On boredom

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Christina Kenny

Haaaaaaaaaaaah ‘tch-nhuh.

That’s the sound of me sighing as I settle into another morning as Acting Librarian and PA to Dr Dick.

I’m boooored.

OK. Not as bored as when I was working in HR on a system so slow I could read three pages of a book about Bradford Scoring in the time it took each window to load.

Or the time I was a security receptionist in the mental hospital and reduced to playing Patient Poohsticks (betting on the order in which service users are rounded up after fire alarms).

Certainly not as bored as the morning I drank a litre of filter coffee purely to distract myself from the tedium of the MoD database I was working on. The coffee subsequently turned out to be an espresso blend. I went home at lunchtime suffering from palpitations.

It’s just, you know… meh. After a hectic few weeks, this particular temp role has solidified into an uneasy stability. Since the argument (see last post) Dr Dick has been being eerily nice to me. Admittedly this is evidenced mostly in the addition of a ‘bw’ tagged to the end of e-mails, but I no longer feel a twitching in my sword hand when our paths cross in the corridor, which can be no bad thing.

The ceasefire brings with it an altogether more sedate pace of working life for both of us. Now that Dr D no longer views our meetings as confrontations from which only one party can emerge victorious, the flow of work from his office to mine is becoming regular and manageable. Requests are increasingly reasonable and issued with the vaguest whisper of a hint of acknowledgement that my hours, though part time, pass at the same rate as others at sea-level.

Unfortunately, while I have enough bits and pieces to be getting on with for twenty hours a week, not much of it is demanding enough to engage my full attention at all times. If you read D for Dalrymple’s Guide to Successful Temping you’ll already have learnt a variety of coping mechanisms for such an eventuality. Needless to say, I’ve comprehensively ignored my own advice. It doesn’t help that I have my own office and therefore few opportunities for social interaction, mischevious or otherwise. Alone in the deserted library, I generally find myself using fifteen seconds in every minute to perform almost, but not quite entirely unproductive tasks. Like e-mailing. Twatting (sorry, tweeting). Measuring myself (5”4.33’). Conceiving of and obsessively monitoring imaginary ailments (hayfever, arthritis, tetanus). Becoming overwhelmed by the conviction that my thumbs are not as other thumbs (they really aren’t). The list goes on.

To put it another way, the single most exciting event of last week was on Tuesday when I received an e-mail from Dr Dick flagged for my urgent attention. Subject line: ‘Stapler disaster’. I rolled my eyes, collected the offending device, Twatted nonchalantly about the lack of drama in my job, and promptly proceeded to lodge an industrial staple deep in my own hand.

Panicking, I ran to my friend Tracey’s office and thrust my thumb – now bleeding freely – into her face. Tracey took a deep breath, dry heaved, and shouted for her boss, the Director of Clinical Services. Reluctant to signpost my incompetence to senior management, I panicked some more, but as chance would have it none of the doctors were around. In the end Tracey appealed to the office muscleman to help, presumably on the basis that anyone hard enough to run to and from work would also be able to cope with minor surgery. I’d only met the man twice before and on neither occasion had noticed any remarkable skill in manipulating small objects, but proffered my hand nonetheless.

One side of the staple came out quite easily, while the other appeared to have made contact with bone and proved harder to budge. It finally came out with a sharp yank, accompanied by a comical spurt of of blood and a *thunk* as Tracey passed out. Muscleman stared at his bloodstained hands in disgust. This would be a hard one to save. I plucked the staple from his fingers, smiled maniacally and gaily trilled ‘worry not – I don’t have hepatitis!’ before skipping down the corridor to fetch hand sanitizer. (In case you were wondering, I’m pretty sure that I actually skipped. Like Alice in fucking Wonderland. Fail to the power many.)

All in all, a success. That little episode occupied me for, oooh, let’s say eighteen whole minutes, if you count the time spent awkwardly discussing hand cleaning techniques with Muscleman and jumping up and down on the stapler. Plus, this week’s quasi-hypochondriacal faffing is all taken care of: there’s a small black spot on my thumb which may or not be a bit of staple, so I’ll be able to research the possibility of it working its way through my veins to my heart and KILLING ME DEAD. Then of course there’s the sheen of unadulterated glamour that subsequent retellings of the story have lent my social life.

