andcurve.weblog - The weblog of Kevin Teljeur. Somewhere within all the noise, there is a note you need to hear.

Yes, I’ve been busy recently, and although I may have mistakenly given the impression that I quit my job in a particularly dramatic fashion, sticking it to The Man in all my bridge-burning glory (“To Hell with you and your Goddamned job, I’m leaving! And I’m taking Michaela with me!”) it really wasn’t like that, and I gave four entire week’s notice. I also didn’t get Michaela, which was even more disappointing. The next reaction I’ve been getting is generally “Whooo! Must be so awkward to be there after writing all that!” and that hasn’t been the case either. At least, not more awkward than usual, which is actually more than most people would tolerate is one of the reasons I called it a day anyway. So business as usual.

I have been taking notes for a big post about what comes next after the four weeks is up, which is next Friday (Parallel got a day for free there, I’m a generous soul at heart) and I think you’ll all enjoy that one no end, especially since it publicly commits me to a particular direction in my life and of course I’ll have to see it through. On the upside, it will hopefully involve a bit more writing and that can’t be a bad thing (assuming, of course, that I actually do the writing). It’s very, very exciting for me right now, and even if things don’t work out, I’ll painstakingly document it here in much the way I don’t get around to documenting anything else, and you’ll all get a kick out of reading about it.

So, in the words of Richard Ashcroft of ‘The Verve‘, “Baby, Oooooooooh ahh yeah, Oh no no no, In my head, My Lord! My Lord! I’m a lucky man, this ain’t no symphony, slip slide slip slide, no no no, yeahhhh.”. If things don’t work out in the coming months I could always find myself the next Verve and write songs for them, it seems like easy work. I’m close to finishing Keith’s site at long last which has proven to be hard work partly because I spent a week and a half which wasn’t otherwise very busy at all fighting spam on this site (automated systems which know how to post comments on sites like this, repeatedly posting comments which are links to insurance sales sites and Viagra) and on the LTD site (check it out to see the most deliciously edible girls in the world, having way more fun than you or I). I eventually got around it but it was hard work, and then of course I started being busy again, and I still don’t know where all this stuff comes from. So I’ll post a link here when it’s done, and hopefully I’ll talk Keith into actually writing on it too.

I’ve been looking at my self-discipline too; I really could be so much more productive but I just somehow am not. I like sleeping. I like taking a walk somewhere. I like taking a moment to sit and drool while making a low humming noise. Stuff like that, I think, which makes life more enjoyable than trying to follow a path in the manner of a whizz-head with an F-15 strapped to his (or her) back. Even so, I should be using the extra time to get some work done instead of surfing the same crap news sites, or trying to by cheap Tadafil, or even chatting relentlessly to Romanian women (although, if you can manage it, it is very entertaining and educational, and winding them up is about as much fun as you can have, short of getting your nads paddled by Oompa Loopas). Speaking of which, I met an actual person on the Internet. I mean, someone I haven’t previously been introduced to by someone I already know, and as a result my English has deteriorated drastically over the last week and a half. My englis, he is not more so good as the time from one day, and you are no understan me soo good as now tehn. I am make her mistak wit the word. Yo are gett this from womans ho speak no englis soo good. You can see where this is going, so maybe if I spend less time chatting, and more time finishing Keith’s site, we’ll all be better off, if not as amused as before. I’ll write some more about this intriguing development very shortly, and the mechanics of meeting people online and in real-life quite shortly, because it ties in with a number of interesting discussions I’ve had recently, and some ideas which developed independently about that and my writing (and for a dramatic change of pace from my previous writings these ideas aren’t about the enslavement of women, or being offensive just for the Hell of it). Yo like wan yo see waht I rite yo abot these thing.

Lastly, I got a webcam: k_parallel (at) hotmail.com – yes, you have to be smart enough to decipher the bit in the middle, because I will spammed otherwise.
Me at work, doing my thing; as viewed through my webcam.If you want to have a look at me, in my natural environment, add this address to your hotmail MSN contacts and watch away. I really don’t know why, but you’re welcome to. it only works on my office PC, but when I get my new laptop I’ll have it on most of the time, home or work. You’ll be able to see pretty quickly if the new career is working out or not.

