Reason in the wreckage

It's been almost a year since my last disgruntled post, and a lot had changed since then.

As very few of you know, my situation at the Big Bad Corporation got so bad that I decided to throw the towel in. No wait, that sounds like I gave up. I didn't give up - I chose emancipation, rather. Around August last year I decided that enough was enough, and I took a great big risk. This was along the lines of the plans that I spoke about in my last post - it just happened sooner than I expected, and with no safety net.

I started my own company. It's called 1337 Media, and it (read as I, because I don't have employees yet) specialises in custom publishing and internet publishing. The cutom stuff pays the bills. Hopefully the internet publishing will take over on that front some day soon, because that's really where I want to be. I am also supplementing the company's income by doing quite a bit of freelance journalism.

I said emancipation before and some of you - of those few who have read or might read my blog - may think that it was an exaggeration, or a joke. It's neither. I truly feel free now. I have the discipline to do my work from home, on my own terms. It's fantastic. My stress levels are at an all time low... even the stress related eczema that plagues my hands since the early 90s has completely cleared up. Sure, there are worries, but they are things that I have a modicum of control over. I feel as though I have become the captain of my own destiny (as much as the powers that be allow for that) and I feel like I am on top of the world.

Three days ago, my second website went live. The first, called Headshot SA (found at www.headshotsa.com) is a video gaming website designed for the South African market and, in all fairness, it's doing as well as can be expected. The second site, though, is cruising. Called Audiophile SA (www.audiophilesa.com) it deals with music- ALL music - and has seen a surprising response from both the industry and internet users at large. It is doing really well, considering that it is still in its early stages, and I forsee great things for its future. A third site has already gone into early planning stages, but more about that later.

So there you have it. I didn't disappear. I didn't die (although at times I wished I would.) Nope. I evolved. I changed. I grew. And all for the better.

I will try to do this more often again - I will try to do it at least once a week. My time constraints are very different now and if I want to spend time on the internet during working hours, my boss doesn't really mind.

 

Oh, yeah, the new avatar. I thought it appropriate. I have found my smile again. I also thought a change in the look and feel, as well as the name of my blog, was appropriate. 

I cannot understand it. Everything seemed to be going so well.

A lot has happened since my last post. I guess I was being hopeful. I think I believed that I would have been able to change the way that a big corporation thinks and works. Imagine that? Little old me, doing all that great stuff. But, in the end, a monolithic company that has been working in a particular way isn't going to change just because I say it must. Most certainly not. The problem is - and this is the one that is causing me sleepless nights - the way I am employed. See, I work for a smaller, more dynamic company, and am contracted to perform certain tasks at the big corporation. Unfortunately, the smaller company - my actual employer - does not understand what I am up against in trying to achieve stuff at the big company. The more I try to explain that the big company is slow and pedantic, and that I am doing my damndest to circumvent the slowness, the more the little company puts pressure on.

It's pretty amazing, really. I am astounded at the lack of understanding on either side of me. It is very difficult.

I have walked out of better jobs than this one. But, for now, my hands are tied. There are plans, of course - there are always plans when I am about. In a few days, I will tell my fellow voxers all about them. For now I am keeping them a little quiet, just in case. Until those plans pan out, though, I am going to have to hang tough and roll with this.

The last three weeks have been an emotional roller-coaster for me. I went from elation to depression to confidence to doubt and back to confidence, at an even higher level than before, all in the space of 21 days.

The truth of it is that settling into the new job has been challenging. I have had my doubts as to whether it was a good move to make, as to whether I can actually do the job. These fears, however, are slowly being put to rest as I learn more about the new position, as well as the new environment that I find myself in.

Going from a fairly relaxed journalistic background into a completely corporate environment is a culture shock,  no doubt. But adaptation and willpower are seeing me through. Add to that the fact that the work I am doing is being met with great enthusiasm, and that my ideas are being lauded, and you have a very nice combination.

The guy I report to asked me the other day: "what is it that you want?" He meant from  life, not from the job. My response was simple. "I want to stop battling with money.  And I want to cast a long shadow." He laughed at the last comment, because it sounded so mafia-esque. And then he assured me that I have come to the right place.

Here, now, I am in a position where hard work is recognised and rewarded. I am nothing if not willing to work hard, particularly when I stand to benefit from my blood, sweat and tears. Hell, I have been working hard, but in the wrong environments. This is different. This is dependable, and strong. This is where I need to be to turn my life around. Take my financial situation, for example. For the last seven years (since my divorce) I have been in a bad state. Now, though, I can turn it around. With the right discipline - sticking to my budgets and not going ape-shit with the money that I am getting in - I can be debt-free (as much as anyone ever is) by the end of next year. That sounds like a long time, but to see that light, that glimmer of hope at the end of a seven-year tunnel... it's pretty damned amazing. I have rediscovered two things that have been missing in my life for so long that they are almost alien feelings to me - I have rediscovered true positivity, and hope. It sounds all quasi-spiritual and a bit kooky, but it's the damned truth.

