My web team proposal is officially dead. Nobody has any money. In its place, an AI-augmented single-person model. An annual saving of £140K right there. Not that this kind of spend was ever seriously on the cards. But we must moot these figures to focus minds should I mention automation or custom tools. No, but I know: there’s no money for anything. In other words, business as usual. It does make me laugh when suppliers say they can help us with efficiencies.
I did everything necessary to exit an unwanted contract on time. Produced the options appraisal, made a sound case for termination, won executive approval, all agreed well in advance.
The problem? The head of service tasked with notifying the supplier forgot to action it, after confirming in writing they would.
Yet more evidence that if you want a job doing properly, just do it yourself. Now we’re lumbered with an unwanted contract we will not use, in a time of constrained budgets, with no flex in the system.
I know my social gaze is problematic. For the past twelve years, I’ve resolved the issue by working from home and generally only socialising with those I trust.
But now we have two adolescents in our midst who remind me daily that my gaze is broken. “Why are you staring?” they bark if I happen to glance at them momentarily.
Yes, I know, there’s something wrong different in how I operate in the world, be this social perception, communication, or sensory processing.
So far, I’ve not found a way to resolve these issues. My fix: avoidance, pure and simple. Don’t go out into the world, unless from a safe distance, like via a webcam across a conference call.
At university, a fellow Masters student became convinced I was an awful racist as a result of my gaze avoidance. But the real reason I was gaze avoident was because I thought she was quite beautiful. A common theme, it turns out.
So much conflict through the years because my eyes either lingered too long, or because they avoided eye contact altogether. There are probably subtle social cues I miss altogether.
Sadly, I don’t know how to fix this. Those I have asked tell me there’s nothing wrong with my gaze at all. And yet I know from experience that it has long sparked conflict.
So all I am left with are apologies to those I may have upset through the years. Sorry if my eyes told you something I never intended. If only we had spoken to one another.
Oh, like that university student with whom I eventually became good friends, once she realised I was just a bit shy and socially awkward, and not an awful racist after all. It’s good to talk.
Alas, hindsight strikes a quarter of a century too late. All that strife from college, university and the early years of employment begins to make better sense now that I have a better understanding of myself.
The trouble with me… I always embark on writing projects I have no hope of ever completing. The latest is no different, and all of a sudden I have paused.
Looking at all the moving pieces — the complex character relationships, multiple timelines, varied formats like emails and messages, corporate documents, physical challenges, family dynamics, cultural elements — I realise it’s all too much to juggle in my limited spare time.
Even if the story had potential and addresses important themes, the current scope is just too ambitious for the time I have available. At this point, I have several options:
- Simplify the story significantly, focussing on just one main thread and strip away the rest.
- Break it into smaller, more manageable pieces, and maybe write it as a series of connected short stories or episodes.
- Scale back the format complexity and stick to straightforward narrative.
- Save it for when I have more time; sometimes good stories just need to wait for the right moment.
- Try writing just one complete episode as a standalone piece to test the waters.
- Abandon the whole project altogether.
I know there’s no shame in recognising that a project might be too big for my current circumstances. Better to be realistic than to let it become a source of stress or frustration.
And so, once more, I throw yet another scrappy manuscript onto my pile of misadventures. It’s true that I dream of being a writer, but reality stands in my way. I never finish anything.
Had to be done.
My dear colleague, why are you arguing with me about copyright law? Your insistence on doing it your way has no bearing on the reality of the rules. It is what it is.
How can someone supposedly so intelligent be so dumb?
Have I been heard at work? Don’t get your hopes up. Everyone made the right noises, but I have been here before. All the proposed solutions have been mentioned repeatedly, only to go nowhere at all. I won’t consider it progress made until I see action in place of words. Until then, it’s all just talk.
I’m starting to think I could be a Head of something. I have far more skills than the Heads of around me. Though, admittedly, that is a very low bar to surpass. This morning, I taught a Head of how to copy and paste text from a web page.
