Survivor

It's been a funny sort of week. On Wednesday I was seriously considering flying to the UK for my grandmother's funeral; this morning when I spoke to her on the phone it was almost as if nothing had happened. She's been plagued with intestinal difficulties for at least half a century, and has undergone several operations. Last Sunday her bowels were blocked again and she was whisked off to hospital in a lot of pain. Three days later they were still blocked; the doctors refused to operate due to her age despite Dad begging them to please do something. At that point Dad jumped on the first plane to Heathrow. By the time he arrived, her bowels had miraculously freed themselves, and she was let out of hospital not long after. Normally when I talk to Gran the line is bad and I only catch about every third word (it doesn't help that she jabbers at a hundred miles an hour in a Welsh accent) but this morning she was as clear as a bell.

You could say Gran is a survivor. In her thirties severe depression made her life a living hell. In those days she couldn't just "bump up her Efexor" like I can - she had to resort to such treatments as ECT. After Grandad died from Alzheimer's in 1999, Gran started blacking out for no apparent reason. On one occasion she flew out to see me in France and passed out on the plane. It was found that her heart stopped beating in these episodes, so she got a pacemaker fitted, in an operation that took five hours and nearly killed her. Last year when I saw her she was in a bad way after suffering a small stroke, but somehow she keeps bouncing back.

On Saturday I felt better than I have for at least two months. My grandma wasn’t dying after all, spring was in the air, and I didn’t have to study for any stupid exams. In the morning I played tennis with Bazza. I wasn’t expecting much. When I faced two set points on Bazza’s serve at 5-2 and 40-15 in the first set, I was expecting even less. But I clawed my way back from the brink, eventually winning 7-6 (7-4), 6-2. Afterwards I realised how much my mood affects everything I do, tennis included. In the first seven games I was spraying unforced errors all over the place; had it been the previous Saturday I’d have bashed my head with the frame of my racket, lost all capacity to think straight, and undoubtedly been on the wrong end of a 6-2 6-1 thrashing, not that I would have cared.

After tennis I did my Italian homework, spent some time on my puzzles, then went out for dinner with Julie – it was a complete rip-off (that’s one reason why I rarely eat out) but it was good to catch up with her. Yesterday I had the French club – I spoke more French than I normally do, largely because I was in a better-than-average mood.

Tonight was my weekly Italian class. I’m doing reasonably well with my Italian – it’s satisfying to feel that I’m good at something. It’s a shame I only get that feeling for two hours a week; for the entire forty I spend in the office I feel the exact opposite. The trick is not to let that affect all other aspects of my life.

Mum is flying up to see me on Wednesday. I’ve seen more of my parents this year than I have for at least five years. That’s partly because air fares have come down but mainly because they’re worried sick about me.

Triple birthday celebrations

Yesterday I didn't feel good at all. The morning's strategy meeting went by in a complete haze; at some stage I was probably informed of what work I might have been expected to do in the next few months and in what order, but everything in that meeting just bounced off me. While my colleagues discussed high-level business plans or made in-jokes that I pretended to understand, all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there. However my ears did prick up at the mention of suicide exclusions. Currently we pay out on suicides as long as the policy has been in force for a certain length of time, but because suicides make up a significant percentage of our death claims it was suggested we exclude them completely. This matter was discussed for all of thirty seconds, and I don't think we'll actually go through with the proposal, but it's only an issue at all because so many New Zealanders are killing themselves. Our suicide rate is above the OECD average and almost twice that of the UK. Why should it be so high in such a beautiful country as New Zealand? The best explanation I can come up with is that a relatively high proportion of Kiwis live in rural areas and are therefore isolated; many of these people also have access to guns. But maybe it's also because kiwi blokes don't feel they can talk about their problems. I really don't know.

After the meeting I raced off to see Andy - I was half an hour late. He could tell I wasn't at my best and that my work was probably having an impact, so he brought in a woman to assist me with my work situation. She was very helpful. I told her exactly what was going on - Andy said if it was a job interview I'd have given a good demonstration of what not to say - but there was no point in dodging the issue. So far I've managed to control myself, but I'm concerned that if I stay in my current job much longer, I might suddenly blow up and injure myself or someone else.

Yesterday was Andy's birthday. It was also Uncle Dan's 69th birthday so I emailed him, wishing him all the best at what must be a very difficult time. I don't know what it is about August 21st, but Bazza's speedo also clicked over (mentioning Bazza and speedo in the same sentence just gave me a really bad mental image). I was the only person to call him yesterday - evidently nobody else knew or cared that it was his birthday. Apparently he's dropped a few kilos since I last saw him. We'll hopefully get a game of tennis in next weekend. While he's got a new racket and should be fitter and meaner than ever, I've been almost completely absent from the court of late, so I imagine I'll be in for a tough time despite my good record against him.