I know what you want to say, and no, I am not fooling myself. This is going to be tough - there will be many difficult days ahead, many horrid frustrations. But, in the end, it will all be worth it. It will. It is my will that it will be so, and so it will. But there is more than pig-headed stubborness behind that. There is a certainty, an absolute, unarguable KNOWLEDGE, that things are going to be different now.

I feel  like a kid, a thirty four year old kid with all the potential in the world to back me up. I have realised that this is a great job and I am going to be damned good at it and, when I achieve my targets (which look steep on paper, but in reality are very reachable) that I will be rewarded for doing so.

To take a quote from a Tool song out of context: "It's time now, my time  now, give me my wings." From this moment on, I soar with the eagles.

I haven't been able to  post as regularly as I would like to, because the new job is still quite hectic. However, I can with the greatest confidence say that things are starting to fall into place. I am adapting.

 

I feel so  much better.

I haven't been on holiday for two years, give or a take a month. It's a long time not to take a break, and the idea that I need to get away was thoroughly reinforced over the last two days, when I went down to the coastal city of Durban on business. The thruth is, though, that because I have changed jobs fairly rapidly over the last while, a long holiday isn't something that is viable in the near future. I am going to have to snatch snippets of vacation time where I can. This makes the fact that I will be going down to Durban fairly often quite cool, because every now and then I can arrange an overnight trip like the one I just had.

 

Although the trip was primarily business, I made arrangements to stay over on Friday night, and to meet some Internet forum friends in the process. It was a long time since I had been in Durban - 22 years, more or less, and a lot has changed there. But certain things still hold true: the air is so thick you need a spoon to breath it, the smell of frangipanis (which grow in great proliferation down in those near tropical climes) is heady and beautifully intoxicating, the whole city is really green (especially when compared to the rather dry and dusty Johannesburg - we need lots ofrain and aren't getting near enough) and the sea is perhaps the most incredible thing to witness (that doesn't require an enviroment suit.)

 

The best thing about the whole trip was managing to meet people that I have "known" for years without actually clapping eyes on them. They are all members of a South African forum that I post to fairly regularly. Although not all of the Durban crowd could make it, I was lucky enough tomeet some very good people. I am sure I will catch up with the other two or three next time around.

First off, there was Ash, who acted as my taxi and tour guide during the non-business part of the trip. A wonderfully warm and giving person, Ash and I have chatted for many years online and formed what I believe is  very firm friendship. It was great to finally meet her, even though she laughed most heartily when my shoes got flooded with cold sea water while taking pictures on the beach.

Next up, Iain, a military man who serves in the same branch of the SANDF that I did my mandatory military service in

 - in other words, Iain is a Medic. He and I got on like a house on fire, probably because we are both lecherous old bastards who have to pass a comment on virtually every woman walking past.

 

The next guy I met was Gareth Fouche, who I must admit I was a little worried about meeting. Gareth and I have reached a level of notoriety for our battles on the forum. But while his online persona may be somewhat infuriating, in the "real" Gareth and I got on really well. We talked games, of course, for a good long while, and didn't disagree or come to blows at all. It was quite surprising.

Shirley and Gareth (yes, another one) were the last two I met - the first three I had met on Friday night, while the last two I met at breakfast the following morning. Gareth has more

 or less disappeared from the forum, which if a pity - his comments were always insightful and entertaining. He's a quiet guy, apparently, and I think that Iain and my comments made him cringe more than once in the presence of the ladies. 

 

Shirley and I had become involved in a bit of a forum based argument - actually we had exploded at each other over a misunderstanding - on Friday, so I was a little afraid of meeting her. Her temper, along with her appetite, is quite legendary among the Durban crowd. So is her phobia of ants, apparently, but I won't go there. In the flesh, Shirley is great. She's really tiny. Her views on many things, particularly animals, are the same as mine, so chatting to her was very easy.

The breakfast we had was at the Oyster Box Hotel in Umhlanga, just north of Durban proper. Great food and good conversation (accompanied by far too much coffee and too many cigarettes on my part) was complimented by a splendid view of the sea and the

 Umlanga lighthouse. We moved on to the Gateway shopping centre (described by the locals as an architectural mess) afterwards for drinks.

