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One year on

Like any writer, I’ve got a day-job*. It may not be as a writer, but it pays the bills in the nearly satisfying manner writing usually doesn’t. This weekend concludes a week off that day job to do a bit of parenting, spending money I haven’t got, and a little bit of recreation. It also happens to mark the 1 year anniversary of working the current job.

How was the first year?

Not great. It hasn’t been all bad, of course. I’ve learned a tremendous amount. I’ve got 2 more query languages under my belt, figured out how to use a tool called Eclipse BIRT, and have managed to become moderately proficient in reporting from a Cerner EHR database. Not to mention I picked up Tableau and aggressively honed my Java programming skills.

On Friday. The last Friday of a week of badly needed time off and the 1-year anniversary of my first full day at the current position, I got a call from work. Nobody likes a call on a day off. Especially when that person happens to be standing chest-deep in the broken floor of their father-in-law’s arctic entry way. This particular call wasn’t a pleasant, hey could you tell me where that file is? sort of call. No. This was a “I was just told someone personally complained to the CEO that you haven’t done your job and I want to know why the hell not.” sort of call.

Getting this news on it’s own isn’t really what I’d describe as world-ending. After all, I’m pretty sure folks don’t usually get fired while on vacation, so that’s a start. To rub just a little salt into that wound though, I was angling for a promotion. It was a wee-bit of a long shot, but I’ve got relevant experience and thought I had a solid work-record. After all, I have managed to do a lot over the course of just a hand-full of months with absolutely no knowledge of health-care databases or reporting. At this point, any hope of promotion is dead. What’s more, this calls into question longevity. Careers aren’t built on reports to the head-honcho that you haven’t done enough, and possibly that you haven’t done anything at all.

What’s interesting about this is that I do have a bit of management experience and have been on the other side of the table. The very same side saying, “you’re not really getting your work done here.” With that on my shoulders, the phrase “not a fit” is starting to come to mind.

I’ve only worked a hand-full of jobs. Some of those I’ve felt really out of place, only one made me really unhappy, but I’ve always left on my own terms and I’ve never been what I would call “not a fit.” In my experience with state government, not a fit, is not usually grounds for termination. It’s not at all clear that’s the case here. As the one in the household that serves as primary income earner, which I don’t particularly cherish, I can’t be in a position to be excused – so that sucks too. Aside from that, the truly hard thing to digest as being “not a fit.” is that it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m not working my ass off or producing. Because I am. It means I’m not getting it and I don’t completely understand what it is I’m not getting. To be clear: I’m doing a bad job and have no idea how to fix the problem.

So, no. This year hasn’t gone well and I don’t see it getting better. My team never really accepted me, save perhaps one person who seems more interested in shoveling off less desirable tasks and making sure that I don’t screw things up too badly. In any case, I’ve given up trying. They don’t like me or my project and I don’t see a way to fix that. I’ve got users who aren’t satisfied and don’t even feel comfortable coming to me about it first. To top it off, my supervisor is in the process of making absolutely sure that blame is laid where it belongs and that I’m spending so much time in meetings to correct the problem, I won’t actually have time to solve it. In short, nobody has my back or seems to have an interest in helping me get to wherever the hell it is I’m supposed to be.

I know my position is funded through the calendar year, and I can probably squeeze into the end of next fiscal year, based solely on staffing levels. With this hanging over my head, though, I don’t see a particular push to ensure my position is funded going forward -something the promotion would have helped. So, the only way forward at this point is to spend a lot more time focused on the company I’m trying to help build up and seeing that into financial stability as quickly as possible, perhaps in the next couple of months. Other than that, my vacation started well. Too bad it couldn’t have stayed that way through the end.

*Day-job is being used in a broad-sense here.