The woman from the flat down the road never got back to me. I called her yesterday but she had forgotten who I was. She then remembered, so we talked for a couple of minutes until her phone cut out. I tried ringing her back but couldn't get through. I very much doubt I'll ever hear from her again. I never got my hopes up too much - I've learnt not to - but even I expected things to go a bit further than this.

I wasn't in the greatest of moods last night so I broke my "no poker till September" promise, thinking that might make me feel better, which I guess it did. I entered the next available freeroll tournament on PokerStars which happened to be razz, a game that shares some similarities to badugi and deuce-to-seven in that high cards are bad and pairs are bad. I made the top 5%, but eventually bombed out in 133rd place after 2¾ hours.

Dad came up with a clever idea for deriving an income from my puzzles, so I've spent some time today on that. I sent off my CV to a couple of agencies and did a long session on Bazza's exercise machine. It's been a gorgeous day outside, but as has so often been the case lately, it was wasted on me.

Impetus

On Tuesday I saw my psychologist for the first time in four weeks. She seemed to do plenty of catastrophising, if that's a real word, about my work situation. My work is making my depression worse; my depression is adversely affecting my performance at work. I hope to have moved from my current job by the end of November but have so far made little progress towards that goal, mostly because I don't know where to start, and because I find the whole idea of having to send off CVs and do interviews quite daunting. But there is a real sense of urgency now. If I stay where I am I'll still be depressed, and if I'm still there in the new year I'll have to sit exams again; that doesn't bear thinking about.

Back in the UK, even though the market was much healthier than the one we face today, it took me ages to find my first "real" job. And when I take into account that I only got the job thanks to a fluke meeting with a friend of one of Dad's sort-of-friends, my current situation appears hopeless. If I get another job in a corporate environment like the one I'm now in, I can't see what that will achieve. So where do I go? In yesterday's paper I couldn't find any jobs I'd be able to do, let alone jobs I'd be able to do and would want to do.

The good news is that this week at work has been sufficiently crap to give me the impetus to look for a new job. Today was easily the worst day. At one point I scrawled "I GIVE UP" in three-inch-high letters in my notepad; later I had another of my sessions in the toilet; then at 5pm I found out that my whole day spent arsing around with spreadsheets and computer programs had been a complete waste of time because I'd got it all wrong. My next step is to email a few of those job agencies - I'm not sure how I can word my emails to avoid sounding desperate.

The woman from that flat didn't get back to me, so I don't know when, or if, this drink (I don't like to use the word date here) will happen.

Something to look forward to

I flew back to Auckland yesterday morning. By end of the trip, the side effects - if that's what they were - had worn off and I was able to relax a bit. At the beginning of the week I really just didn't want to know.

Hanmer Springs was good. The town itself was way too touristy for my liking, but they'd done an impressive job of the pools. I could imagine as a treat spending half a day bathing in the hot pools and ordering drinks. I particularly enjoyed the sulphur pools, though ten minutes in that heat was about my limit.

From Hanmer we made our way over to the West Coast, staying one night at Westport and another at Greymouth. With Dad driving, we never get from A to B directly; we usually dawdle along, making sure we stop at X, Y and Z. Dad paints pictures for a living so he's always on the lookout for views that might make a nice painting. I don't mind this - I've got used to it over the years and it's his job after all - but all those extra hours stuck in the car give us many more opportunities to fall out with each other. That doesn't happen often, but I did fly off the handle somewhere between Reefton and Westport when Mum said I was boring. I'm always very conscious of how boring I am, so when my own mother says I'm boring I feel there's no hope for me.

The best day of the trip was Friday, a gloriously sunny day. We stopped at Punakaiki and tried to figure out how on earth those Pancake Rocks came about. Just around the corner we scavenged for fossils, finding perfectly preserved leaves. When I see millions of years of history like this, our own appearance on this planet seems like the blink of an eye, and all that complicated stuff we spend so much time worrying about hardly seems to matter at all.

When I got back yesterday I played pétanque again with Phil. Just like last time it was teeming with rain, but this time I came out on top, winning 13-5. We were tied at 5-all but from there I wrapped up the game in just four ends. I realise now the importance of scoring multiple points on the ends you win and limiting the damage on the ends you lose, much like in poker I suppose.

In my week off I hadn't given work a moment's thought. Well that's not quite true - I'd certainly thought about where the hell my job might be going - but the actual mechanics of what I do on a day-to-day basis hadn't figured at all. So in this morning's two-hour meeting it was back down to earth with a bump.