I was blown away as I was walking down Talbot Street; it just felt fantastic to be walking down this street, the energy that was there, the feeling that anything was possible, and it was hard for me to believe that I was walking down a street in Dublin where I’ve been living and working, on and off, for the last thirty-three years. New shops, people from so many nations, and a real sense that a lot of these people were here because you can really make things happen here, there’s enough money and if you work hard you can have your share of the cake too. I thought that maybe the money in Ireland is now like a siphon effect, in that there’s a certain intertia which means after the whole economic boom of a few years ago the whole show just keeps itself going, drawing in more money and the people to earn it, which in turn draws in more money.
Talbot Street, recently; this is Ireland’s future, and it’s a hell of a rush! Also there are cheap clothes. Click image to view larger version
The other thought I had was more personal, and that was this: the way I feel about Dublin is actually a reflection on how I feel about myself. If I dislike it (which happens frequently) then what it really means is that I’m unhappy about myself, my circumstances, other personal issues, which I project onto the city and the people in it. If I like it, if I think it’s interesting, if I think I’m seeing it in a new light, or having new ideas about it, then that too is a reflection on my own circumstances, and I should really look to myself to interpret those feelings.

So, you might be wondering then what my conclusion was about my feelings last Saturday, why I was feeling so positive about Dublin and excited to be a part of it, and if you haven’t heard about it already, then read on. In fact, read on anyway, because you might enjoy the detailed explanation. I felt good because last Thursday I handed in my notice on my job.

I quit.

It’s not that big a drama in many ways, and if anyone hadn’t expected it then it’s because they don’t know about the job, the company or indeed read my blog much, or even know me. If you know me in any capacity then you know what I do for a living, and how I feel about doing that for the company I work for, which is that I build web sites (Or rather, I build the display or output for web-based content management systems, and web sites. I’m quite good at it.) and that I’ve been growing increasingly frustrated with my job, hating it even.

I think the biggest part of the drama is that for people over the age of about twenty eight or so, leaving a job voluntarily is a big deal, and you only do it if you’re guaranteed of a new job which is something I’m not, at the moment. I had been looking for a new job for a while but not terribly enthusiastically since I hadn’t seen anything which was substantially better than the job I’ve just left, but the thing I’d been overlooking all this time was that at my age, with my experience, with my contacts, getting a new job in Ireland won’t be too traumatic; when I was in Australia two years ago, I found a reasonable job in two and a half weeks in Melbourne under adverse conditions (No money, Working Holiday Visa, limited contacts, skills not very saleable) from a standing start. Conditions this time around are considerably better in every way, so I’m pretty confident in everything being ok on that front.

People have been both curious and concerned about this whole development (Me too, let me tell you!), and have been asking me a lot about it, and there’s a pattern to the questions so I’ll tackle it in a web-friendly ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ style. It’ll make your lives easier, I think.

• Oh my God! Are you ok?
  Yes, yes I am, I’m very ok and feeling better by the minute. Leaving a job is high and everybody should do it at some point (unless you happen to have a job you truly enjoy, in which case hang on to it! They’re hard enough to come by.). It’s all good.
• What happened???
  A number of issues built up over time, and working in Parallel became harder and harder to do effectively while still feeling relatively good about the experience. After yet another blazing row with Pavel over something fairly inconsequential, I realised that the stress we’re all under was making itself felt, and changing my personality and the way I react to situations. So where was all that stress coming from?
  • First off the working environment isn’t great (and do keep in mind that this is to a degree subjective, and others will have their own opinions on these matters). Now, it’s far from a bad place to work, but at the same time, in order to provide what we call ‘solutions’ to what are known as ‘problems’ (not in the day to day sense, but in a web development sense) a developer needs support, organisation, planning and infrastructure, all of which I believe were lacking for me and some of the people I work with. This leads to stresses and strains on projects and personal relationships, breaks morale and makes life very difficult. There’s a lot I could say about this, and go into ridiculous detail, but that is as much as anyone should need to know. I hate seeing things being done badly, when I’m involved with whatever it is that’s being done badly. If you feel your working environment is militating against you, then even the smallest tasks become difficult and stressful. Very stressful. And you know what they say: Stress is a killer.
  • Secondly, working in Parallel is no longer doing my so-called career any favours. I haven’t learnt anything new, which I haven’t actively pursued for my own purposes. There’s been no advancement, no financial reward, no expression of the experience I have in the field. That is bad. I mean, if I was hopping around between jobs and trying out different things, then of course I could expect to have little in the way of ‘career advancement’ but if I stay in one company for several years then either things should advance, I should get more responsibility, more pay, more training and experience, or things stop moving and I become obsolete. Remember that my work is primarily in the Internet field, building stuff for the Web. If there’s one thing which everyone knows all too well about this area, then it’s that things move fast. Very fast. I very much doubt that in Parallel I’ll be able to make a good case for making use of any of the new, upcoming technologies in my work, and that will fairly soon render my skills obsolete.

