Feb 24

What a faboo day.

So my previously radio silent friend turned up today. Just back from America. And we had a huge brutal argument. A first. And the last. All the shit that had been sitting there since the start of the year came out. Talked about. And it was ugly. I honestly didn't intend it to get ugly, but, I found what he was saying to be... outrageously mehhh.

I wont go into the super ins and outs.

Some highlights -

he categorically denied that he had "fucked my life about". I was told that it hadn't fucked me about. Told. In no uncertain terms. How dare I say it had fucked with me.

Apparently he gets to decide that, not me.

What. The. Fuck. You don't get to decide what has fucked with me. I'm sorry but that fucked with me. Mentally. Practically. Professionally. Existentially. Take. Your. Fucking. Pick.

As a recap, I will list the emotions ( on the emotional side of this pile of shit ) I said it engendered back in January -

"Disappointed. Betrayed. Angry. Unimpressed. Offended."

But fuck me, I must be wrong, because I've been told that can't be the case.

Later he equated largely pulling out of the agreement as tantamount to cancelling an air ticket 48 hours before you were ready to fly. No big deal. So, how could it fuck anyones life over. I'm not joking. He literally used an air ticket analogy.

I had to point out again that it wasn't like that at all. No emotion. No connection. No personal commitments. Just a pure financial thing. Buy a ticket. Cancel a ticket. Like clicking a checkbox on a website. It didn't fucking work like that. We are not all fucking robots. It has meaning. It will upset people. It will disrupt relationships. I spent 6 months getting my head in order to do that. Working up to that point. I don't conduct my interpersonal relationships like an amazon basket. Wax on. Wax off. I defy anyone - normal - to not get fucking upset when a 6 month plan in motion is destroyed suddenly 48 hours before the finish point.

Also. It matters business wise. Greatly. If you decide to blow up the titanic 48 hours before launch instead of releasing it to sea. Guess what. Major fucking implications.

I gave him both barrels. This is you, again, with the whole, how can anything I do upset anyone. And then failing to take any responsibility for it. The exact same way your dad is with you. Peak level fucking denial. 

He tried to weasel out of this. Yeah he said that. But context. He meant it in an indirect way. No. He fucking did not. In fact I can still remember one of the examples, where his behaviour had upset his girlfriend a lot, and he reflected that nothing he could do should upset her. I told him at that point it was like he was emotionally autistic ( again). We kind of laughed about it. It was clear he couldn't quite remember the context. But was trying to defend that blanket statement of nothing I can do can affect others. He absolutely meant it the way it was meant. In an emotional situation. That he utterly failed to grasp. And had an upset girlfriend on his hand that he was clueless as to what had happened. Must be her fault. Not his. And this, was years, and years ago. Same shit. Over and over.

I am not sure he entirely got it. He conceded there was an implication for doing something last minute. He listened to me explain how it HAD INDEED fucked with my life.

But yeah, no. In the end he blamed me for his altering of the deal and then altering again, of then him cutting off communications. Because I was dismissive of his day and a halfs work on the source control mainly. And his girlfriend had questioned why he was bothering. And from that also a disrespect of his technical capabilities.

Which I always said would be a difficult conversation. He absolutely balked at being labelled a junior dev, or a straight dev. He had done a years work last year on a website. So. Thats that then. One fucking website on your CV using a framework, on you jog oh wise doer of all things. ( How does CSS work, how does markup work, how do I do this in SQL ). Sure. Abso-fucking-lutely-supremo-level.

There is, and always will be a discrepancy in skill level there between him and me. It's what I've done solidly for nearly 30 years. Coding. Designing. It's not what he's done solidly for 30 years. But. This is a thing he cannot accept. Skill level discrepancy. We should be peers. Like I say. A difficult conversation to have, and often the worst with senior people / older people. Younger people tend to be a lot more clued into the fact that I Have Shit To Learn. He would not accept that people came into things with different skills and experiences. Nope. He must be accepted as the poobah of technical. This is horribly ironic given the basic walking through of some SQL design stuff I did with him last summer. It Is Clear You Haven't Fucked About A Lot With This Shit. Which is fine. But just, know thyself.

It's like the devs that walk in and nod sagely about xml, then can't tell you what a schema is ( and heaven forbid you get old school and mention things like DTDs ).

I asked him if he knew how to build a nuclear power station ? He said I was patronising him. I don't know how to build a nuclear power station. Neither do you. We have different skills. Patronising. Apparently being a senior IT manager level also gets you rock solid development experience for as long as you are managing and not doing any, you know, actual fucking development. Yes I have way less experience. But don't tell me that ! I am aces !

Fragile fucking ego alert. We're all shit at many things. Stick me on the 110m Olympic hurdles. I will show you what shit looks like. I am ok with this. I know somethings I am shit at ! Get over yourself already.

He said I didn't praise anyone. Always put people down. He used the word *everyone*. Ok. The opposite is true. I am careful to tell people good job when they do good things. Even the small things. I am in awe of artists en masse in general. Fanboy. Even. In general, I am told I am a nice person. Not someone who goes around dissing people for being shit. Am I aware of peoples strengths and weaknesses ? Sure often the case. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. In the end, what it really came down to, is not any of that, which isn't true, but very specifically, not praising him for his work. Singular. And projection. You do that with everyone. No. Are your technical skills tip top ? No they aint. But that doesnt mean I then tell everyone in the world they are shit. It's just an ego bruise that no, I don't think your technical shit is great. And it isn't. Fucking deal with it. Or sulk. Or blame me for dissing everyone. And by everyone you mean you. And by dissing you mean I didn't praise you extravagantly. And by talking everything down you mean, just you, just that source control, which you spent a day and a half on, and didn't super care about one way or the other.