Tonight I had my Italian class which, as always, I thoroughly enjoyed. In my last post I mentioned that something strange happened to me. Strange because it happened to me. Two weeks ago a very nice English woman showed me her flat. The next day I sent her a text saying that although I liked the flat I wouldn't be interested in the room because it was too small; I thought it was a shame I'd never see her again. The following morning, to my surprise, she replied, inviting me for a drink. I figure she might not have many friends either - she's got an 11-digit phone number like mine (people with lots of friends tend to have shorter numbers) and she wasn't quite sure where the space bar was, which makes me think she doesn't send a lot of texts. Hopefully we'll go out later this week, and who knows, something might happen.

The Burner

I'm writing this post from Mum and Dad's house in Geraldine. It's great to get out of Auckland for a week. I flew down on Saturday; Air New Zealand have just implemented comedy safety announcements: "When an oxygen mask appears above your head, don't ask why, and don't ask if you can have it in a different colour." Mum and Dad picked me up from Christchurch airport and we stopped briefly at Uncle Dan's. It was the first time I'd seen Dan since his diagnosis with throat cancer 18 months ago; he seemed in remarkably good spirits, albeit a couple of stone lighter than I remember him.

On Sunday I went to Pleasant Point to watch Dad fly his plane at the Model Aero Club. For a while he had me fooled with what I thought were some rather nifty aerobatics, but in fact all those impressive-looking vertical loops weren't in the script at all. The electrics were dead, and the plane - which Dad had spent many evenings making - came down in a local farmer's back garden. Dad wasn't a happy bunny; he went home with his tail between his legs while the plane's tail was no longer attached. He still thinks he can salvage the situation. I realise now he just enjoys gluing bits of balsa together; actually flying the finished product is secondary.

The engine room of Mum's life, on the other hand, would seem to be the golf course. I had a hit with her yesterday - quite a lot of hits in my case. It was the first time Mum had used her new club - the Burner. By spending a few hundred dollars on this club, whose head is the size and shape of a large spud cut in half, she's become one of the "haves", rather than the "have nots", of the golfing community. We played nine holes; I consistently scored double par. Mum is out playing a tournament right now, with the Burner of course, which is why I'm able to write this post.

I still don't feel quite right. I'm not sure if it's the depression, the drugs, or something else. Tomorrow we're planning on going to Hanmer Springs which is uncharted territory for me. I wanted to talk about the strange thing that happened to me last week - it was strange precisely because it happened to me - but I'm fast running out of computer time.

Side Efexor

To counteract those side effects I'm taking on board a lot of water and caffeine. This means regular trips to the loo, so at work I get to talk to Pam the cleaning lady more than perhaps I'd like. There's one more side effect I neglected to mention yesterday: I can't keep my feet still.

That eco-friendly price-neutral bonus letter arrived today. My bonus was well down on last year, but if it wasn't for some wangling on the part of my boss, I'd have received nothing at all. I was very happy with that outcome; thankfully my mitigating factors were taken into account.

I had a look at another flat tonight; this one was basically a non-starter. The more I think about it, the more I realise last night's flat could have been a good move for me. If only the room had been 50% bigger.

I still dabble with iPredict. So far I'm up around $400 though things can change rather quickly. I did particularly well betting, sorry predicting, that Gordon Brown wouldn't resign before the next election. Of course he might still do so, but iPredict allows you to lock in profits (or cut your losses, something I've done numerous times) before the closing date of the stock. By the way, this is what BK Drinkwater, one of the more eminent figures on iPredict, has to say about New Zealand's obsession with property investment. I might have gone a bit easier on the expletives myself, but I totally agree with him.

I'll be meeting up with Andy again tomorrow. Oh, and I've just started reading The Great Gatsby.

Forgettory

That mini-boost of Efexor is now starting to kick in. My depression has abated somewhat, but at a price. I get very tired even when I've been sitting on my bum all day, my short-term memory is now a forgettory, and I'm constantly thirsty. A quick Google search suggests that these side effects aren't unusual, and they're a price I'm willing to pay for the time being.

All I remember of Friday is the presentation my colleague gave at a meeting. His talk impressed me because he's only been at the company a matter of months, and he used some sophisticated modelling techniques to arrive at his conclusions. In other words there's no way I could have done any of that stuff.

On Saturday I worked on my puzzles and then played pétanque with Phil from the French club. The bowling club down my street has a pétanque piste attached. I'm sure we were supposed to pay, but being the middle of winter and sluicing down with rain, nobody else was there. The game was a lot of fun even though I ended up soaked to the skin. I came from 10-3 and 12-8 down only to be edged out 13-12. I'm sure we'll have many more battles over the coming months.

