Tuesday in Melbourne Diaries

Writing here on a Tuesday morning. I’ve long decided that nothing great happens to anyone on a Tuesday. I’ve never heard of anyone getting married on a Tuesday. I think 9/11 happened on a Tuesday.
This particular Tuesday will be the last before my birthday on Friday, an event that I am advertising with my usual silent treatment. It is occurring in a time of some minor changes. For one, I am now employed by a new organisation, although it won’t be next week until I meet my new boss (he sounded pleasant enough over the phone). Being my boss is something of a curse. My first is unemployed and got an adverse finding from a Royal Commission (a bit of a career killer); the next was sacked two years ago; the one after that is still employed as a lawyer but depressed with her job (“I get shouted at every day, Herzog”); the one after that got pushed out of the legal unit; and my current one is facing the sack. I think all the people I’ve supervised have done pretty well, though.

Last week I found out that a particularly unpleasant work colleague, someone universally hated by those in my unit, had made a complaint against me. The matter arose when I politely asked her to follow up on some invoice, a matter my boss had asked me to check up on but which I had no real interest in. She was a bit rude in return, saying that this had been going for a while and it wasn’t her responsibility (when it was). I didn’t even bother arguing, and simply finalised the thing through a much more helpful secretary. This woman then complained to my boss that I had no right to “push her around” and that I “must have a problem with women”. I’m very annoyed at such a cheap yet highly damaging – and, to my mind, utterly incorrect – slur. Unfortunately for this woman, the person she was complaining to was already annoyed with her and was the person who had asked me to follow up on the particular task, so I think she realised quickly that the matter was going nowhere. However, she has a role in the transition to the new organisation and wants me ‘working to her’, even though she has no legal background or training at all; not happening. What rubbish. Most of my supervisors have been women, the majority of the legal profession is female and, if anything, I am far more comfortable working with women than men. I reported the matter to the head of my team. He had overheard the conversation and stated that he felt at the time that she was the one being rude. Another member of the legal team also stated that she had used the same ‘problem with women’ line at him in the past – it seems to be a favourite defensive tactic of hers. The whole thing is very unpleasant.

Speaking of women within the team, I am becoming increasingly friendly with a colleague (who’ll be given the pseudonym Natalie for now), but am not sure if it will lead anywhere, or for that matter whether I want it to lead anywhere. She’s a nice girl, and we get along well, but she seems a bit naïve for a woman in her mid-thirties, while I seem to be increasingly becoming an over-serious, imposing midlife Henry Rollins type (and there’s a reason Henry’s still single). I’m also a bit reticent about anything other than a work relationship – if things go wrong it or communications breakdown it could be a very sour outcome for both of us, given that we work next to each other daily.

My legs, riddled with soreness and injury, are slowly healing, but I’m approaching my birthday an injured man. I’m also increasingly bulky, 8kg more so than last year, though most of that seems to be muscle. I walk around like I’ve carrying furniture on my back, not a look I ever imagined myself having (see Henry Rollins above). However, I ran over 13k on Sunday, and my aim is to slowly work back to ten miles, then a half marathon before any holiday overseas next year.

Going to see the band Swans tonight, an impossibly nihilistic and unbelievably intense band from the 80s, living proof that some of the most violent and aggressive musical groups came from that decade (in the same category of Big Black, if anyone’s old enough to remember). They’re also regularly cited as being the loudest live band of all time – one review of a gig I’ve read ends with “our tinnitus lasts for days, but Jesus, what a band.” Looking forward to it, but for the first and hopefully last time ever, I’m bringing earplugs to a gig. Ministry, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Mogwai, Spiritualized, pshaw! – but this one’s got me a bit worried about hearing loss in my old age. Won’t invite Natalie (whose tastes seem to run more to Taylor Swift than My Bloody Valentine) to that one. Instinct tells me it would be a bad first date.

Later edit - got through it without earphones, but holy crap was that last hour deafening. Good stuff though. Sadly, I’ll have to be vaguely professional tomorrow.

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Last updated January 21, 2015