    There are knowledge areas which I have some very advanced knowledge in which won’t become obsolete any time soon; for example, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) because although it’s a simple technology which takes a day to learn, it takes years of painful experience to master. On the other hand, that’s one small part of the whole Web Interface skillset, and some other areas can change rapidly; an old technology which has suddenly come to forefront is something known as AJAX, which I’ll need to become skilled with if I’m going to keep working in this area and stay competitive with the ten-year-olds who learn this stuff at school. Then there are bigger jumps, such as moving from the User Interface stuff to different areas such as application programming with an actual programming language such as Java or C#.

    The other aspect of career development is that as well as knowing more and gaining knowledge, there’s the aspect of vertical career movement, whereby I would be managing other guys who know this stuff, and for several reasons I don’t see that ever happening for me at Parallel, from lack of opportunity to typecasting. So, apart from getting better at what I do, I’m not going to progress in any other way.

    To summarise; if I’m going to keep doing this web stuff for a living and take it further, then Parallel is probably not the best place to advance my career.

  • Lastly, there’s the small issue of the shares. Some people know about it, some don’t but here it is in a nutshell. Five years ago, in the heady days of the Internet Gold Rush in Ireland, everything related to the Internet was worth it’s weight in gold and diamonds and when the opportunity came up to invest in Parallel through a Government tax incentive scheme (known as a ‘Business Expansion Sceme’) a number of us jumped at the chance and put money in. Like some others, I took out a loan to finance it, over a similar period of time, to the tune of €7,300 or so. All good. However, things turned sour, the Internet bubble burst and Parallel did badly. Better than some which sank quickly but even so things were rough and this is a story for another day, suffice to say that the company survived and soldiered on. The shares recently matured, and so far appear to be worth nothing. At all.

    As you can imagine, having a fair idea of why exactly the company and therefore the shares might be worth nothing, I have no intention of sticking around to watch any more of the show unfold, given that in my mind I’ve paid for this. My money, funding a situation which I certainly wouldn’t allow if it were my company, evaporating (closer to the truth is that it has long since evaporated). At the end of the day I learnt a lesson and the hard truth is that investments are a risk and that’s life, you win you lose, it’s only money.

  So, last Wednesday I thought about it one last time, and then I wrote the resignation letter, and resigned on Thursday morning. It’s a cracker actually, one of my better pieces of prose recently and it’s a shame I can’t post it. You have to do these things with a sense of humour if you want to stay on the same page, that’s all I’ll say, because there are no silver bullets.

• What did Tom say??
  Tom is the CEO of Parallel, which makes him my (former) bossman. I think he was slightly caught off guard but I can’t imagine that he wasn’t expecting it in the long grass. Not with the granularity of the way things have been, and the way we haven’t been getting our ducks in a row. At least now that we’ve squared the circle and engaged with the situation, we’ll be able to decouple and kick it to touch.
• Really am I ok??
  Yes, really! Buzzed man, buzzed!
• How do I feel now?
  Slightly jittery, in a way, but truly free. Empowered. I can make decisions. It’s scary and yet exhilarating. I’ve been saying to people it’s quite a buzz, an adrenaline rush and I should do this more often. It’s like an extreme sport. I guess it’s why people gamble with large sums of money.
• What did Annette say??
  Annette is my housemate/landlady. Well, Annette knew that I was thinking about it but like everyone else probably didn’t expect me to do it until I had the new job in the bag. It’s the Guerilla Career, ladies!
• Do I have a new job lined up?
  Not yet, but there are a number of possibilities, some which were about before I did this, and some which have cropped up in the last couple of days. It’s not looking too bad, I just have to decide what to do. Full-time, part-time, contract, freelance, maybe something completely different altogether (writing, anyone?)… The possibilities are actually the problem, there are so many.