I'm struggling to remember what happened at work yesterday, but I don't think any of it was particularly good. After work though I had Italian which was much better. An elderly couple who were about to spend a week in Italy had brought two bottles of wine along for us all to share. The Italian wasn't easy, but it isn't supposed to be, and the wine pretty much made my evening.

Today at work was a complete dead loss. The highlight was an email telling us we'd soon be getting our bonus letters. Actually the highlight wasn't that part of the email - of course I'm thrilled to be getting a bonus of zero dollars - but the next bit. These bonus notifications will have a new, more colourful letterhead which is more closely aligned with our company's brand image, but will also be printed on thinner paper to offset the cost of all that extra ink and make the whole process cost neutral. I'm so relieved it's cost neutral. We were told to give feedback about the new letterhead. I was about to reply that I really couldn't give a rat's arse, then thought better of it.
I couldn't focus on anything for more than ten seconds all day. My soon-to-be-boss spent half an hour explaining a new one-off task to me, and explained it pretty well I thought, but everything simply washed over me. By the way the tsunami alert was a false alarm; I'll be getting a new boss, my fourth since I've been there.
Tonight I had a look at a possible new flat. It had a lot going for it but I'll be saying no unfortunately, because the room isn't really big enough.

I'll be taking next week off to stay with Mum and Dad down south, and hopefully get over to the West Coast, where I haven't been since 1993. I'm very much looking forward to that.

Out of alignment

I've already totally forgotten what happened at work on Monday and Tuesday, mostly because not much happened, but partly because I was depressed. Spells of depression are often wiped from my memory.

I really enjoyed Monday night's Italian class. Matteo is a great teacher; he makes learning Italian fun while still making sure we get it right. My knowledge of French has been useful for learning Italian grammar, especially irregular verbs, though no amount of French would have helped with the verb scegliere. You've got G's and L's swapping places, and it's hard to pronounce the various forms of the verb without your tongue ending up in knots.

Yesterday I rang up two of those job agencies. I had no luck with the first one - he told me not to move under any circumstances in the current job market; when I got off the phone I wanted to scream because I worry I might have a mental breakdown if I stay in my job much longer. My prospects weren't so bleak with the other agency, but even if I did miraculously find a job through them, it would probably be with a company not dissimilar to where I am now, so I don't know what that would solve.

Last night we had a record turnout at the men's group. Nine of us were there including two blokes I hadn't met before. There was one other chap who I hadn't seen for a while; I'd been wondering what had happened to him so it was particularly pleasing to see him there.

Today I spent pretty much all morning in a meeting. I found myself drowning in a sea of corporate buzzwords and acronyms. "Just as an FYI, alignment with our core business objectives will be key in determining your KPIs for FY10". Personal freedom is important to me, so I can't say I enjoyed hearing that word "alignment" repeated over and over.

Tomorrow I've got my meeting with Andy to look forward to, and I'll be going down south to see Mum and Dad in just ten days. I should mention that I opted for the half-measure after all, and am now on 187.5 of Efexor, or a browny and a grey-and-pinky if you prefer.

Positive chi, man

I didn't get a lot of sleep after writing my last blog post. The next morning I felt terrible, so after some deliberation I decided to stay at home. For some reason we can carry over sick days from one year to the next, so I've still got 46½ of them up my sleeve.

Mum thinks I should move out of my hermit pad. She's right. Spending so much time alone isn't good for me so I'm now seriously thinking of flatting. A lot of our shop windows here are covered in ads, some of them were for flatmates so I jotted down some details, but I was distracted by the number of ads for tarot card readings. Personally I think all that stuff is a load of baloney, but so many people here are into tarot (isn't the hermit one of the cards?), astrology, numerology, palmistry, feng shui, you name it. And what's more, go into any bookstore now and you'll find a whole aisle devoted to "mind, body, spirit" with titles along the lines of "Seven Steps to Eternal Happiness". Do people really think it's that simple? And why is seven always the magic number?

I got quite a bit done on Friday, far more than I would have at work. But that didn't stop me from being depressed. Yesterday was also fairly productive (I found ten recruitment agencies that I hope to contact over the next week), but again I was on my own all day. Today on the other hand was one of the most sociable days I've had for some time. I spoke to my gran first thing, then went to the French club. At lunchtime I saw Brendan who's certainly an interesting character. He even offered me a room at his place to rent. I won't take him up on that offer for a variety of reasons. He's a bit older than me for a start - I need to find people of my own age. Secondly, though I really like his house, living in that area with all its cul de sacs and funny little roundabouts and streets all named after birds would do my head in after a while. Thirdly, Brendan is big on his communications equipment and he likes putting up signs all over his house. I'd feel I was being watched.

