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.
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Keyword noise: work, Big Dave, Wee Dave, The Cute Accountant.
In which we wonder what happened to Big Dave
Published at 10:10 am on August 24th, 2007
Filed under: The Old Office.
Talking of Room 3B (The IT Office): long-term readers (who remember the air-conditioning fight) might be wondering what Big Dave has been up to for the past few months, since he left, and what he’s been up to.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, imagination, injury, update.
A quiet afternoon at the office yesterday. Everyone sitting around waiting for the bank holiday weekend to start. And then, the bell rings.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave.
Which fits him to a T
Published at 1:51 pm on January 10th, 2007
Filed under: The Old Office.
One of the friendlier managers at the office was down in London at the weekend, and so met up with Big Dave for a drink, to see how he’s been getting on for the past couple of weeks.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave.
In which we have to save ourselves before even thinking about saving someone else
Published at 7:02 pm on December 22nd, 2006
Filed under: Dear Diary, Feeling Meh, The Old Office.
So, Big Dave has left, in a cloud of adulation and office stationery, getting ready to move house over the break. Everything is booked, and everything is ready to go, and when I get back after Christmas I will have someone new to share the office with.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, books, Celtic mythology, children's books, general knowledge, King Arthur, King William's College, literature, mythology, quiz, Silver On The Tree, Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising, trivia.
In which we’ve been banned
Published at 10:41 pm on December 14th, 2006
Filed under: Meta, The Old Office.
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.
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Keyword noise: banned, censorship, firewall, internet, Big Dave, Wee Dave.
In which there’s work to do
Published at 10:39 pm on December 12th, 2006
Filed under: The Old Office.
Today, the boss spent the afternoon over at our warehouse. It’s fifty miles away, so it does at least keep him well out of our hair, with no risk of him suddenly popping down to find me and Big Dave playing poker,* or The Good-Looking One From Accounts skiving behind my desk.**
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, breakage, IT support, The Cute Accountant.
First Christmas present bought already, but I’m still going to have to devote the weekend to running around the county hoping desperately to find something inspirational. I’m not saying what I’ve already bought. It’s for my dad, and I don’t think he reads this place, but you never know.
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Keyword noise: Anne Atkins, BBC, bedsit, Big Dave, books, Books I Haven't Read, Christianity, Yuletide, Christmas presents, house hunting, House Of Leaves, literature, London, Mark Z Danielewski, presents, radio, reading, religion, shopping, studio flat, Thought For The Day.
In which Big Dave prepares to leave, and Windows Vista prepares to arrive
Published at 4:32 pm on November 29th, 2006
Filed under: Geekery, The Old Office, Technology.
Big Dave is busy at the moment. Not with work, but with finding somewhere to live. As he’s moving down to London at the end of the year, he’s spending nearly all his office time scouring the internet for affordable flats; mouse in one hand, A-Z in the other.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, false economy, house hunting, London, Microsoft, moving house, Windows, Windows Vista.
In which we find out what Big Dave was up to
Published at 11:07 pm on November 20th, 2006
Filed under: The Old Office.
I’ve noticed I’ve been a bit lax updating recently – if you look on the sidebar, you’ll notice these past few months have had far fewer posts than before. Back in January I said to myself that I was going to try to update every day. As you can see, I haven’t been managing it.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, blogging, Blue Screen Of Death, BSOD, jokes, laziness, practical jokes, schedule, Sysinternals, writing.
Recovering from a bit of sickness. Fortunately, only a brief illness; I’m pretty much back to myself again.* I was sick enough to take time off work, though, for the first time in a few years. Normally, however bad I am, I pull myself together enough to make it into the office. I’m not going to go into details about what was wrong, for the benefit of emetophobic readers. There’s at least one that I know of.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, colleagues, exhaustion, sickness, tiredness.
In which we reflect on the past
Published at 2:19 pm on October 24th, 2006
Filed under: Dear Diary.
After I whinged to her about life for a while, my friend (and regular reader) K set me a challenge. Think of six happy memories, and the places they happened. It took me a long time, but here they are:
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Keyword noise: happiness, memories, Big Dave.
It’s Friday afternoon, and the office is in a cheerful mood. I keep hearing little babbles of laughter when I pass office doors. Noone has been phoning me up with stupid problems, and Big Dave isn’t here at all, having gone off to Italy for a week. No doubt he will come back with tales of bizarre events he stupidly got himself into, going by previous holidays – sneaking out of the country incognito after an accidental run-in with the local Mafia boss, or something along those lines.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, holiday.
Not just end of the week, but start of the holidays – I’ve got an entire week, and more, off work. Hurrah! I’ve been winding Big Dave up about it all day.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, holiday.
In which I'm on my own
Published at 9:57 pm on August 16th, 2006
Filed under: The Old Office.
Big Dave’s on holiday all this week, and most of next week too. I’ve been getting on with my work, have coped on my own, and haven’t had to call him up for anything.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, holiday, shower.