  If you have a suggestion of any sort or a job lead either comment below or call/text me (+353 86 856 2978), or email me!

• Bxx5!
  Yes, very much so. But it could go the other way too, and that mightn’t be a bad thing, unless it collapses. hUxx0rz!

So there you have it. The best move yet of 2006 and fully in line with the master plan, so expect more daring and surprising moves quite soon. There are plans afoot…

In the meantime, I’ve seen ‘Dig!‘ the riotous, messy story of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols, which is great demonstration of how not to pursue your creative dream; I thoroughly recommend it to you, especially if you have any interest in the creative process or music. It’s a rollercoaster. I also went to see ‘The Devil and Daniel Johnston‘ a week ago which is a movie treading a similar path and again I recommend it, rivetting stuff about the fine line between creative genius and madness. I’m not a creative genius, and never will be, but it’s humbling to see how people who do have it can make a meal of it in one way or another. I need to be happy with what I have and just work hard to get where I’m going to.

(Continuously re-edited to solved a line-break problem. Am I the only person who hates Internet Exploder this much?)

Me, all fuzzy and wearing The Hat, which makes me irresistable to all women. Even hairy ones. Click image to view larger version

Guinness is great; you drink it, and then all too late you realise what it’s doing to you, but it feels so damn good, you just can’t fight it… The downside is that I haven’t had a day without alchohol since last Thursday, which is a lot less good.

Today was interesting, to say the least. I had to write off a ridiculous amount of money (if you crashed your car you would lose this kind of money), but I got a job offer from Romania! Just one line on Messenger really could have some very far-reaching effects on my life over the coming year, and hopefully be a very positive development. So shouts out to Oana, Moni and all their crew in Timisoara!

What a day though. I’ll finish the posts on my recent travels over the weekend, and put those photos up too. Unmissable stuff, I can tell you now!

(Edited on 12.04.06 to add the image)

Here it is. My first ‘Kev is off somewhere, I suppose you could even call it travelling’ post, all the way from sunny Vienna (or Wien, as the locals call it). I’m enjoying it. The weather is good, the locals are… Well, they’re Austrian, so I don’t know how I should quantify that. Arnold Schwartzenegger is Austrian, I was here before and had some decidedly mixed feelings about Vienna (beautiful architecture and a clear sense of history, set against what can only be described as generous helpings of arrogance.)´and of course there is Mozart. So far the weather has been great, Alex (who I am visiting here, she used to live in Graz but has since moved here to get a job, and hopefully I will catch up with Filip too, of whom more later)
Alex. She is dressed like this in case the agents come after her and she is not able to escape the Matrix in time. Click image to view larger version has managed to buy carpets and whatnot for her apartment, and we have seen all manner of stuff about town.

