“Alright Bob*”
“Hello Matt.”
“You alright?”
“Yeh mate. You?”
“Yeh, not bad at all.”
“Good good.”
“Listen Bob, I just wanted to ask, that woman you came in with, that’s your ex-wife is it?”
“Yeh.”
“Ah right. Is she a little bit, you know, a bit, sort of, well a bit of a dinger?”
“You mean on drugs?”
“No, I just mean is she mad?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Just cos, she doesn’t look like she’s playing with a full deck of cards, if you know what I mean.”
“Well yeh, she’s a bit mental I s’pose. Been mates though for 10 years, since we divorced.”
“Ah right.”
“Yeh she’s OK. Fucking ace shag. You can have a go if you want?”
* name changed to protect those named.
The next time I write a design contract I’m going to include a clause that says something along the lines of:
“If you take an unnecessary amount of time to deliver site content to me thus delaying the completion of the project, then I’ll include a 10% surcharge of the total project cost for every week that it’s late”
I won’t go into the specifics because I don’t think it’s professionally sound to do so, but put it this way – I’ve been working on a website for a client where I have delivered everything they requested within a more than prompt timeframe. The project is currently held up waiting for the content to fill the site. To be honest, I couldn’t care less whether or not the site is completed insofar as content going up, but whilst I’m waiting to be paid because the site is not technically finished, it is a considerable headache to me. I need to get paid, not only because I have to pay my rent, but because I have done the work requested and it’s not my fault we’ve been so substantially delayed.
Freelancing is certainly not without its pitfalls, as others would probably agree with.
That was fun last night. One lad turns up to the door. Looks quite young.
“You got some ID please mate?”
“Er, yeh, dunno, hang on… there you go”
Hands me his driving license
“Thanks buddy, but this says you’re 17.”
“Huh?”
“You’ll be 18 on the 7th of August this year. You’re not old enough to come in.”
“OH.”
About 2 hours later, he comes back with his also under-age mate
“Is it alright to come in, yeh?”
“Are you taking the piss mate?”
“Well, um, er… what?”
“You’re 17. Now piss off.”
Not only did the cheeky little sod try and get back in even though I’ve turned him away about 2 hours previously AND clearly think that I’m that stupid that I’ll have forgotten him or can’t figure out his age, it gets better.
We’re having a look at our CCTV cameras. One of the other doorman turns to me, wondering if the guy he’s spotted in the garden, was the same chap. It was. He’s jumped over the back fence, negotiated the massive piles of rubble in the outer garden (it’s being renovated) and is now stood happy as larry in the garden area, talking to his friends.
Needless to say, my eyes lit up, when, as I entered the garden after hot-tailing it through the foyer, through the top dance floor, down the back stairs, through the inner garden and out into the garden, I notice it’s both him AND his mate, who’ve done the cheeky. I approach them from behind, wondering whether I should wait for another doorman to join me. Sod it, I thought. Should I take one first, then come back for the other? Sod that, I thought. Yoink. One on each arm, marched through the inner garden, and launched out of the fire doors (timed beautifully so that the force of them going through the doors, made the doors swing back and hit the guys on their way out). Gone. And don’t fucking come back.
I really like situations like that. There’s no black and white. There was no question that they were leaving. There was no asking them politely, or anything. Just gone. Literally out. See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya.
But to launch two at once is a first for me. And the timing of them on the doors was perfect.
Sometimes I really like my job.
I spend 18 months getting a soft classification algorithm (written in Fortran) working. It underpins the core of my research. I refine it, I develop it, I make it mine. Without it, I’m screwed. I go back to use it today to find that the so-called Information Systems Services have discontinued the Irixcompute box that I had it running on. What do I have in its place? Solaris or Linuxcompute. Will my code run on either of these? Will it bollocks.
Aright, so it’s probably my shoddy coding that’s at fault here, but still. Tossers.
… and shove your eyeballs up your arse” is something I was told last night. 4 big men who I told weren’t coming in the club weren’t too amused at being turned away.
“I’m ASKING you FUCKING nicely, we ain’t gonna cause no bother. Alright? I’m FUCKING asking you FUCKING NICELY, can we come in?”
In my book, asking me nicely does not involve standing in my face, shouting (and spitting) and swearing at me. I don’t think some people are used to shortarses like me giving it all back. They certainly don’t expect to get eyeballed. Amusing really, this bloke, easily 6′1″ and not small, went to shake my hand and did the classic “Ahhh too slow *strokes his sideys*” move (taking his hand away). After admitting that I was giving him the creeps by not backing down.
My job is easy, really. It’s all about confidence and how you project yourself. I know that I’m slightly handicapped by my somewhat less than average stature but it makes no difference (and in fact often works in my favour – a lot of blokes don’t trust a 5′6″ doorman, I’m too much of an unknown quantity). But in the case of last night, had I been indecisive, jumpy, not maintained eye contact, then they would have walked over us. But in a situation where you have to make a hard decision like that (it was ready to kick off at any moment, and there was 4 of them and only 3 of us had it come to it), it’s of paramount importance that you maintain your cool and composure.
The first thing is to not sink to their level. Don’t let them draw you into a argument or slagging match. Don’t let them try and persuade you because you will get every piece of bullshit under the sun. If they call you a cunt, accept it gracefully. Don’t retaliate. (I often agree with them, in a Little Britain stylee “Yeh I know (I’m a cunt)!”.)
The second thing is be confident. Very few people will actually want to go for it with a doorman, regardless of who they are (which is all too easy to forget). Don’t underestimate the position of authority you’re in. When they ask you a question, answer assertively. Let them know you’re in control. Be fair but don’t give them anything. Don’t incriminate yourself. The more talk you do, the more chance you have of dropping yourself in it. The bottom line is they’re not coming in, and that’s that.
They’ll get pissed off, they’ll get violent, they’ll threaten to shoot/stab/kill/fuck up/burn (believe me, I’ve had them all and more) you, but eventually the call of beer will get too strong and they’ll go elsewhere.
Well it made the night a little more interesting anyway.
1) How is MT-Blacklist a “web application for weblogs”? It’s a SPAM filter for MovableType (which incidentally is in the same fucking category).
2) Where is Wordpress? By the far the most kickass blog app out there. No question.
3) What a pile. Food blogs? Asia (- middle east) ? Er. Which numpty came up with these godawful categories?
Additionally, as I had a peer through a lot of the blogs listed there, a familiar thought occurred to me again. My god there’s a lot of shit out there on the web. One of the blogs up for a photography award is Dooce.com. I had a quick look. In my eyes? Nothing special. Pictures of her child, her friends, a tree. Usual. Next: ScaryDuck. Up for best tagline: “Not scary. Not a duck.” Comedy genius. Ho-hum. Would I win it for having a site called PurpleSock or EasyFisting or something? But these blogs were getting 3-400 comments a day from people who regularly read them. So fair-do’s. But that either means that I missed the point, or there’s a whole load of people out there who are even more boring than the person who wrote the blog. But hey, that isn’t saying anything. No-one reads this blog. I know that and I’m not bothered by it. I enjoy writing this and it gives me an outlet.
Do I have a point?
I thought I did. I’ve lost it though. Maybe I’ll find it again.
If I wasn’t doing a PhD, I reckon I’d want to be a scaffolder. It looks like fun. Like playing with a giant jigsaw puzzle all day long.