See Ya

My Dear Fellow,

A nondescript day was brightened by bumping into a very nice man on the way home. When Paul and I worked together, he was one of the good guys, always helpful and good-humoured but constantly weary from having to deal with cr&p.

"It's still cr&p," he told me with a handshake. "I'm not even moving up in the cr&p, just sort of floating about in it." He sighed. "I'm just hanging in there for redundancy," he said.

It's a shame. He had the same resigned look that a lot of people have at Slack. As I left him, it occurred to me that I've left Slack FIVE times in the past 23 years. Once in 2000, again in 2004, twice in 2006 and finally in 2014. 

That last one was the most satisfying. I was working for a manager who muttered under his breath to himself all the time. Only every now and then one of his utterances would be directed at me, and I had trained myself to tune his stream of irrelevant blether out.

"Ignoring me again!" he would claim, and get very huffy about it. In the end I lost my patience and told him he needed to make a signal when he was ACTUALLY talking to me and not just chuntering to himself. He didn't take THAT well either. So when I effed off out of his team in 2014 it was with a sense of relief.

2004 was probably the most difficult time I left Slack. That was a great team and I really enjoyed that period at work. There was a little Iraqi guy named Mo on that team. A mischievous imp of a chap - naughty, friendly, helpful and horny. All the time. He was forever sauntering around to my desk to talk to me about his love life.

"Oh, you cannot go!" he told me when I announced my extension was up. Unfortunately, I told him, I had no choice in the matter but that I would be having a leaving party at the Cask & Barrel.

"I cannot come," he said, "I am a good Moslem and there will be drinking there I think so."

Well... yes, I said. But I explained that he didn't have to drink and there would be women there.

"Women?" he said.

Men AND women, I reiterated. And given the affair would be held on Broughton Street maybe a few gay men and lesbians also. Who knew, really?

"Lesbians?" he echoed. "I will be there."

And he was too. In fact it was an excellent turn out as I recall. Even Bokhara Burnes showed up from Cumbria. I guess it is because it was a good team where everyone got along. 

Mo was delighted. He sidled up to me. "A lot of women here," he noted. "You have a very strong mojo, I think."

He was wrong about that. I do like the company of women it is true, but if I ever had a mojo, I don't think it is large enough for women to have noticed. I've stayed in touch with a lot of that team though - and it struck me as Paul wandered away tonight that I've worked with a lot of great people that I now miss. 

For example, I kinda sorta at-a-distance worked with Paul in that horrible team in 2014 and now I feel bad about feeling good when I left there.

Maybe we were floating in cr&p a lot of the time, but muttering managers aside, there were a lot of good people too. I really should try to remember that, the next time I say "See Ya" to somewhere.

Parsones

p.s. In the background is that church where me & you went to see The Peatbog Faeries that time.