November 10 (Wednesday): The Return Of The Curse Of The Creature’s Ghost.

My own personal Sept 11th can be traced to two dates that have been life changing for me and vital to my development as a person. The first day is/was 10 July 2000 and the second date is/was 10 November 2001, so today on the third anniversary of that, something potentially equally life changing my have happened today.

This date starts with a dream, a strange one where I am having a conversation with Steve Lamacq about the death of John Peel and how he inaccurately tells me that Peel died on air.

I awaken buzzing about music. This morning begins with the usual blah blah MSN with Sara, I think today we toss a coin to see whose turn it is to whinge. I check my downloads and so much has finished through the night, mainly the tracks of the John Peel Festive Fifty shows, which freakily are not just the tracks but the actual radio shows themselves clipped into MP3s. These are mind-blowing. I listen to the Hole song “Olympia” (later renamed “Rock Star”) and I could not express my feelings about the music scene any better. Also downloaded are the KMD tracks from the album “Black Bastards” (very subtle) and they are genuinely fantastic. Today my late nights/early mornings have caught up on my and I feel rough. At 8.30 I find myself sitting on the toilet with my stomach twisted in knots and my head pounding against the wall, when actually 8.30 is the time I really should be setting off for work. I come within inches of phoning in sick but I don’t do sickdays.

Eventually my train gets going and I walk into work, seeing a neighbour on my way and jokingly quaking “I am so late”. I manage to arrive at work just past 9.00 and I am the first one in Chernobyl. I settle down to get into work, perusing what developments have occurred at my “work station”, seeing who has been touching my stuff and what jobs remain on my desk. Almost immediately after I arrive, JS comes over and asks me how I am. I reply “pretty good”, tempted to mention I feel rough but instead responding “how are you?”. He replies “not good” and tells me that he has seen my website and that it has caused him a difficult couple of days. I always knew this day was coming and I know there is absolutely nothing I can do. John sits down and tells me it is unacceptable etc and words spray at me but as my mind goes into overdrive with my flight/fight survival instinct/response I go into autopilot and comply with anything he says. It is the weirdest of situations, he tells me how he had a script writer or something in the previous day and how my writer is much better than his. Some kind of praise comes my way but it cannot overcome/override just how unprofessional my actions have been. John tells me that I am suspended with pay and that I should probably reconsider my career (a positive suggestion). I am now suspended for the next three days with view to returning for a hearing/meeting on Monday it seems where John says “we’ll see from there” and I state in a resigned manner “you’ll probably give me the boot won’t you”. Apparently someone legal is now looking at my/this Blog and reviewing the content. This means reading about 600 pages I estimate, poor fucking bastard however has to read that. John tells me that he is ten pages into it. He picks up on some specific content, some really stupid stuff put in for yuks (using rubber band reality and half truths) and certain comments made about other work colleagues which the world could really do without hearing about. The real faux pas is that I mentioned clients by name and I’ve always known this was the most dangerous of grounds, I remember having to sign Fit And Proper contracts annually at other accountancy practises forbidding such acts and “sharing” of information. I make comment to John that this could be “legal soup” and he smiles and shakes his head, which is kind of sign/body language for “you dickhead”. Everything is being done professionally and legally and as John goes over to his office to get my Suspension notice/letter, I panic and grab my employee handbook. John asks me for me for my keys to the office and tells me something about some incident that happened to him when he was at the same stage in his career that I currently am at. Unfortunately I don’t really understand fully what his story is about/means but he points out he was 21 at the time. I am currently 28 which is a seven year gap in progress points of a career. He tells me to go home and study (“make good use of the days”) and to “not give it too much thought”. He adds “don’t go and put on your website Seymour is a fucking cunt”. I shake my head and say “I don’t think that”, slightly hurt that he would consider me so low as to do something like that. To be honest, a long overdue conversation about work and me, I would be happy to have had there and then but I suspect now it is all too late, the damage has been done and bridges have been burnt. I tell him “I don’t dislike the firm/job but I am so frustrated at where I am in my career and how its not progressing”. I leave and he makes comment about the unflattering comments I have made about some of the female members of staff in the office and this is something that will make me a bit red-faced (when I come out with these things I probably think I’m being cool like Henry Miller or something and standing up for all men shit on my women. Dumbass). As I stand outside I ask John is he has seen Ernie from Sextons lately because all this work/employment trouble/problems just smells of the same stink as Dad is currently going through.

