December 2004 Archives

Well. What an afternoon we had. I needn't have worried about Son Number One telling me the plot of the show, because if I'd have paid even the slightest bit of attention to the title of the show, I'd have realised that it followed the plot of the film pretty closely. Knowing the ending didn't spoil my enjoyment however. It was very well put together, well acted (or skated, or whatever) and highly imaginative. What else is there to say? It's Disney, so quality is pretty much guaranteed. And also guaranteed is exorbitant prices for souvenirs. The programme was six pounds, a Woody toy nineteen pounds. Bucket of popcorn a fiver, 2.20 for 500ml of coke, need I go on?

Needless to say, we didn't get many souvenirs. Since my cousin S bought the tickets, I offered to take everyone out for dinner after the show. Looking back, it may have been a bit harsh of me, but I couldn't afford to buy him any souvenirs, not with buying dinner for four as well. Couple that with the fact that my ex told me he'd been badly misbehaving at home and didn't deserve any treats at all, and you have the recipe for disaster. "Buy me a present daddy!" he demanded. "No, I can't afford it" I replied. A punch and a kick to the shin was his response to that. "Now you're definately not getting anything." "You're pathetic, and an idiot" "Yes I am, deal with it". And so it went on. The more obstinate he got the less I wanted to buy him anything, and the less I wanted to buy him anything the more obstinate he got. It all culminated after the show with me giving him a clip round the ear (the first time I'd ever given him more than a light slap on the wrist) and a severe shouting at. I didn't care who was watching or listening, he'd been a horrible brat all day and I was fed up with it. Towards the end of the show he realised what his behaviour was like, and was begging "don't tell Mummy I've been naughty, I'll get into trouble".

But I did tell her, not because of any alleigance to my son, but because she'd got the idea that he sees me as the "good parent" and her as the "bad parent", because she disciplines him more than I do. There are many reasons for this, the main one being that he spends more time with her and she's got to make sure he eats his dinner and goes to bed early on a schoolnight etc etc. When I see him at the weekend it's invariably more relaxed and fun. Most of the time, anyway.

So she was glad that he was a little bugger with me as well. Proved to her that he doesn't always get away with murder when he's with me.

Parenting is never the easiest thing in the world, and parenting when you're divorced and don't always want to talk to the other parent is even harder. But we need to sit down and work out how to handle his behaviour, if only to provide some continuity for him. I have a feeling his mum can be a bit harsh with him, and I think she also has a feeling I can be too lax and generous. She wants him to get used to the idea that he only gets presents on birthdays and special occasions, whereas I want to buy him something whenever I feel like it. Definately need to make sure we're both praising (and punishing) him in the same way, and for the same things. I bet the poor kid's as confused as hell.....

Christmas for me can be summed up in one word this year - different. Never before have I spent a christmas day with no turkey dinner, with no screaming kids running around, and with no televison (well, not much televison). Instead I spent christmas day with my parents at their house, stipping wallpaper in my old bedroom. Told you it was different!

My parents have decided, a mere 20 years after I moved out, that it was time to redecorate my old room. The room had been used initially as the computer room, until they redecorated my brother's old room about 10 years ago and moved the computer and all its paraphernalia into there. So my room was used as "the spare room", where the grandchildren slept when they stayed over (sometimes one, sometimes two, occasionally all three), where my grandmother slept while she was in between houses, and where I slept while I was in between houses a couple of years ago. I can tell you it was certainly a strange experience moving back in with your parents and sleeping in your old room again at the age of 35, after a break of 18 years. The room was still complete with the "Eddie Kidd" sticker I stuck on the chest of drawers back in 1979, and the table my dad built in 1978 so I had somewhere to do my homework when I started grammar school. I remember when all the furniture went in, but I don't have the faintest recollection of what the room looked like before it all went in, nor do I remember him actually building it. So the room has looked pretty much the same as I remember it looking my whole life. With the exception of some new wallpaper and some new shelves on the wall above the bed, it's looked the same for the last 25 years, sliding door and all.

But no longer. Last Monday my dad and I ripped out the wardrobes he put in when they bought the house in the mid-60's. We ripped out the homework table, the "new" shelves, and the bookcase he put on the wall for my schoolbooks to live. Some of the timber we took down to the tip, but a fair chunk of it is downstairs in my living room right now, waiting for me to decide if there's anything I can do with it. There may not be, but you never know.

