Like-minded

Yesterday, a member of staff walked into my office and just opened up. It was unexpected, but quite welcome. We ended up talking for quite a long time about our experiences here. I think we both agreed that there is something slightly off about this place. Something wrong. "Like a dark cloud" hanging over things.

When he mentioned things that stood out, like the behaviour of some members of staff and the way they speak to everyone as if they were children, I almost jumped out of my chair to agree. When I spoke about the immaturity and irresponsibility in the actions of some of my colleagues, he seemed relieved that someone else had noticed things like that.

It was refreshing to have a conversation in which I didn't have to hold back. We were able to say things that you wouldn't normally say, and I felt like I could really speak my mind without having to worry about the repercussions.

And it means that I'm not crazy or misled. There's something here to back up these hunches and opinions I've had. I'm not crazy. These things are happening.

More than that, what impressed me was the way he was speaking about himself. Actually dissecting his own reactions and thoughts. Properly. Rather than just saying "I'm not jealous..." he was asking "Have I become jealous? Am I petty?" A lot of people don't want to find the real answers to questions like that; they'd rather just go with their knee-jerk reaction "of course I'm not jealous!" for the rest of their lives. But in this discussion with Mr. X I voiced my concerns that the bad habits of the people I work with might be rubbing off on me. That I might become that which I despise. That I've stared into the abyss for too long and that the abyss was now staring back into me.

I can count on one hand the amount of people here that I can talk to properly. That number has just increased by one. But it's still a number I can count on one hand. It seems that Mr. X had reached a breaking point and just needed to say something to someone before he blew his top. Something like that anyway.

In other news, my computer is still messing up. I took it to KC Computers during half term the other week and asked if they could replace the motherboard. I explained the problems I was having with it. They thought they had fixed it. They claimed they had fixed it. But not by changing the motherboard. They bolted it into place in another position inside the case. Not what I asked for, but if it's a cheaper job and gets the work done then fine. Only it didn't get the job done. The computer is still freezing and the graphics card is still popping out of the PCI-E slot.

This tends to happen at climactic moments during the plot of The Witcher or when travelling to an exciting new area in Fallout 3, or when I'm just about to save an hour's work on my Dark Heresy campaign. Much rage. Much, much rage.

I'm not sure what to do about it. At the moment I'm making sure that whatever I'm working on gets saved often, and then just trying to get the computer to come back to life every time it shorts out and freezes. Maybe, once the estate agents have all finished quarrelling with one another, I can do something about it after I get this move over and done with. What is taking them so long?