 

The day was rounded off by heading to the Umhlanga beach to take photographs (during which time the shoe flooding incident happened.) The devastation caused by recent rough seas was more than evident, with huge amounts of beach sand having been washed away to expose the rocks below.

Sitting at Durban International airport, having a quick bite to eat before heading back to Johannesburg, I suddenly became very sad. The time I had spent there, in the frangipani scented air, was too short, and it will be every time I travel down there. I realised, once again, how easy it would be for me to leave Johannesburg behind (if not for complications with animals and relationships.) If there was a way for me to do what I do away from this city, away from the dust and dryness, near that big, powerful ocean, I would be gone tomorrow.

Perhaps one day I will be able to do that. For now, though, I will just have to contend with my work-centric almost holidays.

No truer words could be applied to me at the moment. I am finding the change of pace, as well as the overall change of environment, quite difficult to cope with. True, I have only been at the job for four days (and the powers that be seem to be extatic about my performance) but the move from a small journalistic team environment to big bad corporation is proving tougher than I thought it would...

No matter. I will adapt. That's the only option.

It might, realistically speaking, be a little early to say, but right now I feel as though I made the best career based decision ever when I left the U-Team and joined the new company. Yesterday was an incredible day and, although my mind was a little numb with the sheer amount of information crammed into it during the course of the day, I arrived home feeling very happy.

My new position is a little complicated. In the simplest terms, I work for a mobile content provider which is based in another city. They have contracted me out to one of South Africa's largest mobile service providers, where I have been placed in charge of the mobile gaming division. I have a lot to learn, but the flaws in their system became apparent to me very quickly. Now I just need to build up my familiarity with the systems that they have in place - then things are going to go great guns! They have set some very high goals for me, but I can truly say that, after seeing how things have been done in the past, none of these goals are unattainable.

I am very excited about my future in this organisation (both of them, in fact.) As a result, I have suffered a third night of poor sleep...

That's it for now. It's early, but I have a lot to do before I head off to work.

I can't sleep. I normally get up at around this time, yes, but the fact is that I have been up for hours. I am posting this because I need something to do.

I am caught in a swirl of excitement and utter nervousness. The excitement is understandable, but the nervousness maybe less so. It stems from the fact that this change is so big for me. I am leaving journalism behind to go work with one of the three (well, two, really) major cellular service providers on improving the performance of their mobile games division. Actually, I will be their mobile games division... that's quite a difference to what I was doing when I was with the U-team.

It's not that I don't think I can do the job. I know that I can. Still, though, it's the irrational, nagging doubt that's getting to me. It's sort of like when, even though you have been monogamous for years and use a condom every time, you still crap yourself when waiting for an AIDS test result. It's exactly that stupid, horrid fear.

A large part of my nervousness comes from the travel requirement. I am not going further to get to the new job, but I am going to be on roads I have never travelled, heading to a place I have never been too. The trusty map book is being dragged along, that's for sure. I hope the traffic flows. I hope I am not late. I hope my bike doesn't break down, because it's been doing that lately.

5:43. The sky is slowly starting to change colours. I will probably be leaving soon, even though I only have to be there at 9:00. I will probably end up waiting in the parking lot for an hour, or sitting at a (hopefully) nearby coffee shop trying to calm my nerves. I have no appetite and, despite not sleeping for the second night in a row, I am wired. Ha ha. No longer Unwied, eh?

It's just a matter of getting through today. The first day is always the worst. Once today is done, I will be able to breath a sigh of relief. For now I will just have to count to ten, take a deep breath, and tell myself that change is good (while I listen to the shards of my comfort zone clatter and crash around me.)

5:47. Think I need another cup of coffee.

It's done. I am relieved.

 

So here it is, the last day. I didn't sleep well last night - my mind was racing far too much. There is still a lot that could happen today, although I doubt that it will. So yeah, 1...

1 is, as they say, the loneliest number. But it also marks things that are tops - like number one on ant number of charts. Then again, on a scale of 1 to 10, one is sucking the hind tit, isn't it?

So, the photo. As you can see, it is relevant, because there is only 1 member of the original team that will be left by Monday next week. Today is my last day, and tomorrow is the last day for the other two (although a family tragedy has resulted in one of them not being here... our thoughts and sympathies are with you and your family, dude.) Perhaps the one that is left won't last too long here either. Time will, as it is prone to do, tell.

Tomorrow holds a lot of excitement for me. I am moving to an entirely new field, with new challenges and ways of doing things (as I said before.) I doubt that I will sleep very well tonight either - nerves are always present before a new job, but this is more than just a new employer...

Oh, yeah, the bike. One is significant there too, because it cost me 1 000 bucks to fix, and would take only 1 lit match in the fuel tank to sort out...