Symbolic Forest

Regular readers might have noticed that there haven’t been many posts on here lately: the pressure of various other things that come before this place. The new job, for example, is one. Going to visit The Mother and help her with various bits of paperwork, another. I was up visiting The Mother the other day, as it happens. Not only did I also fit in a few nice long walks on her local beach, which will be the subject of another post another day, but I went down the pub and met up with this chap for lunch.

In the post about the new job, I mentioned how I used at one time to write lots of posts about my colleagues, giving them all false names and talking about some of the less controversial things some of them got up to. The chap in the picture is the guy referred to on this site as Wee Dave—not his real name of course. I called him Wee Dave because he succeeded Big Dave, although of course that wasn’t Big Dave’s real name either.

I hadn’t seen him for, ooh, it must be thirteen years nearly. We caught up, on and off, about various things that had happened through the intervening time: him on how strange it was, after I left that job, to stay on for a few more years in a business that was slowly shrinking as its owner wound down towards retirement, selling off a department here and shutting down one there, until in the end only Wee Dave and a couple of other people were left rattling around inside an empty warehouse. For my side, I told him all about some of the things I’ve worked on since, some of them interesting and some of them less so.

Naturally, we also reminisced about the people we worked with and that I wrote about here. “Say hi from me!” messages were passed over, and we talked about how few of the people there we actually kept in touch with, and quite what a strange place it was to work. Wee Dave ended up working with someone else from that place at his next job; unlike me, of course, disappearing to the far end of the country. Like me, though, he’s moved from general IT work into software development, partly because it’s far more interesting and challenging than setting up servers, rotating backup tapes and generally being a systems dogsbody. We shared the usual gripes that all software developers have, such as nobody really agreeing on what Agile is supposed to mean even though everyone claims they do it. That, indeed, is something I might have a long ramble about on here some time.

Thirteen years is a long time, from one meeting to the next. Of course, as I have to go up there and visit The Mother fairly regularly nowadays, I’m going to be in the area much more often in the future. Hopefully the gap until we next have a drink together won’t be quite so long.

Keyword noise: Wee Dave, work.

Back in the day, back in the mists of time when I first started writing this blog, I wrote quite a lot about work. If you go into the appropriate category there are many, many posts of slightly-disguised stories about the various characters I worked with: Big Dave, the cute one from the Accounts office, Wee Dave, Big Dave, the office tea fund lady, and, well, usually Big Dave. It all backfired somewhat in the end: it turned out that they all knew about it, and eventually the office tea fund lady complained I was being too sarcastic about her and I was asked to stop. I’m glad to some extent that I did it, but I’ve never risked being quite that open about the people I work with again.

It’s on my mind at the moment, though, partly because I’m changing jobs soon. I’m almost at my last day in my current position, and as part of that I’m considering, when I write to everyone to tell them how to keep in touch, giving them the address of this website in case they want to read it. If I did do that and you’re reading this, rest assured, there is absolutely nothing about you on here; and none of you have interesting slightly-fictionalised names either.^*

There’s a new job starting for me very soon, and it’s going to be a whole new world: people I have no idea about yet, new things to learn, things to do, and hopefully worlds to change. I’m apprehensive about it, partly because I have no idea at all what is around the corner for me. But, moreover, this is an unusual change of job for me, because I genuinely have regrets about it. I really do love the people I work with, in a sense. Collectively, they’re one of the best groups of people I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside, and going forward into the unknown means leaving them behind. I’m only a small cog there, and my departure won’t really have any effect on the company as a whole, but they’ve been a big part of my life for the last few years.

Naturally, I’m not going to write about the new job either, although if we do anything particularly earth-shattering I might drop hints about it occasionally. When we do anything earth-shattering, of course, I mean. If I write about tech stuff on here, it won’t be anything that relates directly to work; it’ll be general tech stuff like “how the git version-control system works” or “tips I’ve learned from working in tech that are also useful in daily life”.

I’m scared, I admit, of exactly what’s around the corner. Soon, though, I’m going to find out. Whatever happens, it’s going to be an adventure, and I’m sorry I can’t bring all the people who currently work around me, with me on that adventure. I’m sure they’re going to do their own great things too, though. I’m sure they’re going to go out and change the world.

* If I do ever write about that workplace, which I doubt I will, I’ll just call everyone Matt. Most people there were called Matt at one point, so it’s probably right.

Keyword noise: work, Big Dave, Wee Dave, The Cute Accountant.

The world turns, things change, and another week is over.

Wee Dave seems to be settling in well at the office. We seem to agree on a frightening number of things, many more than I did with Big Dave. The office still hasn’t been blown to bits by the wind, although it came fairly close. The office toilets are jammed up in the attic, spread out across creaking roof-beams, and sitting up there in a heavy gale sounds, I imagine, like riding in a hard-pushed galleon sailing across the Atlantic.

The storm seems to have been blowing everyone’s heads about, upsetting people, breaking things up, putting people on edge. I blame it for all the tension that seems to be all around me.

Keyword noise: storm, weather, Wee Dave, wind.

Back at the office.

We never had time to clear Big Dave’s desk. I swiped a nice two-foot ruler, but that was all, before Wee Dave replaced him.

He seems a nice-enough man. It’s hard to tell what he’s really going to be like, when the pressure is on and we really have work to do. At the moment he’s uncomfortable, like he’s walking in a new pair of shoes, slightly awkwardly, trying to break himself in. I was in a terrible mood all day, so I feel slightly bad that I wasn’t more welcoming.

Keyword noise: Big Dave, Wee Dave.

Well, I’ve passed a milestone, or so I’ve been told. This site has finally been banned somewhere! If you’re an employee of a certain large courier company, you won’t be reading this, at least not at work. It’s not China, but it’s a start. I was chatting to someone about it in the pub last night; they were mildly disappointed not to have all this rubbish to read when they’re stuck at their desk. Poor thing.

Big Dave’s still here, for another week at least, but his replacement has been announced. He’s also called Dave, of course, and he’s starting in January. I have no idea how large or small he is, but I’m going to have to call him Wee Dave just for symmetry. I’m not really looking forward to it.

Keyword noise: banned, censorship, firewall, internet, Big Dave, Wee Dave.