Move it…

IT professional at work, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

.. Or not. Regular hedgehoger’s will be painfully familiar with my hatred for everything associated with marketing. Especially if that something answers camply to the name Maurice, retains a love of red braces, BMW ragtops and a penchant for method acting the pretentious fucknugget. And it is becoming increasingly apparent* that not only was my carefully argued hypothesis that “Anyone describing themselves a marketing executive should forcefully be removed from the gene pool” was absolutely bob on, it is spookily increasing in accuracy.

So, the phrase “We’ll assign our crack** team to your move. They’ll have it packed and moved before you can say ‘Didn’t we used to have a TV?’” was cynically prodded and declared to be nothing more than a lie to win the business. But still we decided to press on, even if the removal fellas really didn’t.

The entire sorry episode is documented down vvvvvv there. But only because internalising the last three days may very well have caused the spontaneous combustion of an Al. Still it’s all good now, surrounded, as we are, by bleating lambs, fighting geese and a bottle of decent wine. And – in line with greats such as Prince and Gazza*** – I have changed my name and shall now only answer to my new moniker.

Cabb’Alage has left the South East 🙂

08:00: Rain. Frantic packing. More rain. Distracted by Random “where do we pack the house” and Verbal “Will there be a toilet where we’re going“. Take deep breath, compose myself, refuse to take stress out on kids, bend down to their height, respond “No, Yes, Probably, Just don’t ask okay, it’ll be fine as LONG AS WE STAY CALM“.

08:01: Kids hide behind sofa and consider calling social services.

08:31 2 removal men arrive. One with a limp. The other with a mobile phone permanently pressed to his ear.

08:45 Whole concept of lowest cost bidder comes home to roost.

09:00 Desultory packing begins. Computers turned off. Discover my total vocational uselessness once stripped of technology.

12:30 Movers take another smoke break. Promised additional packing staff fail to arrive. Rainstorm takes their place.

14:00 Bored. Employ self as additional lumper of boxes, tedium, rain, more rain.

15:00 Bikes being packed. Turn into management consultant and provide sketches, logistical plans and backup options for ensuring correct carriage.

15:01 Am ignored

16:30 Additional packers finally turn up having been badly held up by extended darts match in the pub.

17:00 Fighting narrowly averted as ‘new’ packers have temerity to lambaste 95{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of the job so far completed

17:30 Packing completed

17:41 ACAS called. Truce breaks out. Lorries leave.

17:45 Last look round. Rain thunders on. Everything looks small. Including wet children

17:46 FINALLY READY TO LEAVE

17:47 Answers to question “Where’s the Cat?” include (Verbal) “You said to let here out” (Random) “I think she may have booked herself onto a flight to Australia” (Al) “We’ve got a CAT?

18:00 Cat has clearly sussed that there is going to be some quality motoring boxtime and done a bloody runner.

18:30 Cat finally found. Takes just the four people to shoehorn it into Catbox. Quick check for loss of limbs shows only bloody scratches.

18:31 Finally leave. Rain stops for a minute.

18:35 Rain starts again. Stuck is endless blood vessel throbbing traffic jam

18:50 Cat noisily sick in car

18:52 Cat runs of sick and squeezes out a huge shit instead

18:53 Occupants of CatCar come close to passing out. Cat goes Schrödinger’s. It is somewhere between the states of “alive” and “dead” best described as murderously pissed off.

19:20 Clear traffic jam. Cat out-yowls best effort of Stereo on a Spinal Tap 11.

19:55 SulkNav(tm) presents short cut on a track narrow enough for BOTH wing mirrors to simultaneously collect vegetation. More of which is growing in the middle of the road. The bit that isn’t underwater anyway. Consider breaking out lifeboat.

20:30 Arrive at house we want to buy but have yet to pay solicitors life savings to do so. Receive sympathy, cheese on toast and life saving tea from current owners. Marvel at vastness of the place and can’t quite work out how a shit-kicking northern monkey such as myself has nearly managed to buy it.

20:40 Cat goes Awol. One family member empathically cries out “oh just leave the silly fucker, let’s crack open a beer“. Receives “How could you say that?” from remaining 3 female members.

Thursday

08:30 Confidently stride out to car tossing a “I’m just off to the rental place to sort out all the IT stuff, be back in an hour” over a manly shoulder.

08:31 Get stuck behind first tractor

08:32 Grips steering wheel in death grip after somehow avoiding a fatal collision during optimistic overtaking move deployed by knackered old white van. Towing a trailer. Concludes this kind of Motoring Murderball passes as entertainment in these parts.

08:36 Pass tractor in manner of Van and Trailer. Find this reasonably stimulating. Forget to breathe.

08:50 Arrive at rental “big log” to install simple wireless solution for important 13:00 conference call.

10:30. Daunting realisation that it isn’t so simple. Main reason is Log has foil insulation similar to that used to block German WW2 radar. Which is more than a match for Johny Foreigner 2008 WiFi chips.

11:00 In desperation, motor off to PCWorld. Spend 10 minutes being acne’d by a boy who knows nothing. Dispatch with virtual ear flea and instead plump for leftfield Ethernet over Plug technology. Fully expect it to be an expensive disaster.

12:30 Critical IT system go-live delayed by frantic call from Carol who has a) bored removal men with half a lorry to unload and b) no idea of the location to unload it at.

12:45 Collect removal men, curse at slow lorries, accept stress reliving cancer stick as payment, barrel into log – plug’o’ethernet held aloft – and go nova with a million cables. Fuck me, it only bloody works.

12:59 Finish reconfiguring every bit of IT kit I own and join call in a breathless, crossed legged floor based Yoga**** position. Pass this technical triumph off as a mere bagatelle for a man of my legendary skills.

13:01 Hit Mute, punch air and shout “You is the MAN, THE MAN

13:02 Reconcile embarrassed silence with dread realisation that loudspeaker key is situated directly adjacent to mute key.

15:00 Finish call. Have lost use of legs.

19:00 Open wine. Survey vista of all things not South East.

19:01 Grin. And then fall asleep.

* To all sane people everywhere. A Venn diagram which includes “The Wise old Sages“, “The Monks of Ancient Wisdom” and “The ravings of a man surrounded by cabbages” intersects in a righteous spheroid best described as “Grumpy old buggers

** This makes more sense now I’ve considered the secondary meaning.

*** Not that great admittedly, but I needed an “and

**** Not Yoda. Because then I could have legitimately announced myself to 20 Americans as “Word Conquest you desire? Fail you will

5 thoughts on “Move it…

  1. Andy

    Geekily spotted your “network over power cable infrastructure” in the photo and wondered what ever had come over you. Having read the full details, can see that needs must in an emergency. Love the thought of you hitting the speaker button instead of the mute 🙂

  2. Alex

    Amazingly it does work. I have no idea how but that’s pretty representative of my lingering understanding of technology nowadays 😉

    The wireless works too. As long as the machine you want to use is resting on the access point. Somewhat mitigating the USP of such a device…

    The mute thing? I’m sure within a few months, most of the embarrassment will have passed 😉

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