On the other hand, thirty people in the Regional Secure Unit now understand me to be an attention-seeking self harmer whose requisitioning and use of basic office equipment should be strictly monitored.

Roundabouts and swings.

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In praise of lists

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Christina Kenny

This morning I woke to find that I was suffering from a severe episode of clinical depression. It started out as a mild feeling of discontent. By mid-morning I was experiencing classic symptoms of lethargy, melancholy and paranoia. By noon I had Googled the relative half-lives of Venlafaxine, Citalopram and Lithium and was wondering if it might not be simpler to opt directly for ECT.

As I cycled from the Regional Secure Unit, envying the inpatients – who, as they merrily set light to ligature points, were clearly enjoying a state of mental health infinitely superior to my own – it occurred to me that my diagnosis might have been hasty. Regular readers may already have recognised the tendency of D For Dalrymple to exaggerate slightly when under stress. While primarily endearing, this habit has also been known to lead to confusion and unhappiness when emotions become involved; hence the importance of sitting down and really thinking about things.

Reaching the gym, I borrowed a piece of paper and sat down on the floor of the changing rooms to work out why I felt so terrible. In the morning I had lazily ascribed my mood to a single isolated factor (severe and degenerative mental illness), but I knew from experience and my shiny Do-It-Yourself CBT workbook that there would probably be other reasons. Once identified, these factors could be addressed and dismissed in turn. It was time to make a list.

I love lists. I really love them. With an accountant father and a mother who, until fairly recently, would twitch uncontrollably when discovered to be without a pad of A4 quadrille, list-making constitutes a significant part of my a) nature, and b) nurture. Nothing can beat the heady rush of conceiving lists, planning them; writing them down on clean white sheets of paper in a bold, decisive hand and a variety of child-friendly colours.

Why do I love lists? Let me count the ways.

1. Lists have the power to transform the enormous, threatening jumble of thoughts jostling for space and attention in the lister’s bonce into an
a) neat,
b) organised, and
c) entirely controllable set of (i) problems, (ii) solutions, and, if appropriate, (iii) actions.

2. Lists possess the dual function of allowing the lister to safely and happily jettison knowledge from the short-term memory. Once safely ensconced in the papery security of the list, each entry can be erased from the ‘to do’ section of the lister’s fevered hippocampus, allowing them – unhindered by thoughts of jobs undone or deadlines missed – to concentrate on more important things, like blogging or eyeliner.

3. I would love the almost limitless capacity of the process to delay actual action, were it not for the latter’s tendency to prevent the absolute best part of list-making: Crossing Things Off. I have yet to try methadrone (or whatever it is the kids are taking these days), yet defy any synthetic rivals to the throne of Getting Kicks From Taking A Pen And Putting A Bold, Unashamed Line Through Something You’ve Done. Yeah.

The wall above my desk at home is dominated by a six-point list on A3, ambitiously titled ‘Things To ACHIEVE In The Next 6 Months To One Year’. Closely modelled on my New Year’s Resolutions, each point on the list is embellished with a small tick whenever I do something to hasten its conclusion. Crossing things off the list entirely may be a long time coming, but all the sweeter for the wait. Several subsidiary lists adorn the desk itself, including ‘People To Call’, ‘Things To Purchase’, and ‘Unpacking’; a list I’ve been working on since late 2008 and am considering renaming ‘Packing’ in accordance with point three of ‘Things To Achieve’.

The lists go on. Little does my esteemed manager suspect, but his entire non-clinical workload is suspended within the steely cell margins of a spreadsheet. All hail the list that can be made between two axes! Other, mental, lists (‘Reasons Why I Am A Good PA’; ‘Reasons Why Dr Dick Is Unreasonable’; ‘Days Until I Can Leave’) will remain unwritten for now. Dr Dick has clocked the photo of Judi Dench on my desk, and his occasional glances in my direction now betray all the signs of a consultant psychiatrist who has just found a potentially fruitful case study.

