Two Days Down - Three To Go !

Image via CrunchBase

It's been an eventful week already.

Last night, my lovely tenant sheepishly confessed she was moving out to live with her boyfriend and would I mind her breaking our contract?

Apparently she's been 'working' on her other half since before she moved in with me. It  appears her latest ultimatium to him has done the trick.

When faced with such uncompromising determination, I didn't have the heart to tell her that holding a 'gun' to a man's head, to get him to move in with you, isn't necessarily the best strategy or foundation for a lasting long-term relationship.

Her timing is of course pants, but compared to her predecessors at BB Towers, she's been a dream.

She's engaging, almost funny (it varies day to day and it's always gothically black in tone!). She hates cats, is mentally sane and is mercifully devoid of the strange disordersprevious BB residents distinguished themselves by as pill popping while drinking wine, overeating in their bedroom or persistent addiction to spending, extended amounts of time in fluffy or towelling dressing gowns !

Also in her favour is the fact that she's given me a decent notice period; which by previous tenant standards is akin to winning the spare room lottery.

On top of my tenant's news, today I was told my latest gig has been cut to a meagre week - yes, it's that same old chesnut 'lack of budget' I have heard all year.  It wasn't just me, two other contractors heard the same speech alongside me.

I felt quite sorry for my line manager who broke the news with considerable awkwardness; knowing that myself and one other person there, had taken the risk of leaving longer gigs behind, figuring the prestige of this one made it worthwhile taking a chance on.

I didn't want to make him feel anymore uncomfortable (one of the others launched into a spirited rant about messing with people's lives, but as an old hand, he should know the score and probably didn't do himself any favours!).

I simply smiled sweetly and said

"No problem".

I figure, just because it's now a mini-mini gig doesn't mean I won't still learn something while I'm here and at least I get the chance to be creative, something I've been crying out to do for ages.

I made a list of objectives for the week and am steadily working my way through them. First up has been a Twitter clean-up.

Because I'm a slightly enthusiastic connector, I used to followback (with the exception of adult naughty ones, super discounted viagra and incontinency tweeters) nearly everybody. But not anymore!

I am now Queen of the Twitter Culls, having despatched hundreds of 'followings' with my weapons of choice - my fingers :0 )

Since retail consoling therapy was out of the question, I went one better and treated myself to lunch at Pret. 

My guardian angel or that moment of serendipity that pops up on your shoulder every now and then; just to remind you in a surprising way, that smiling really can make you forget 'pants news' temporarily, came in the form of a heavy dose of eavesdropped laughter.

The table beside me was occupied by two young triple threats -dancers-slash-models-slash-actresses.

Listening to their brainless chatter - about who they thought was fat and who wasn't. Who looked rubbish in their audition showreels and just how many hours they should spend practising their monologues over the next week; I have to admit, it was pretty hard for me to stop laughing out loud.

Conforming to just about every model stereotype going, guess what the nutritional backdrop to this riveting back and farth between the ladies was?  Two tiny plastic boxes of salad each. It was all I needed to put the smile back on my face and to happily dive into my sandwich, coke and chocolate brownie :0 )

Another New Gig

So this week has been a say hello, wave goodbye kinda week.

My 'stalker' read my last post and decided to send me a text to tell me she wouldn't bother me anymore.  The irony for me of sending me a text after my last posting, shows exactly how completely opposite we are.

If I were her I wouldn't have texted me at all. It felt like it was one last attempt at elicting a 'guilt ridden' response from me. Akward!

Yesterday I finished my latest B&B job. I have now had so many of these little gigs, they are truly worthy of their own Facebook timeline!

This one was a longer than average booking, making it a rare and pleasant gig that I was throughly grateful for. However, it came with a price tag.

This gig distinguished itself by giving me the realisation that just because the a building is beautiful and the people inside it are lovely, it doesn't always mean things are going to work out honky dory.

When I first joined the team, I knew I was a square peg. Not alien with two heads kind of square peg. Just line in the sand, different.  I'm a creative professional through and through; with a heart, soul and sensibilities,  so creatively ingrained, that I have discovered I am incompatible working within the straitjacket of a hardcore corporate gig.

The gig was at one of those formal environments, masquerading as not being so formal, but strewn with politics and people that you on not account upset!

Just before I left, I received some pretty challenging 'feedback' from my line manager, saying I was great at my work, but was just a little, how could he say it, it had been commented (which always reminds me of one of those newspaper 'a source said moments') that I was 'too much'. Too loud, too funny, too informal....too everything.

In other words he asked me to try and not be so well BBish !

The joke of course between us my dear readers, is that as we know there are two faces of BB - the kid in the candy store, optimistic, annoying (particularly in the morning I'm told, because I love mornings :0 )hopeful, excited about every single day and ridiculously grateful when she has work.

Then there's the over-critical, more than slightly fearful diva who is just a little jaded and just a little bit more than frustrated at still not landing her big break.

That sometimes frankly toxic BB, is one I don't feel I have to put on display to people least of all my work colleagues and quite frankly why park your crap on someone else's driveway? So I favour and for the most part are kid in the candy store BB.

As he tried to assure me that I shouldn't take the feedback too personally (well when it's directed at you, it's kind of hard not too!) and that all I had to do was be less me and more mindful of sometimes being annoying.

I lasted two weeks as the new BB. Two of the most miserable weeks of my working life, during which I considered the validity of my feedback, wrestled with my disappointment that whoever was hacked off didn't think I was approachable enough to tell to my face, or simply didn't have the balls to do it.

I kept my head down, waved goodbye to my sarky one-liners and barely spoke just in case I 'annoyed' my more obvious 'non-BB fans'! Then thankfully, I got the opportunity to move to (don't get too excited people, its another very short-term gig *sigh*) a more creative environment.

BB of say 6 months ago, would have clung to the wreckage of that long gig, put up with feeling crap and just taken it, but fortunately I'm made of stronger stuff, so I took the plunge and left.

Don't get me wrong, part of me is horrified at my reckless devil may care take on the situation, particularly with the market as it is. How do I square my behaviour with myself ? Easy I've had worse 'constructive' criticism before;  but where I draw the line is when you take a pop at my personality and who I am. 

That's a no go. End of. Not through arrogance, self importance or self-help driven love overload on my part, but because I know myself and I think I rock. I'm a good person, who treats people how I want to be treated (and that includes my ex stalker:0 ) I embrace positivity - well usually.

What's hilarious about the whole thing is that I trained up my replacement perfectly. I wrote a handover  bible, downloaded resource documents by the ton and co-ordinated his entire training programme.I ensured that he had everything, that was lacking when I joined the team.

So much for me being a square peg huh? I was without question more ruthlessly organised about how I left this gig, than I've probably been anywhere, because of what was said to me.  Call it a case of look what you are allowing to walk out of the building syndrome :0 )

We've all met that nut job at work. The one who has characteristics we may actually loathe at times, but for those moments of magic and incident they conjure up around us, we humour and hold onto them. I never thought of myself as being that nut job, until now:0 )

I am what I am and who I am. If you don't like it, then Houston we have a problem.  I consider myself lucky and fortunate, that nearly all of the people I interact and connect with think so too.

Now for one of those unexpected random moments that I love, I've just landed an impromtu gig to take photos for a a client at a function.

 Did I also mention that as well as rock star BB, I'm a very lucky BB too!