Author: Rob

R269-653

Monday March 18th 2002

I hate that.

I hate that I can remember that one letter, six digit combination almost eight years after it ceased to be relevant to me.

Let me explain. I used to be in the Ministry of Defense. Or rather, I used to be a civilian working for the ministry of defense, as an electrician. The number above was my reference number to the MoD, my code, my tag, my unique ID in the sea of bodies that work for the great lumbering organization that makes up the MoD. We needed it for everything you can think of; call in sick and you need your number, ask for leave and you need to quote it – miss a college class and your number gets taken down. Then it all goes in your file. File R269-653.

At the time it was pretty useful, I suppose – I don’t remember feeling any opinion either way on the fact I was just a number to the personnel people. There’s another funny thing – most companies have an HR department. The MoD has a personnel department – they deal in persons, or numbers, not humans which are not.

But in later years it irks me somewhat. Knowing that in some filing cabinet somewhere, under a tab marked R269-653, there’s a whole load of information documenting my every move for five years. Which days I was late, which days I was sick and the reasons for them. Every time I wanted to take holiday, except that it was called “leave” in the MoD, I filled in a form which is now in that filing cabinet, where ever it is.

I didn’t leave the MoD in the best of ways. I was stabbed in the back by men I respected – my boss and his boss, two people I really thought I could count on. When it came to the crunch they closed ranks and hung me out to dry – even lieing in front of a panel of people who were judging my future. And for what? To keep the “integrity” of the MoD? To save their own faces?

Hey, it didn’t matter anyway – I’ve moved on and made a success of my life, to a point far beyond I could ever have gone with the MoD. So I don’t really want to dwell on what went wrong, how I carried the blame, how my entire family used to talk about me at family gatherings, saying I’d screwed up my life because a job with the MoD was a job for life. I mean, why dwell on that? It would only make me bitter in a way that frightens me.

To forget completely, though, I would need to forget that number. And that’s the difficult part.

Outatime

Sunday March 17th 2002

I’m suffering from a lack of time at the moment. Weekends seem to disappear in a blur, and the working week is almost over by the time I get a handle on things. Not sure what I’m doing wrong, but I need to slam the brakes on somehow and spare some time for stuff I want to do.

I have never been a genius at time-management, even getting a Palm personal organizer for my birthday last year has failed to cure what is a fairly seat of the pants life style. Not that I do much on a daily basis that I’d consider to be frantic. I just seem to run out of time and I cant quite explain why.

I’m thinking that a lot of it hinges on how tired I am. I spent most of last week in a daze due to insomnia, so even when I did have a couple of spare hours in the evening, I didn’t feel motivated to do anything other than sit in front of the TV. This week I’m going to try and take control by making myself go to bed at a sensible time. Perhaps a routine would help too, like, if I decide that Monday night was jogging night, Wednesday night is five-a-side night and Friday night is pub night, I can do the other stuff on the spare days in between.

Hmmm… but what about computer night, games night, skateboarding night… and other stuff. Wow – this is harder than it first seems.

Anusaurus

Wednesday March 13th 2002

I just received an e-mail from Paul Sowden of idontsmoke.co.uk which leaves me slightly dumbstruck. I was mistakenly under the impression that if you kept a weblog and you spent every single day on your soap box, that you actually invited comment from your audience.

Paul said on his site that he thinks that lower case stuff is “so 2001”. So I sent him a mail – and I swear I was just having a bit of fun, pointing out that his page title and a couple of other parts of his page were in lower case.

I wont paste his reply here, as it’s just… *sigh*, you know – I really should have guessed that someone so anal couldn’t possibly have a sense of humour. What the hell is the world coming to, I wonder? Answers on a validating e-mail, please.

Anyhow, I have been visiting Paul’s site every day now for months – I think I found it last October or something when he was mentioned on ALA. But over the last week or two he’s made some pretty rash remarks and my guage on the value of his comments has swung to the negative during that time. Fortunately I’ve found another journal that contains similar thoughtful content… but without the holey-er than thou’ posturing. Guess you’re back down to two visitors a day, Paul.