 

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Flash Fiction Challenge -Gamblers Paradise

The prompts: Ghost Story / Casino / Colored Contact Lenses

The air was too high. It might be a hundred and twenty in the shade outside, but it was positively frigid in this place. Her short-skirt and sleeveless top were in no way adequate for this icy onslaught. It made her exposed skin tingle, especially her legs, though that may have had more to do with her precarious perch atop a pair of fifteen minute heels. She thought if she let out a puff of breath, she might very well be able to see it. At least, she might if the toxic cigarette fog weren’t so thick.

“Wow, this place is packed,” Casey said behind her in an uncharacteristically chipper voice.

Miranda committed her whole face to a frown that was in danger of cracking, if not her face, certainly her foundation. This place was a lot of things, packed wasn’t one of them. It was filthy and lit only by the faintest flickering lights, but she could plainly see an empty slots floor. Only the jangling whir and auditory glitter suggested otherwise. She spun around, catching Casey’s eyes, something she immediately regretted. They were glowing a brilliant shade of white, reminiscent of a white shirt under black lights, punctuated by the little black dots of her pupils.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?”

Lisa and Abbey, the other two in their casino hopping party, also turned to look at her. Both pulled faces as though a sack of garbage had been dropped on Casey’s head.

“Oh,” Casey chirped, “Are they glowing? It’s my new contact lenses, they’re supposed to make my eyes more blue and also glow under black lights. Fun, right? Come on, let’s go, I want to check this place out, it looks great.”

Before Miranda could ask her about the place being packed or what she thought was great about it, Casey brushed past her and began weaving around a completely vacant slot floor. Even pausing and holding her hand out at one point.

“How much has she had to drink today?” Abbey asked.

Lisa gave a toothy smile dripping with guilt. “We may have had a couple of shots.”

Abbey groaned. “You know she’s a cheap date.”

“We’d better catch up,” Miranda said. “I don’t want to spend any more time here than we have to.”

Lisa wrinkled her nose. “It is pretty gross in here.”

The three of them walked out amongst the slots. Casey had already disappeared in the maze of color and noise. So far on their trek, they had entered some very empty places, but none quite like this. Usually, there was at least the odd chain-smoker alternating between puffs and hits from an oxygen tank while intently poking away at the machine. All she saw here were empty chairs and machines happily carrying on by themselves.

They rounded a corner and found Casey standing in front of a huge machine with a big digital display at the top flashing $5.00 per play. One Million Jackpot! Her eyes were as bright as ever. A chill ran up Miranda’s spine. This was what they’d come for. Every casino seemed to have one like it. Their game for the weekend was to find one in every casino they came to, placing one bet each. All they had to do now was stuff a few dollars into the machine hit the button and they could go.

“Did you see this weird screen?” Abbey asked.

Miranda turned her head. It was a mirror image of the casino, except that in the mirror, the floor was full of people. No, not quite people. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and if her hair hadn’t been so well stabilized with product, it would have done as well. It couldn’t have been a mirror. She didn’t see herself.

“What am I looking at?” Miranda asked.

“I like this place,” Casey said. “We should stay.”

At that moment, Miranda, and presumably Abbey and Lisa realized they were, in fact, looking at a mirror but only Casey had a reflection. Miranda held a shaking hand to her mouth as she drew in a sharp breath that stuck in her chest, refusing to leave.

“We should just go,” Abbey said in a strangled voice.

“Yes. Now,” Lisa breathed.

“But this place is great,” Casey said.

Her voice hadn’t come from where she was standing, in fact she wasn’t standing there anymore. The voice came from the mirror itself. Casey’s face suddenly seemed bonier, she had a gaunt unfed look about her, rather, the reflection that looked like Casey did. Then, the reflection reached out, pushing its hand into the glass and through, losing its flesh, revealing pale, but very real bones.

Perhaps it was because there were three of them, and they were all doing it, the air in her chest finally broke free to a bone-rattling volume. The half-formed faces in the mirror looked up at them. Only, they weren’t on the other side of the mirror anymore. They were all around, sitting at the slots. All of their eyes glowed the same as Casey’s. None of them spoke a single word, yet the cold thought came into Miranda’s head, Don’t leave.