Last Thursday I made arrangements with my ex about seeing my son over the next few days. I'm back in work from Wednesday until the end of the week, so we were both keen that I should see him again before then. We arranged that I could have him Monday afternoon and Tuesday afternoon. Not only does this give me more time with him, but it also gives his mum a bit of a rest! So my cousin S and I tried to find something to do with him on these two days, and it occurred to S that it would be a good idea to take him to see Disney's Toy Story on Ice at the MEN Arena. We tried to check with my ex first if that would be ok, but she'd turned her phone off at that point, so we booked the tickets anyway. On Saturday morning I had a call from the ex. "Can you make sure that when you bring him back today that you don't forget his hat? We're taking him into town tomorrow to see the Disney show." Gah! "Ah", I said, "I'm taking him into town on Monday to see it as well." "Well, we bought the tickets months ago. Don't worry about it, I'm sure he'll enjoy the show twice." He'll enjoy it, yes, but whether I will enjoy it with him telling me everything that's going to happen next is another matter. Ho Ho Ho hum.

It's time to make another post I think, mainly because I don't like looking at my site and seeing a completely blank page!

I have been sooooo busy this month it's unbelievable. Things have got manic at work in the last couple of weeks, mainly because I'm the only person in the IT department of a multi-national company. Well, two countries qualifies as being multi-national, and no the other country is not Wales! (In fact, make that three countries.)

I've been debating whether or not to post this story for a good few days now, and I'm going to risk it. I'm going to try and avoid any possible allegations of slander or libel by not mentioning anyone involved by name. Let's see how it goes. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin....

There are three main people involved in this story, myself, my manager (Mr M) and the company chairman (Mr C). It all started way back on December 9th (pause for a moment while the screen goes all wobbly in a cheesy flashback style). First, a bit of background. We are in the middle of upgrading our IT systems and have called in a foriegn company to write an order entry system for us to use in our retail branches. This system is now 12 months behind schedule and Mr C is rapidly losing his patience with it. Fortunately I was not involved in the process of choosing this company, nor did I have any great input into the design or specification of the new system. We'll just put aside the fact that I know every line of code in the current system like the back of my hand, shall we?

Anyway, Dec 9th was crunch day. Mr C was due to phone his counterpart in the foreign company to find out how close the system was to completion. To make sure he had his facts right, he phoned his IT department for clarification of the outstanding issues. Only problem was, this was the day Mr M had booked as a personal day, so it was down to me to brief the chairman. Of course, I didn't know all the answers to his satisfaction (mainly because I was busy doing a lot of the day-to-day running of the office and wasn't directly involved in testing the new system). So I got called in to the boardroom and was given a sound bollocking. I was very very tempted to hand in my notice there and then, and the only thing that stopped me was the fact I don't actually have two or three months salary in the bank to fall back on. I think you'll find my reaction was eminently understandable when I tell you that during this dressing-down I heard the phrase "the IT department is a waste of space" and "I have a friend that can give me a complete new system in two weeks". H'mmmm....

Ok, so I survived that, Mr C decides that he's prepared to wait until the following Monday, and if the system isn't right by then he's going to chuck it all in the bin. Friday comes and we get a new release of the system to test. Mr M looks at it on Friday and again on Monday morning. By Monday afternoon Mr C comes round and asks if it's all ready yet. Mr M tells him it isn't. Now, I can't remember exactly how it all happened (partly because it was over a week ago now and partly because a lot of it happened out of earshot) but basically Mr C lost his temper and started ranting and raving. Apparently he'd been led to believe that one of the problems with the new system was a major problem, whereas in fact it's the sort of thing that would only crop up four or five times a year and cost us a handful of quid each time. Nothing really to worry about on the grand scale of things. I heard raised voices in the boardroom, and then Mr M was called in. More raised voices. Then Mr C storms out of the boardroom and stands myself, Mr M and another colleague in an office and starts shouting and screaming at all of us. Now, this particular office is situated right in the middle of the building, so basically everyone in the whole company heard the ranting and raving. To his credit, Mr M remained calm throughout and responded in a perfectly normal tone of voice. I think the last straw came when Mr C accused Mr M of not being able to understand English (which in my opinion is not always the best form of man-management there is).