Not content with splattering my mental processes across domestic and industrial spheres, I’m forever spreading list love among friends and family. My parents, whose crowning achievement remains the epic Holiday Checklist (I hereby challenge readers to name an item that doesn’t appear on this list – you will fail) need no such assistance, but Tommy and Anita have been lucky enough to receive lists of their failings on the increasingly rare occasions when text has been submitted to me for proofreading. More recently I was honoured to be asked to help a friend sort out her untidy spare room. Double joy – not only was I allowed to make lists on her behalf, but to throw her possessions into binbags with gay abandon.

I’m not OCD – far from it. A quick look at my own home and diary will dispel that particular myth. It’s just that lists are my thing (also footnotes. But I digress). Sitting on the floor of the changing rooms, I felt a sense of calm wash over me as pen touched paper. A few minutes of scribbling later, several things became clear.

Likely reasons for feeling like crap

1. Sleep:
a) quality and
b) lack thereof. The previous evening, after 3 pints of cider in the late afternoon sun, I came home and consumed a protein-rich meal with a large glass of wine at 9.30, before watching Glee online until the early hours. I then got up at the usual time and went straight to work.

Solution: self-evident. Don’t do it again.

2. Diminished sense of self-worth. For various illogical and ill-thought-out reasons, I haven’t been feeling as universally adored as I would generally like.

Solution: reclaim power and be fabulous.

3. Exercise (lack thereof). I dodged the gym on Sunday with the implausible excuse of having lost an iPod earphone.

Solution: Daftpunk. While the gym is, indubitably, totally lame, it does get the old endorphins pumping. Best just to go with crappy replacement earphones.

4. Gym fear. I’ve been offered a free personal training session that, despite my best instincts, I was obliged to accept. The forthcoming appointment has cast a shadow over my life. I literally cannot express the fear and trepidation that overwhelms me whenever I think about it.

Solution: don’t think about it.

5. Hormones (perhaps). Anita and Grace observed that I seemed ‘in a funny mood’. When pressed further, Anita reported that she was only pointing out a contrast between now and last week, when apparently I was ‘bouncing around like a hyperactive sex kitten’. I don’t know what she means by that. It wasn’t like I was rubbing myself on the furniture or anything.

Solution (if indeed one is required): unclear. Blood tests pending.

6. General uncertainty and ignorance about routes into desired work.

Solution(s): continue research. Obtain correct e-mail address for old copywriting boss and set up meeting. Continue reading. Continue writing. Continue e-mailing the agencies. Leave current job.

7. Current job. Though the last item on the list, the day had been pretty dreadful and rightfully belonged at number one for a variety of reasons.

a) Dr Dick and I had a contretemps during our 9 a.m. one-to-one (a painful interview during which I impart information and printing and attempt to obtain details of his diary by means of extreme flattery and guile). I noticed a heightened froideur on Dr Dick’s part, and it became apparent during the course of our consultation that he had gained an inkling of his unpopularity within the Secretariat. I was quizzed as to my enjoyment of my role and was forced to concede my reluctance to remain in his employ much longer. While our conversation was actually fairly constructive and certainly cleared the air somewhat (Dr Dick confessed to having been ‘psychologically traumatised’ by his last temporary PA, and I to finding his attitude ‘at best hostile, at worst offensive’), it cast a somewhat stressful shadow over the morning.

b) I minuted an excessively long and complex committee meeting on Friday which inevitably overran, compelling me to resort to the tried-and-tested ‘put-everything-in-a-big-box-under-the-desk-and-then-go-dancing’ method of desk clearing. I couldn’t face sifting through it this morning and spent the day performing less important tasks while my shins smouldered before its subdeskal, cancerous presence. This job has yet to make it onto any list.

c) Work today was interrupted by yet another fire alarm. Fire alarms at my work are stressful at the best of times. Before you are allowed to evacuate the building, you must queue up for ten minutes, flames licking your ankles, to sign your keys back in. This particular alarm went off at the busiest time of the day and turned out to be caused by a patient having a crafty fag, thus depriving me of the satisfaction of watching my workplace burn to the ground while the e-mails mounted up unchecked.

Solution(s): leave job. Find better.

