Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Yesterday, after work, the tech team was rewarded for Q4 success by having dinner (at the company’s expense) at a place called Maxwell’s in Covent Garden. I was part of Q4’s success, and so that entitled me to part of a meal, which seemed like a prime opportunity for getting to know exactly who some of these people are that I’m working with, since it’s hard to get much social interaction in when everyone has a PC attending to their needs and feeding them work.

Having finished for the day, I went to buy a single comic which has eluded me for a week or two from Forbidden planet, checked out the place where the company’s moving in April (Dead opposite Fopp on shaftesbury avenue. Too cool.) and then we met the rest of the people at a pub next door to where we were eating. The topic of conversation seemed to be most frequently “Why are there leaves in my drink?” since everyone got drinks bought for them, and there were a huge number of cocktails on the menu. Being disinclined to drink alcohol in pretty much any case, most of all when the glass is also full of leaves, I stuck with coke, but they tried to make it classy and served the glass bottled version.

For food, I had a steak burger and chips. It was way too large for me, as seems to be the case wherever I go, but it tasted alright and that’s what counts. There was very little projectile vomiting that I could see. It’s an okay restuarant, I’m not sure I’d go back necessarily, it’s certainly the kind of place you’d be going for the location or atmosphere rather than the food, which was definitely tilted towards the functional bent of providing edible biomass rather than assaulting you with deliciousness. The alternative, of course, is horrible food at horrible prices, so maybe I should get in touch with my communist side and admit that functional food at functional prices is the best meal for society.

Earlier on in the day, I booked Friday off so that I can finish off my stuff for Paul/East and give some extra time over to nikki, who’s coming down this weekend. It occurs to me that I haven’t had a day off since Christmas, and I’ve got a whole bunch to use up, so it seemed like an opportune moment. I was going to take next friday off as well, but it emerged that Lyndon, Ben and Vince were all off that day, and it seems sensible that I should turn up if my three immediate superiors aren’t going to, if only because if something breaks it’ll probably be best to have as many people around as possible. Not that any of us who’d be left could fix anything much if it broke, but at least it’d feel like I was helping.

Also, in the past few days, I started and completed reading Belle De Jour. I’m skeptical as to how likely it is to be real, but it’s an entertaining read nonetheless. I enjoyed the blog at the time, and it’s odd to see something you’ve only read on screen, on a blogger account no less, down in black and white on the page. Next I’m going to read The Rotter’s Club, which Nikki bought me, and then I’ll see if I can’t finally get around to the douglas coupland book I’m still waiting to start

Comic: £2.00
Travelcard: £25.00
Mcdonalds: £1.98
Tuesday/Wednesday Total: £28.98
Cumulative cost: £950.66