppose every generation is destined to learn the hard way about bad company.
I should really take the entire winter off work. Or—why not?—forever. My brain does not cooperate.
One more reason I don’t regret not accepting an invitation to act up into my former manager’s role: the insistence on the exec team on in-person meetings which could just as easily—and effectively—be conducted online. So it is that the poor chap who took the role must set out on a two-hour jaunt from a …
Phew, just as anticipated, the Incredible Hulk has been disarmed with pizza. The comedian returns.
Friday night, and the youngun is comprising his role as tough man, squaring up to us as if we’re his opponents on the street. He’s learned to swell up his chest, looking down on us as he shoots past, dishing out threats. He’s giving us an ultimatum. We just laugh back, and carry on preparing …
How sad. The only letters I get these days are from charities begging for more money. Maybe they’re my last friends.
All these years struggling against my self, repeating the same mistakes over and over, and it turns out my problem is probably neurological. There’s a name for this collection of symptoms and possibly even potential treatments. Yes, beyond recurrent repentance. Who knew?
It’s best not to take things personally. So what if my proposal for a team is consistently turned down by the organisation, but an individual service finds the money to fund an external consultant for a year to do the work we’d do, without consulting me at all? I can’t be bothered with these battles. …
My wife wants a new patio, and a veranda too. “You can do it,” she says to me, “I believe in you.” Indeed I could, but that doesn’t mean it would be any good, or any better that what it will replace. Want a rustic patio? I’m your man. Otherwise, this is a job for …
We’re stuck, failing at jobs we hate because… We have bills to pay, mouths to feed, futures to fund… Forget the midlife crisis. Even the midweek crisis. This is the daily existential crisis, during which we wonder what we’re doing with our lives. We’re demotivated and drained, staring at screens, egging our work on to …
One benefit of raising teenagers is that it throws perspective on our own youth. It reassures us that we weren’t unique in being complete jerks. No, it seems to come with the territory.
Preserve me from PowerShell parameters, pipelines, patterns and practices. Give me a GUI anytime. Point and click, drag and drop. It’s true: I’m not a real tech nerd, for I detest the command line interface. Perhaps I’m a visual thinker.
Oh, give us strength. The right-wing press is epileptic about white poppies, all of a sudden noticed a full ninety years after they were first conceived by the Peace Pledge Union. Remembrance Day is not the time for campaigning for a peaceful world, demands the breakfast show host on talk radio. How disrespectful to demand …
It wouldn’t be the weekend without some kind of flat pack furniture to put together.