I walk home with an air of “why did I bother getting up, getting dressed, and going to work today”. I don’t immediately fall into a state of self pity, I just wonder how far all this will take me and in the long run, worrying about just how much damage it will do. However, by the time I arrive home it has dawned on me that this is my first time off work in a year and a half (all my holiday having gone on study) and the holiday before that was only the hell trip to California last April. Soon it occurs to me that the blog has actually served to be nothing other than some kind of explicit executive stress record.

I arrive home and immediately I bump into my groundskeeper; oh fucking great, at a time like this just the person I want to be seeing/dealing with. I can’t be arsed to sugar-coat anything and I tell him all that has happened with the hope that it frees me up from his inane banter about local organised crime and who in my apartment complex is good and who is bad. Today he is pointing fingers at the two girls who live together as being on the game. I can’t however get off the topic of my job threat but this is something an uneducated sweeper will struggle to fathom.

I get in and properly read the letter I have been given:

Dear Jason

I am writing to advice that, with immediate effect, you are being suspended from work on full pay pending an investigation into an allegation of gross misconduct and misconduct on your part. It has been brought to our attention that you have a personal website that you maintain and update on a regular basis and that the content of this website contains inappropriate reference to the Partnership’s employees, partners and clients such that would be severely prejudicial to the good name of the partnership.

We understand that you spend work time composing entries for this website; we also understand that you have been using work time to do your study.

This suspension is to allow a proper investigation to be made into thee (sic) allegations I will keep you informed of the proceedings and you will receive a copy of the investigation report when the investigation is complete.”

That doesn’t read very good initially. I look at it blanked several times over. I “spend work time composing entries for the website”? I don’t even have a fucking telephone on my desk, let alone access to the internet. And I apparently study at work? Let them people attempt to lug the huge BPP text books into work on a thirty walk, believe me if I could study at work I would but it is not actually physically possible.

Allow I wasn’t actually asked to bring down the website or close it, I do promptly get in touch with Marceline asking her advice and I take a quick crash course in HTML. It appears I can’t pull it down temporarily, I can only delete the whole thing. This I don’t want to do. We fuck about with it for a bit though and only manage to go and ruin the punctuation marks. Pain.

I then head over to Allen and begin asking him his advice on the situation, he is my rock in these times of shock. He sorts me out somewhat but also points out the truth I always knew also; “it was only a matter of time”. He tells me to chill out but also adds “you might want to call a lawyer”.

I also email Phoebe, who is less than sympathetic. Cow.

Well, with time on my hands and no good being worried until the hearing takes place, I set about arranging my flat and getting my house in order being that this is really the first time since Apr 03 I have the opportunity to do so. I set today aside to re-arrange Bohemian Grove before studying Thursday and Friday and returning to work on Monday I suppose (as suggested by John).

At lunchtime Acton comes online and here is another listening post at this time. He also responds in disbelief at what has happened to me and the more I tell people about it, the more it takes shape for me and the drama diffuses slightly.

I continue with the flat tidy and head out at around 3.30 for food and newspaper. Suddenly I am seeing the world as per the daytime and all the housewives and pensioners slow getting in each other’s way.

I continue to sort well into the evening and soon it becomes apparent the big tidy up is a job that will last more/longer than today.

In the meantime I check my Soulseek and see that Waking Life has downloaded and when it comes to sleep, I put that on and watch it into the early completely in awe, even in the worst of times I dig but find myself unable to take it in fully.

Now well into the early hours and wide awake, I slip in the Mr Show Season Three DVD to raise spirits, which fortunately puts me properly to bed. The opposite of good night being bad night.

np: The Catheters – Bleary Haze