I’ve been thinking about having a new feature on the site: Readers’ Letters. I get you to write in with questions that aren’t suitable for a normal comment-box entry, and I answer them. I was thinking of doing it today, in fact, but I couldn’t be bothered to make all the questions up as well as the answers. So, if you have anything you want to ask, email my usual address: feedback at symbolicforest.com
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Keyword noise: bad driving, Big Dave, blogging, driving, Readers' Letters, speeding.
Big Dave’s latest plan for self-improvement has been under way for a few weeks now. He’s decided to study the martial* arts, and has been going to ju-jitsu classes on a Monday night. Which means that every Tuesday, when we come in to open up, he’s groaning at every aching muscle.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, exercise, ju-jitsu, martial arts, self-defence.
You can see, now, why I wanted to end the London post series early – I didn’t want yesterday’s post to merge into it. Yesterday’s post was prepared some time ago, and the last of the London series was written nearly a week early too – see, there is planning involved in some of this.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, camera, July 7th, London, photography, remembrance, terrorism.
It’s not only Friday again, but it’s my last day in the office until July. Hurrah! Come Sunday, I’m off down to London for a week, to mooch around museums, go to a Shimura Curves gig, do some geek-shopping, and generally get up to nefarious stuff. I’ve already arranged to meet a few intimidating internet people, who, I suspect, are not to be trifled with; but if anyone else would like to stalk meet me, get in touch.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, campaigning, camping, congratulations, gig, holiday, London, music, rain, Shimura Curves, travel, weather.
Apparently there’s some sort of international football competition coming around again. I’m going to do my best, after this post, not to mention it. As I might have said in the past, I don’t care about football at all. Neither does Big Dave, even though if you met him you’d probably expect him to be a supporter.* If there’s one thing both me and Big Dave dislike more than football, though, it’s the assumption that even though we don’t like football we must be interested in the World Cup. We get funny looks just because we don’t give a toss whether England win or lose.
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Keyword noise: Big Dave, England, Englishness, football, television, World Cup.
Hurrah, it’s Friday again. I have a busy busy weekend ahead, though, so I’ll probably be more tired on Monday than I am now.
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Keyword noise: photography, Samsung, Colleague M, Big Dave, weekend, local government, elections, The Plain People Of The Internet.
In which we wonder why people set themselves up to suffer
Published at 8:33 pm on March 29th, 2006
Filed under: Unbelievable, The Old Office.
In which we sort out the nation's budget
Published at 8:19 am on March 22nd, 2006
Filed under: Political.
As that nice Mr Brown of Ferryhills Road is going to deliver his budget this afternoon, I thought it would be a good idea to give him a few tips. So, in nice easily-digested bullet-point form, here’s the Symbolic Forest Budget 2006 – quick, clear the BBC1 schedule and get Evan Davies on standby!*
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Keyword noise: budget, economics, Gordon Brown, taxation, Big Dave.
In which Big Dave is threatening
Published at 7:07 am on February 23rd, 2006
Filed under: The Old Office.
Last week, I told you about Big Dave’s Impending Date. This week, I’ve been finding out what happened. This is all retold second-hand from what he told me; but this is pretty much exactly how he said it.
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Keyword noise: abuse, relationships, Big Dave, colleagues, darts, dating, domestic violence, gossip, vigilante.
Or, Big Dave may be on to something
Published at 10:20 am on February 18th, 2006
Filed under: Dear Diary, The Old Office.
In which Yuletide, amazingly, seems to be already coming
Published at 8:54 pm on December 1st, 2005
Filed under: Dear Diary, The Old Office.
Something feels wrong – it’s only December 1st and I’m already feeling all seasonal. Not so seasonal that I’ve started wrapping presents or writing cards, but seasonal nevertheless. Colleague M has already started putting up Christmas decorations. Big Dave is telling everyone what he’s getting his dad, and The Manager In Charge Of The Christmas Party is spending most of her waking hours pondering over the party seating plan, shuffling names around a complex spreadsheet with everyone’s food choices listed. I’ve been exchanging emails with all the friends who are coming back here for the holiday, planning trips to the pub; and I’m not even bored of Christmas music yet. This is definitely unusual.
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Keyword noise: Advent, Yuletide, Christmas, Big Dave, Colleague M, colleagues.
After we had one office leaving party at the weekend, it seems everyone now is trying to do the same thing. People are updating their CVs on their lunchbreak, and flicking through the job pages of the local paper. My manager has been asking why Big Dave has been leaving early so much lately. I have no idea, and I told him so. Privately, I assume our manager has been going through the same thoughts as me: is he leaving early to go off to interviews? I don’t blame him if he is, because he doesn’t exactly look happy in his current place.
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Keyword noise: career, colleagues, Big Dave, CV, job interview.
In which we’re reminded why we don’t go out much
Published at 10:31 pm on November 12th, 2005
Filed under: Dear Diary, The Old Office.
It’s not often that I go for nights out around here. Sometimes, though, you have to, just to remind yourself why.
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Keyword noise: bar, club, colleagues, drinking, Grimsby, Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, nightlife, work, Big Dave.
Or, getting suspicious
Published at 7:48 pm on October 21st, 2005
Filed under: The Old Office.
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