I asked brutally did I need to pat him extensively on the head for a day and a half of work with a source control ? I didn't think his ego was that frail ? I can do that if you needed it.

Am I something of a ballbuster when it comes to professional technical shit ? Oh yes. I take no prisoners - unless there is a need to, or I have to be careful with someone sensitive. Cut through the shit. Say what needs to be said. Get on with the work. Do what you can do. Be honest. Learning is fine. Bullshit is not. Nevertheless I had told him I didn't care what source control we used. It was a transparent part of the development. Invisible. Unglamorous. No one gives a shit. If he wants to dig out XYZ source control. Knock yourself out. And we were set to use what he had done.

I told him that I valued him for just being him. Nothing to prove. Just sit there. At worst. Thats it. I just value people for who they are. No expectations. He didn't feel he contributed anything. That's your assessment of yourself. Not mine ! That's your own feelings of doubt, or not pulling your weight or whatever. I literally don't care. Be a sack of coal. I would still appreciate you being there. I appreciate people, period. People, are important, and unique, and cool. This whole, mmmrrrggghh, I need to do shit to prove my worth otherwise I am worthless bullshit we live in. Capitalist. Materialist. Wank. If it doesn't have a price tag, it's meaningless ! Not true ! Meh. He is caught in some trap of not valuing himself.. just for himself ( a theme that crops up often with what will my kids think of me if I just sit on my ass - I have argued extensively it doesn't .. fucking.. matter. But he thinks it does. He thinks his kids will to paraphrase, think he's basically a loser .. and this repeats itself in many ways, sometimes really weird ones... ask me about the sofa in his garage and why its there ( so he doesnt look like a loser with no furniture if the worst should happen..... ? ? ? ? ! ? ) ).

Anywho. The upshot is he blames me for it. Not himself. He has no responsibility. I can't be upset. It can't have fucked with my life. I should have praised him and built him up for his day and a half of setting up a fucking source control. The deal also didn't change. Although he acknowledges that bits of it weren't known at the start, only came into focus midway and his telling me of them at the end absolutely meant that nothing had changed. Even though. Thats the fucking definition of a change. He had the right to hire who he wanted. He was in charge of hiring. It was his money. Therefore. No change.

Ok. No. Like joining a NASCAR team to win a race, the expectation is to hire competent people or have a plan. Turning up with a donkey cart rather changes the odds. And whilst, he has money and can comfortably sit and do nothing, I don't. It impacts my life rather considerably more than his. And inci-fucking-dentally, he had been told, by the resident expert in the field about such things, that what he was thinking of WAS NOT PRACTICAL. Another of our friends. Not practical. Just bullshit. Scrabbling around desperately to make a fucking meaning out of his life, but instead, why not blame me. Fuck me.

Regardless of any of this shit. Bring it up at the start. Not fucking last minute at the end. But hey. It's just like a plane ticket right. Tick. Untick. No harm done. No one could possibly find upset or disruption at shit changing at the very last minute.

My fault. No responsibility of his. Didn't fuck with my life.

Which, if nothing else, is on message consistent. And the same tune that's been ringing from his various relationships. But. Uh huh. No.

Didn't fuck with my life. Ha ha. Holy goddamn. If you want to see the definition of gaslighting. Of a piece of bullshit toxicity. It's where someone tells someone else what they CAN and CANT feel. Of how it affected them. Whether they feel something fucked with them or not. Regardless of how fucking shit that is in and of itself, who on earth made that person the be all and end all of that decision. I'm sorry. Make way for the Grand Adjudicator who will tell you how you feel.

Amazing.

And all, because of a bruised ego. And not a little mid life crisis, can't find a direction, I've had some shit times with everyone else.

Meh.

It is what it is. The difficult conversation in the end, turned out to be a massive problem that went off on it's own. Ha. Eh well. I predicted this would be a lead balloon months ago. Because it goes that way with old fucks of senior people who dont walk the fucking walk that they think they talk.

Ultimately, surprisingly, I come out the other end stronger. For the moment anyway. I am cool with this. And rather disappointingly, I am better off without that shit. As a friend of mine said - who knows us both - you don't need to be his fucking therapist. Protect yourself. Let him get on with his mid life crisis flailing around. Brutal. But. Meh.

I think probably the most horrific burning of bridges is that whole, Does Not Compute How Can This Affect You bullshit. And being told. In no uncertain terms. What I am allowed to feel or assess how that affected my life. That is. Breathtaking levels of arrogance. Of. Tone deaf. Of. Gaslighting.

It's almost certainly the nail in the coffin and something I find extremely difficult to forgive. Extremely. This is cardinal sin levels of fuckery. Autistic or not. Troubled or not. You don't do that shit.

He apologised at the end. If it had fucked with my life. Unless I am very much wrong it was a token fucking apology. He blames me. My fault. Not his. Like much else of the relationships in his life, their fault, not his own repressed emotion, can't deal with it, everyone should be a robot bullshit fucking mental twistedness.

I didn't react to the apology. Not to accept. Not to deny. Not to apologise. Fuck it. Bullshit dishonesty.

Which. Is another thing. Even in some really fucked up world where we take every single thing in his world as true. He has been demonstrably dishonest in his communication of shit. I'm trying to help someone who may be flailing. He's over there just being a passive aggressive dick ( and also still probably having a very quiet mid life crisis ). With a sulky bottom lip out, pouting. But really. At this point. Probably the least worrisome of things.

Positives

Ha ha. Always try to end on positives eh.

Working week is done. I get to chill. Been invited out to dinner on Saturday, somewhat as thanks for helping someone out yesterday with Slightly Technical Stuffs. So. That should be nice.

Might see if I can noodle with some artwork. I have had a gnawing to do it, but, meh, in and out of being ill.

But rest. And chill. Sleep.