Friendaversary

My Dear Princess and Dear Friends,

It is precisely one year since my life changed for good.

I had my first online meeting with "Saffy", this peculiar little person who apologised profusely for not wearing make-up and then started going on and ON about te reo Māori room names, leaving me bemused and cynical.

"It will never happen," some people in the office told me afterward. "Don't spend too much time on it."

If you take a quick peek at yesterday's entry, you will see how wrong they were. And how patronising I was. 

Despite my cynicism, I decided I liked this sparky, funny woman right away. Cynicism has served me well and protected me for years, but very soon I found it blown away by the enthusiasm and warmth of one of the most unusual people I have ever met. 

And Shenée IS unusual. I have not conveyed the half of it in these blog entries. I have tried, but it is impossible to wholly put across her energy and sparkle. This is a woman who I have seen LITERALLY dance and wiggle with joy in the office. And that is just at regular levels of happiness. When she is ESPECIALLY happy there is a quiver of excitement in her laugh and she will look like she is on the verge of tears and she'll say, "Oh I can't! I just CAN'T!" 

"I can't see an animal without hearing her voice in my head," Corrie told me yesterday. I know exactly what she means. Shenée gets in your head. At the moment, I have a blackbird that comes to visit the house and he has a tufty untidy feather on his head that gives him a little feathery mohican. And every time I see him...

OMIGARSH! BAY-BEE! I CAN'T! I JUST CAN'T!

When I met Shenée last year, I was not at a low point. Or at least, I didn't think so. I had just come off shitty project #58 in my career and didn't care. Work was this soul-sapping THING, this toad that squatted on my life and robbed me of joy. But that was normal. Everyone I knew felt the same. Suck it up.

In re-reading my blog I can see it took her about three months for her joy and enthusiasm to blow away my cynicism and doubt. There were two key moments for me. One, when I told her about my favourite ever project manager and noted IMMEDIATELY that she started emulating him. And two, when we were in a coffee shop and she explained that she suffered from depression. 

She has always been remarkably open about this. She refuses to be stigmatised. It's a thing that happens to her. And she deals with it. 

And I remember the moment she told me about it, and suddenly all my cynicism just drained out of me. I loved her from that point on. And when she and I got into a fight with the Marketing department my love for her intensified, she made me feel like we were together in this. Best friends against the world.

She has had a difficult past. She had vicious bullying at school because of her Saffy accent, she experienced an abusive relationship. And she's dogged by these traumas which drain her self-esteem. This is why she values friendship so much I think; she often seems amazed that anyone could actually like her.

(When in fact, she is loved by so many people. I don't think she really truly realises this.) 

Unfortunately at work, she's experienced a lot of resistance from petty-minded mothereffers because she IS so honest and forthcoming. 

She refuses to suffer fools at all, and when she comes up against people who say NO because REASONS she refuses to accept it. 

BUT WHY REASONS? she asks, often forcefully and with a complete lack of diplomacy. And typically her ineffable logic wins the day (usually after an unnecessarily protracted fight) and she ends up making the mothereffers look sort of dumb. I've seen this happen three times at work now, but I'm sure there have been other occasions.

Petty-minded mothereffers do not like that. And they hold grudges.

When Shenée fought for me to be on her project in May of this year, she came up against REASONS and won the day. And I was so happy -  you probably noticed. Working with her from June through to August was the best job experience of my life - it didn't even feel like work. And the atmosphere she fostered created this hothouse of friendship. 

I remember mourning the fact that I would never have friends like I had made on the RX project. That was a project that took up five years of my life and in that time we became like family.

"That could NEVER happen again," I remember thinking. "I'm too old and besides, who would run a five-year project these days?"

I was so wrong. Shenée bonded all of us in under three months. My dear Fazzy, you are family to me now and we will be friends for life. And I hope I'll always have Corrie, Ellie and Jeff in my life as well. I know I'll always be welcome in Sam's home in Auckland, and even though I've only just got to know Losi, it feels like we'll be going to the pub and having a laugh before long.

If I look back on this year, I smile. It's like a montage of ridiculous moments - of Shenée FREAKING OUT over plushies of birds. Of Shenée singing and dancing when the Vengaboys came on the radio. Of Shenée pulling board games down from shelves in Counter Culture, like a six year old girl on Christmas morning. Of Shenée gripping my hand and making me cheer for a horse in the movies. Or how about the time she ran around and around a pillar in her hotel room because HER HOTEL ROOM HAD A PILLAR!!! Or the fact she gives EVERYONE nicknames and learns all about their pets, their children and their hobbies. I have a delightful mental picture in my head of her shuffling and preparing - VERY SERIOUSLY - to try to win a game by catching velcro poos on her head. And there's the picture above - of the two of us celebrating Xmas in July and pointing at "Kotare" because we both know it is the te reo word for "kingfisher".

Then there was that time she showed a chicken to her laptop while she was in a virtual meeting and said, "LOOK! I'M ALLOWED CHICKENS IN THE HOUSE!" There's her booming belly-laugh when she's said something rude. Or the way she claps her hands and throws her head back and gasps for air when someone else has said something rude. 

I introduced her to her Irish roots by teaching her "Sláinte" - and she now takes delight in toasting every time we are out - "SLAN-JUH!!" she smiles at me, and we clink our glasses. 

Of course Shenée is not perfect. She's just a person and when she's stressed she can be dismissive and abrupt. 

I raised this with her - just the once - and she called me back in TEARS immediately, apologising profusely. 

I forgave her of course. What I began to realise is that the pressure on her has been immense lately. It's not the project. Those petty-minded mothereffers would just not let things lie. Despite Shenée begging to be left alone, they've been sharpening their knives for her, moving goalposts and outright making shit up.

"I think they just want to mount my head on the wall like a trophy," she said sadly.

And that is why, on our one-year friendaversary, after I'd sent her a nice message, Shenée called me back to say she has started looking for a job elsewhere. Essentially, they've finally won.

It is a bitter blow and obviously I can't go into detail here. 

I suppose this should validate my initial cynicism about organisations that run IT projects. That the people in charge are small-minded, short-sighted, dead-eyed and uncaring. It's like when Andre left Standard Life - one of the most competent Project Managers I ever had - forced out because his face didn't fit. That broke my heart too.

But although I am crying a little as I type this, my spirits are in fact ok. That is because I know Shenée will succeed wherever she ends up. I know she'll get glowing references from the people she actually worked for - as opposed to those who are currently coming after her. 

And as a postscript to my Andre story, I see he is now back as a highly-paid CONSULTANT at Standard Life* and that makes me happy. I would be unsurprised if Shenée didn't do exactly the same one day.

As for me, I'll never be the same after this year. Oh, I expect my next project will be shit and I'll be grumpy about it. But I've learned a few tricks from my friend Shenée. I've learned about how to build a team and forge relationships. I've learned how to be happy in the workplace. Most importantly, I've learned that it is possible to be happy at work. And that I don't have to settle for anything less. 

I'm eager to try it out in my next contract - wherever that is.

In the meantime, I've got four more months on Shenée's project to go. And while it makes me sad that she will likely not be around to see it to completion, it makes me happy that I'll be surrounded by a team she turned into a family. 

So here's to you Shenée - I absolutely love you. I'm a better person because of you. A person doesn't expect to have his life changed at the age of 52 - least of all by a peculiar little bum-waggling chicken-fancier - but that is what happened to me.

Sláinte, Gromit.

S.

* Or whatever you call yourselves these days.