As I finished the list, I felt my soul retreat from the precipice. The depression wasn’t back, and its ‘symptoms’ were clearly less hard-wired into my neural pathways than I’d assumed. I’d just let myself get into a tizz over some very real, very non-neural details of my life.

I looked up. As if to drive the point home, the one thing that could have restored me to full buoyancy, did. A red-faced, betowelled woman in an adjoining part of the changing room began to swear as she struggled with the padlock of her locker. The changing room attendant was summoned and remonstrated with. Just as the bolt cutters were brought out, the woman realised that the key did work… on her actual padlock, two lockers along. I felt:

a) joy,
b) amusement,
c) relief that it wasn’t me, and
d) restored to my usual (sex kitten) self.

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Dalrymple Dates (part two of two)

Posted on May 31, 2010 by Christina Kenny

John seemed nice: a 6”3′ (hello!) charity sector worker (ding dong!) from Tooting (zowee!) into film and comedy, whose profile picture showed a good looking guy in his mid-twenties with cool glasses. E-mails and bad puns were exchanged, and a date made for a Wednesday in London Bridge a few weeks ago.

I was a few minutes early and hovered by the station entrance. When I was approached at exactly eight by a rotund giant, it didn’t occur to me that it could be John. Assured by SB that the description ‘stocky’ when used in conjunction with 6’3” meant ‘pleasingly robust’, I realised that I had been expecting a tall, attractive version of Frankie Boyle. In the event I was more surprised than if it had actually been Frankie Boyle. Though not unattractive, John didn’t strictly resemble his profile picture – which, I suddenly recalled, had been slightly blurred.

Naturally I disguised my discomposure by being overwhelmingly and inappropriately effusive: ‘How ARE you? SO good to meet you! John, such a nice, old-fashioned name. John John John John John’. After I’d taken a few deep breaths, we walked to a nearby pub where John bought me a glass of wine. We brought our drinks outside so that he could smoke the first of many cigarettes: something I didn’t remember reading about in his profile.

At first, the conversation didn’t so much flow as drool persistently. Fearful of awkward silences, I assumed responsibility for maintaining a dialogue by inquiring about his life, work as a stockroom assistant for a chugging company, and escape plan in the event of a zombie apocalypse*. While loquacious on certain, potentially pre-prepared topics, John was pretty hard work.

Even though I was already devoting some thought to my own escape plan, I felt that I should get in another round so that at least I wouldn’t owe him anything if I left early. The next glass slipped down very easily and the conversation became more engaging. At least, I think it did. While two large glasses of Pinot Grigio on an empty stomach certainly helped me to relax, it did no favours for my short-term memory. I became extravagantly and publically lost on my second trip to the bathroom and eventually returned to the table to find that John had bought me a third large glass. As I reached the halfway point, his knee touched mine and I decided that it was time to take my leave.

We walked together to the station where John asked, rather labouredly, if I’d like to repeat the experience. I didn’t, much. While he was a perfectly nice guy, I felt no physical attraction towards him and was frankly exhausted by having done most of the conversational work of the evening. Although it would be embarrassing for us both, it was clear what had to happen. I opened my mouth to say, ‘Thanks awfully, but I don’t think it’s a good idea’. What actually came out was, ‘Hmmm, I don’t know – what do you think?’

Sensitive as I am (and as I’m sure my readers are) to the veiled subtexts of social intercourse, I in John’s shoes would have taken this to mean ‘No, I never want to see you again – but thanks for asking’. John, however, said he’d had a lovely time and that he would be in touch to arrange another meeting. ‘Great,’ I lied with a rictus smile, dodged his awkward kiss on the cheek and ran for the Jubilee Line.

John texted the next day asking if I wanted to ‘hang out’ at the weekend. Crisis talks were held with Anita and Grace and an SMS drafted: ‘Hi. I had a nice time last night as well, but I didn’t feel a particular spark. If we meet again I’d like it to be as friends.’ Another clear signal, I thought, of disinterestedness: that would be an end to it. Yet on Friday, unbelievably, another text came through inviting me to visit the Horniman Museum on Sunday ‘as friends’. This seemed faintly ridiculous; as if the first time we’d met it had been ‘as lovers’. I hadn’t bargained for this.