This afternoon I played tennis, or tried to. It was a lovely day for it, but for me it wasn't much fun at all. They had seven games of doubles going on at once; all that sunlight and noise and all those flying fuzzy yellow objects were more than I could cope with. We played sudden death deuce - I lost nine of those deciding points in a row, but really I didn't care. I just wanted to get off the court and go home. It wasn't that long ago that I used to enjoy tennis; now it's as enjoyable as going to the dentist.

I've got tomorrow night's Italian class to look forward to, but Tuesday is a potentially scary day at work. I'll find out who's being restructured, streamlined and downsized, so I'll be on full tsunami alert.

What's a proper job anyway?

This morning I was managing OK, but at lunchtime I saw Andy and I declined sharply from there. Almost vertically in fact. Somehow, after seeing Andy the outlook seemed even more bleak than it did before. By mid-afternoon I'd totally given up trying to make head or tail of one of our many Alice-in-Wonderland data systems, while by 5pm I had a headache from digging my fingers into my skull all afternoon. I was supposed to go to a French Society meeting tonight. I couldn't work out whether going to the meeting would be good for me or not, so I used the random number function in Excel to decide. It came out a "yes" so off I went. The meeting was relatively painless and I think I benefited from getting some human contact. When I got back though my parents rang and I was too far gone to disguise my depression. We ended up on the subject of jobs, which simply made me even more depressed. I should know by now never to talk about work with Mum and Dad; they have completely different priorities to me. Apparently if I do leave my current job I have to get a proper job, whatever that means. I guess that means a career. But I really don't care about career paths any more than I care about garden paths. I just want to get rid of this depression.

I saw the doctor yesterday. Tomorrow I'll be getting a supply of 37.5 mg Efexor tablets, which will allow me to go from my current 150 mg to either 187.5 or 225. I usually like to change my dose by small increments if I can, but after today I don't think I'll be messing around.

Il bloggo

Forty years ago today, man first set foot on the moon. I’m slightly envious of people like my dad who stayed up all night to watch it on a fuzzy black-and-white TV. He thought we’d be on Mars within a few years and have conquered pretty much the whole solar system by the end of the century. The Apollo 11 moon landing came at the end of a revolutionary decade, when there were no limits. Boris Johnson, who was five at the time, doesn’t think he’ll live to see a man walk on Mars, and despite being sixteen years younger than the Mayor of London, neither do I. By the way I think Boris is absolutely priceless – just watch this wonderful Youtube video of him talking about the Olympics.

I’ll never ever put other people’s stuff on TradeMe ever again. Ever. At the weekend things went horribly wrong. Fortunately the mess seems to have cleared itself up, and Julie now has a useful pile of cash, but working as a middle man is fraught with all kinds of difficulties I’d never even considered.

I felt down on Saturday, and with all those TradeMe shenanigans I couldn’t face going to the Bastille Day thing. Besides I was supposed to make something edible to take along, which I hadn’t done. I baked a quiche anyway, just for myself, but while the insides turned out fine the pastry was completely leatherised, and certainly not edible by anyone except me.

I broke my promise of no poker till September but I think I have an excuse. I got an email from PokerStars telling me I’d just received $2 but that I had to play at least one hand of real money poker in the next week or else I’d lose it. So I played five hands of ultra-low-stakes hold ’em and logged out. I still spent a fair chunk of the past week thinking about poker, even dreaming up new games that I know I’ll never play because who will I play them with?

Tonight I had my first Italian class. I got lost on the way there, and when I did arrive at the class I just wanted to go home. Everybody knew everybody and they all had worksheets that were full of complex Italian. It was all very intimidating. Eventually the teacher arrived - she was clearly not the Matteo I was expecting. It turns out they run three classes at the same time and I'd got the wrong one. When I found the right class, the real Matteo was great and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was very rusty but hopefully it'll start coming back.

I’ve got no idea what I’m doing at work any more, and even less idea why I’m still there. My colleagues are writing board papers and designing sophisticated computer models while I’m sitting at my desk trying not to go insane.

Tsunami

Earlier this week I mentioned seismology. Well on Wednesday night a powerful earthquake shook the South Island but luckily its epicentre was in such a remote location that nobody was injured. Continuing the theme, I said a while ago that the tide was going out on my job. This week it's receded even further. I'm now concerned that a tsunami could be on its way and I won't be able to run fast enough.