A typical street in Vienna. A lot more messy than you might expect. Click image to view larger versionReally fantastically huge and old building in Vienna, protected by marble beast women. Really. Click image to view larger versionAt the Styrian Fair, promoting all things Styrian and rustic, by making fantastic amounts of noise. You can see how this leads to other things. Click image to view larger versionThe Styrian fair with the Town Hall as a back-drop. Quite impressive, I have to say. Click image to view larger versionI think this is the parliament building, where those efficient Austrians get on with decision making. Where’s Haider? Click image to view larger version
I was quite taken by the statues here. They are impressive, imposing, well hewn from the primordial rock and also show that somewhere around five hundred years ago there was some sculpturally gifted guy who was determined to provide the world with the largest collection possible of winged, heavily-beweaponed, two-metres-and-then-some-tall beast-women, all crafted from the finest marble and stone. Really. I could have some very lurid sexual fantasies as a result of all this – although I have sworn off such things for lent – because some of them are in very provocative situations. Others just look like men, which is in it’s own way a lot more disturbing, because I very much doubt that attractive women are a recent development in Austria.
I wasn’t joking. Huge marble beast-women. Almost sexy, if you’re into that sort of thing. Which I’m not. Ever. Click image to view larger versionSee the pattern already? Huge, armed, dangerous and imposing stone chicks, ready for battle. Everywhere. Click image to view larger version
Tonight will see a night on the town which should be interesting, given my previous experiences in Austria, and perhaps more phone-terrorism from Tee, who made a drunken attempt to call me last night which unfortunately I missed but it was appreciated all the same. More drunken calls please, everybody! Apart from Ciaran, who has comfortably filled his quota for the concievable future.

More huge old buildings in Vienna. Very imposing. Click image to view larger versionAnd more old stuff in Vienna! Click image to view larger versionThe most amazingly old and dirty church ever. They are cleaning it, however, the second time in 4,000 years. Very intricate and beautiful. Click image to view larger versionOutside the incredibly big and old church, with all sorts of antics from street performers and other stuff. Click image to view larger version

I booked this flight a couple of months ago after Alex asked me when was I next coming over, and I realised I hadn’t been abroad in a while other than to England for some brief but all too tortuous business trips which of course don’t count as holiday, even for masochists, which I would like to think I’m not. Often. In the same fell swoop I also booked a trip to Devon (via Bristol) which was last weekend
Jane Cole, former runway model and Miss Devon Hotpot 2005. Also, a fantastic host and amazing person. Click image to view larger version and that kind of book-ended a series of entertaining adventures over several weeks which have gone a long way to explaining the lack of posts on this site. Believe me when I say I have plenty of new material to write about but too little time; it’s all very exciting, ranging from getting locked into the toilet to blasts from the past and beyond!

I was really feeling down on Thursday, having thought far too much about some serious issues relating to the direction my life’s been going in, work, stuff like that (money, in a nutshell – effectively, I’m on the same money I was on five and half years ago, which is no joke. Time to change that!) and I wasn’t happy about it, but I had a good stern talking to from Annette after she caught me being a bit miserable in the house and I felt a lot more positive after that.
The Maddy and the Annette being positive, just after they took me on a birthday lunch in Castleknock, which was very nice of them and a lot of fun. Click image to view larger version She really knows how to instill positive energy in people, I should suggest to her to do this for a living. Maybe she could set up a centre somewhere with positivity pods where miserable people like me could go to cop the fuck on to themselves while wired to PostivePods™. By the time I went to bed I was feeling ready to tackle the world again, though the tackling has been delayed until Tuesday what with me mucking about in Vienna for the weekend. You read it here first! Unless you’re Annette, in which case you heard it first over the course of a life-draining hour on Thursday night and are still wondering how you managed to escape… Just kidding! On the down side, I was about to write a fantastic and very dark post about it all, very good stuff and my first stab at structured writing, which would have entertained everyone a lot but of course I got a good talking-to from Annette and decided that this business of introspective self-absorbtion wasn’t going to do me any favours, and canned it. Bad Annette! But also Good Annette and shouts out to her for showing me the light!

Life’s too short, and we need to make the most of our time here, even if we make some mistakes as we go. After all, we make them to learn from them.

(Edited on 12.04.06 to add gazillions of images.)

Work is poo at the moment. I know I said before (and it’s been the subject of much mirth amongst my colleagues since then) in a post that I don’t normally bring up work – and to be fair, I haven’t – but I really feel the need to go into it a bit more, which I’ll do tomorrow in between finding a reasonable picture of me for Ramona, printing more pictures of people for my new Media Wall, and continuing my project of Stuff Which Will Make The Jennifer Smile. And filing some bills, if I’m not actually sticking to the afore-mentioned media wall.

I have to do something about it, because I am getting too old for this shit. I mean, I’m a long way off retiring but I could be making more money and getting less stressed over it.