Running in heels is a bad idea at any time, but horribly twisted ankles and scraped knees seemed a fair price as all three of them spun around and charged through the crowd of semi-substantial figures with glowing eyes boring holes into them. The three of them burst through the doors and into the stifling desert heat simultaneously. Tears were running down Miranda’s face, making a hideous mess of her makeup.

“Where have you three been?” A voice shouted from up the street. “You left me!” It was Casey, striding toward them.

Miranda’s heart thumped hard. The woman inside hadn’t been Casey. She looked back up at the casino they’d just left. There wasn’t one. It was a tall wooden wall with a bland sign reading gamblers paradise – coming soon.

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A Real Ending – Thoughts on Terry Pratchett’s last Novel

Today on my commute home I finished Terry Pratchett’s final book, The Shepard’s Crown. As it happens, this is only the 3rd one of his books I’ve read (or listened to as the case is).

Uh, Dave?

Yes?

You claim to be a fantasy writer and you’ve only read 3 of Terry Pratchett’s books?

Uh, yeah, I’m ashamed to say that yes, just the 3, and I listened to them on Audiobook, actually. To put a slightly finer point on my deep and utter failure as a human being, I only just picked one up by random accident. My wife just happened to go out and grab a random audio book and loaded it up on my iPod a couple of weeks ago.

Really though, I don’t want to talk about how I somehow made it nearly to the age of 40 without ever having picked up one of his books. What I really want to talk about is the book itself. I suppose it would have been easy enough to type a paragraph into Goodreads, but when I finished this book it demanded that I do more, say more. As you’ll see shortly I didn’t, but I wanted to say slightly more than a routine review might cover anyhow.

The Shepard’s crown is among dozens set in the Diskworld universe. It’s part of the Tiffany Aching series. I think it’s important to note that not only did I not know it was his final book when I started reading it, I wasn’t really aware that he very probably knew it was his last book. From the very outset, the book has a much more somber tone than the previous one in that series. I felt vaguely sad and reflective from the get-go. A key character dies very early in the book. It’s not a violent death, but the sort of death that perhaps any one of us might hope for. At home, after a good long life and with friends to mourn our passing. It’s written in such a way as to be just a departure to a new land rather than anything particularly final, though it’s that too.

The theme of dying and new beginnings, and in particular, new beginnings someone might not be around to see, is present throughout. It’s a slightly melancholy undertone across the whole thing, but far from ruining the story, it gives it emotional punch without being overdone. The end of the book basically gets to the point of: Life goes on, but without you and someone else will be there in your place and while that’ll be different, it’s okay. In a lot of ways, I felt that this was a commentary on Pratchett’s own departure. I mean, even after death he’s not only spinning quite a lovely yarn to readers, but also inspiring writers. That said, at no point did the book have a ‘feel sorry for me’ vibe, it was more of a, this is how it is and nobody likes it, but that’s the way of things so let’s get on with it.

While it’s true that the book isn’t quite as polished as the previous in the series, and there are a few clear loose ends, it’s every bit as good. One of the key items I was expecting to be wrapped up wasn’t, but I also wasn’t surprised to find that Neil Gaiman commented on this specifically, and that comment can be found on Wikipedia. When you run short on time, sometimes things get missed out. However, if I don’t read another one of his books, I still feel sufficiently satisfied that a slightly uneven final work can be forgiven. After all, even with some awkward transitions and a small missing element at the end, it’s still a much finer piece of work than so many other books you might compare it to.

For me, what makes this book all the sadder is that it marks the ending for a truly remarkable writer. I heard about his passing last year, but I didn’t really realize what that mean to the world. I do now and I’m not happy about it. Not at all. I feel both smarter and inspired to be a better writer after just having listened to what he’d written.

In the end though it’s an extremely fitting final book. It may be that this is why his estate has said they won’t be publishing any posthumous works, after all, why would you continue to pile more stuff on the ice-cream once the cherry has been placed?