All the women I consulted on the matter were of a similar opinion to me: that, while what I’d said at the end of the date could have been misconstrued, the subsequent text message had relayed a clear though sympathetic message that discouraged further contact. My brother and (male) hairdresser disagreed. Both were of the opinion that the text message actively encouraged further contact, and both recommended that I refuse to meet John on Sunday. I was in agony. I didn’t fancy John, but he wasn’t a horrible person. Perhaps the museum would be fun. I knew that if our roles were reversed, I would have had to have summoned all my courage to ask for another meeting, and would have been crushed by a refusal. I really didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

And so it happened that I went on a second date, travelling for an hour and a half each way to admire an overstuffed walrus with a near-stranger who I not only didn’t fancy, but didn’t even particularly like, and to whom I owed nothing – because I didn’t want to be rude. It was like that episode of Peep Show when Jez gets Mark to admit that he’s only getting married because he’s embarrassed not to. When I got back that evening, John had requested me as a friend on Facebook. The request was declined and an e-mail sent indicating that a further meeting was out of the question. I felt like an idiot, a failure and a callous bitch, all in one. And this was supposed to have been fun.

In retrospect, it’s clear where I went wrong. I’d made the mistake of assuming that John shared with me that peculiar mixture of paranoia and self-hatred that works to transform subtle signals of perceived detachedness into overwhelming sentiments of disdain and dislike. Friends of D For Dalrymple, take note. Every so often – usually when I’m bored, stressed, or tired – if I text you and you don’t reply, I don’t just forget about it. Neither do I guess that you’re out of signal, too busy to reply, it’s slipped your mind, or you’ll get back to me just as soon as you have your diary. It doesn’t matter that I saw you recently and everything was fine, or that you replied promptly to my seventeen previous messages. If two hours go by with no reply, I become actively concerned for your well-being. By the evening of a Bad Day, I’ll be enviously imagining what you can be doing that’s so fun and exciting that you can’t make time to text back. After 24 hours I’m an emotional wreck, corroded by anger and jealousy, and riddled with guilt for whatever transgression I’ve unwittingly committed to make you HATE me.

It’s been brought to my attention before that this might not represent an entirely logical or ordered way of thinking. I remember reading once that very young children don’t start to perceive themselves as individuals until the age of of two or three. The child who cries and is fed or cuddled in response assumes that the care-giver must also experience their feelings of hunger or need. Experiencing themselves as part of a universal consciousness, they consequently tend to become confused or angry when things don’t go their way. Thanks, Piaget: that’s also me under stress. Unless I take time to think things through, or, better still, tell someone (so they can alert me to the fact that I’m being mental), I’m quite happy to waste vast amounts of emotional energy because I simply can’t conceive that anyone could be thinking differently to me. While I’m imagining motorway pile-ups and abandonment, you’re probably sitting there thinking about how much you like pizza.

So, my first date wasn’t Mr Right and I, let’s face it, can be slightly unhinged. Needless to say, the whole experience has put me off slightly. To add to my paranoia, the advertisements supported by my e-mail inbox seem have become rather more focused than usual since my last D For Dalrymple post: ‘Dating For Grown-ups’, ‘How To Get Him And Keep Him – For Life!’, and – disturbingly – ‘Discount Handcuffs And Toys’. I can’t decide how Gmail knows about my blog. Of course, it could all be coincidence, but I can’t help but suspect that some kind of invasive internet wizardry must be afoot. The implications are alarming: if a Google spider can skitter across one post of my blog and conclude that I am tragic enough to require help via webmail, who knows what my sentient readership will think?

Since its conception, D For Dalrymple has tried to adhere to a high standard of journalistic transparency; not only in the interests of entertainment, but because I literally couldn’t make it up. However, I’m inclined to make this my last dating-related post. I need you, sweet reader, to understand that I possess the capacity to embarrass myself in literally hundreds of scenarios – not just dating ones. In the greater context of my many other Fails, my romantic life is pretty insignificant.

Plus – as the talented and attractive Ed so perspicaciously points out – you never know who might be reading.

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*I’d tell you about my own zombie escape plan, but you’d only slow me down.

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