Finally Mr M said "I have nothing more to say on the matter" and Mr C stormed off back to the baordroom. At this point Mr M declares "I'm not staying here to put up with this" and he leaves the office. I haven't seen him since. I spent the next 90 minutes twiddling my thumbs and waiting for 5 o'clock to come round (well, you would, wouldn't you?)

The following day I had to summon all my will-power just to get out of bed in the morning and drive to work. I arrive half an hour late. No-one bats an eyelid. I spend the rest of the morning twiddling my thumbs, then bits of work start dribbling in. Since then a whole load of work has poured in and I have to handle the testing and installation of the new system pretty much on my own, as well as all the day-to-day work. Since I am the only person in the company who knows how a lot of this stuff works (certainly the only person who knows how to fix things when they go wrong), everyone is treating me very very gingerly at the moment. I was supposed to have this week off work but they asked me if I'd come in today to make sure all the end-of-year stuff went without a hitch.

Soooo, at the moment I'm doing all the work but on the same salary I was on last week. I don't really know what I'm responsible for and what I'm not responsible for. I don't want the manager's job (if they offer it to me, haha, I had that job a few years ago it was "mutually decided" that although my programming skills are not in doubt, my management skills leave something to be desired. Maybe I should be taking lessons from Mr C, ho ho) and I don't want to stay as an underling for the rest of my life.

Hence I'm trying to spend every spare moment in a book, learning all about programming windows-based applications with Microsoft VB.Net, which is all very technical but I'm slowly but surely getting my head round it. I just hope that once I've passed the exam (and at 90 quid a pop for that I'm going to make damn sure I'm prepared before I put myself in for it) then someone will recognise that I'm not a complete idiot and offer me a job. Permanent or contract, in my home town or 200 miles away, I'm not all that fussed at the moment.

So that's my month so far, how's yours going?

There seems to be an awful lot going on in my life at the moment. I'm writing to my solicitor about a couple of issues which I'm not going to air in public, and thinking about that is taking up some time. I'm also trying to teach myself some more up-to-date computer programming skills with the intention of changing my job in the new year - and that's taking up all the rest of my time! So don't worry, I haven't fallen off the edge of the planet, I'm just busy doing other things at the moment. Everything's up in the air at the moment, and as soon as some of it lands I'll write about it here.

...from the ex-wife, moaning that this week's child support payment was £5 short. I told her it wasn't that easy to get a fiver out of cash machines these days, so she asked me to make up the difference next week. "Oh by the way," she finished, "happy birthday."

Well, it was!

This evening my mother picked my son up from school and took him swimming. So I went round to mum's house to see him for an hour or so before my ex came to pick him up. While I was there my mum said "Why don't you ask your daddy that question you asked me earlier?" So he did. And this is what he asked: "Daddy, is God really real?"

Well.......

I could have referred him to the answer I gave to his last awkward question, which was a resounding "I don't know" But instead I took the adult approach. I told him to listen to what everyone had to say about God and then he should make up his own mind. He goes to a Jewish school (as did I at that age) so he's going to get a very baised opinion from there. I remember when I was about 12 someone asked a Rabbi at school where all the dinosaur bones came from, since dinosaurs are not mentioned anywhere in Genesis (to my recollection, anyway) and he got the answer "God put them there so that we could find them." And ever since that moment I've taken all religion with a pinch of salt. I remember thinking at the time "That answer was a bit of a cop-out." So to this day I still don't know whether I believe in God or not. I go for a walk in the country and marvel at the beauty of the landscape, and I think the world is a fantastic place to be in. Then I end up buying Live Aid on dvd, and that makes me think that if the world really was such a wonderful place, then Live Aid wouldn't have been necessary at all.

So I don't think about it too much. I'm not a "big picture" kind of person. I'm a fairly solitary person who just tries to get to work without crashing his car, to get through the day without pissing the boss off, and to eat a home-cooked dinner in the evening without poisoning myself. Of course that's not the be all and end all of my world, but i think you get the drift.

And I'm still looking for a good answer to my son's other awkward question: "When I get older, am I going to die?" Maybe I should tell him to ask God...... as it is, I tell him that medicine is getting better all the time, and when he's older, maybe people won't die. Cop-out? You decide.

Sussed it No need to go into all the boring details, except to say that I had two similar ideas all tangled up in my head. Now I've untangled them, and life is good again.