The snow came down thick and fast on the school run this morning, but it was the blizzard of racism on the car radio that really caught my attention. Are we back there again?
To dull my domineering nafs, I deliberately neglected treatment for several years. And, in my mind, it worked. I felt in control, my spirit subdued, my vigour vanquished.
But that apparent spiritual success may have been a mere mirage. What I perceived to be progress may have merely been melancholy, and my self-restraint an intense lethargy.
Of course, everyone around me could see that long before I could, diagnosing depression, anxiety and personal neglect. It would take an almighty crash for me to see that too.
Still, there was something appealing about that period of self-restraint. I miss it now, as my soul responds to every scheming call that fleets across my mind.
I am a man who feels like he has a hundred browser tabs open in his mind, each one vying for attention constantly. Neglecting treatment was my way of shutting them down, and silencing that inner clamour. Success of sorts.
Now I know that is not the solution. That course of action comes at too great a cost. Weak and aching bones should not be embraced. The lethargy and melancholy unfair on all who must live with me. The side effects hardly justify perceived positives.
No, I suppose I must find a better way to manage my scheming nafs. True self-restraint that can only come from God-consciousness, if only I could muster some. All of us have a little of this — the stuff that ensures we never miss a prayer, or still fast even when no one else is around.
If only I could apply this to every fleeting call of my ego, and remain constantly alert to all that undermines me. I tried treating this with the physical. Perhaps it’s time to delve deeper and call on reserves beyond myself. To ask of the One in whose hand is my soul.
Reminder to self: on this day, four years ago. Are you sure you’ve achieved nothing in life?
One day, while tidying up the office, I came across my manager’s notes from my job interview. At the top, she’d scribbled, “Overqualified?”
It turned out that I was. On my first day in post, my manager sat with me and went through my job description, stripping out everything that had attracted me to the role.
Apparently, between applying and arriving, office politics had conspired to convert the role from interesting project support and intranet management into glorified personal assistant.
I should have gone back to my old job then, realising this new one was a clear downgrade. But instead, I remained, hating every minute of it. It felt like a three-year sentence I couldn’t get out of.
Why not aspire to something greater? Well, as my grandmother would have said, “Beggars can’t be choosers!”
I was never able to access a graduate-level job back then, and only have now through very slow internal career progression. Indeed, on paper, I’m more qualified than most of my superiors.
My first degree should have carried me into a role in the civil service or an international NGO. My second degree might have transported me into a fruitful publishing career.
By now, on the right career trajectory, I might expect to be a head of service, director, or mid-tier diplomat. But it was never meant to be, for I couldn’t get my foot in the door.
Why exactly? Because I simply couldn’t sell myself at interview, nor had the confidence to pursue more ambitious roles. That has a lot to do with my neurological profile, but also with how I am perceived by others.
I suppose that remains true to this day, as organisational politics conspire to curtail and limit opportunities. For someone like me, it feels like there is nowhere to go from here: that I have reached my plateau.
Some of this may be psychological, borne of self-doubt. When deriding myself for a small error earlier this week, a colleague told me they had always secretly been intimidated by my genius.
It seems others see my potential far more than I do in myself. Perhaps that’s why I let others take credit for my work, or let others undermine me as collateral damage in their own great ascendancy.
Some people were always destined to be the rising stars of their workplace, enjoying stellar careers. Not me, though. To this day, I remain stifled by my cognitive limitations, current and historical.
But alhamdulilah in all circumstances. Despite all that, we have reached a state of stability and comfort through frugal living. We have achieved much more than we could have done — and than my old teachers expected me to.
There is evidence to suggest that men with my condition are more likely to experience underemployment or unemployment compared to the general population. Perhaps I’ve been more fortunate than most in this regard.
The early days seeking employment were hard, and the later days tiresome and slow. But in the intervening years, I’ve come to a better understanding of who I am and what I am capable of. I don’t expect much more than this.
