June has come and gone. The world keeps turning.

2018 is half over. The world keeps turning.

I am older too. Nearly ancient. The world keeps turning.

Some things are just factual. Truth, however, in these modern times, is far from it.

We see it in the political world around us, where people like crazy Donald Trump, and the delightfully comedic Prime Minister May we have, where holding multiple contradictory opinions simultaneously is now standard operating practice. Orwell called it doublethink. But now it’s more like treble and quadruplethink. Politicians have always lied, but now they can lie and, even when proven wrong, they stick to it, and, worse, rally their troops around the supposed unfairness of it all for having their lies called out.

But I see it in my work and personal life too. Clients who are unfaithful or disloyal to us, and expect us to come picking up the pieces when it all goes to shit. So called business partners who wouldn’t know good advice if it came forward and deposited £10m in their bank account but warned them they could only live off the interest. The whole thing is just unreal these days.

So June has been one of those months. Whilst outside the weather may have gotten better, and summer is most definitely upon us, it has been immensely slow, incredibly frustrating and wholly unsatisfying. People denying obvious realities and trying to make them to be something they are not… that is a recipe for failure. And alleged former business partners, who I used to think of as friends, have shown their true colours. I am not surprised really. It was always a marriage of convenience, one more suitable for them than me… and it’s wasted five or more years of my life being stuck in it.

The only good things – my partner is making good progress with his exams. My family are still alive, including a nice moment when mum and dad came down to visit and we went out for a meal with them. It was all very civilized. Though mum got animated as usual and started with her classic Corbyn obsession. In a very middle class location. But it was all good. We had a good conversation. It had been a while. Sadly, this is how things are now with me and politics. I have no one really to debate it with. But then again, it’s not exactly a fun subject these days. See a few paragraphs back.

No more Mr Nice Author. I have very few friends and those in my confidence. I treat everyone as untrustworthy. It is a shame really, but after what I’ve suffered over the last five years, it seems like this attitude will now be with me forever. No one can be trusted. Not properly. They only disappoint.

I’m pretty bored right now. It’s hard to believe that in the month since I last wrote, not really anything has happened.

Like last time, I still find myself wishing away the hours, days and weeks. It’s hard to understand what is going on right now. Work is dead. I mean deader than dead. Ok I lie a little. We are still doing stuff. We’re just operating on maybe half our normal workload. And it makes the days and weeks drag like hell.

There is still no closure when it comes to MABP. He is still holding on for grim death, and I’m still wondering whether or not I will be absolved of all the nonsense just like I should be. He claims he will make all right to me in the end, but I’m doubting I’ll ever see the £10.000 he owes me ever again.

There has been some progress with him though. At the very least he has admitted defeat and is finally walking away. He has no work to do with me. He has no money to offer as rent to my business. So he is going. At long last, and finally on terms I wanted – i.e. not adversirial. We’re half way through him taking his stuff away, and we’ve started moving bits around to take its place. At the moment it looks much worse, but it will get better.

I still worry about what’s going on though. I don’t understand why my business has dropped off a cliff. I don’t know why I’m finding it so difficult to adapt to having more time to do stuff. I suddenly have too many hours in the day. 9.5 hours is an awful lot of time to fill if the phone isn’t ringing. But I should be able to find things to do. How can it be after 9 years or more of being self employed I’ve reverted to a state of not having work?

Part of me is done with it. Part of me wants to jack it all in and do something else. The sad thing though is that I don’t have anything else to do. I am no better than I was back when I was desperate for work. I still have no desire to make money for someone else. The thought of applying for jobs again fills me with horror.

The sensible part of me knows I have to stick this shit out. J wants to try out his new business and I don’t want to stop him. But if I give up he won’t have the opportunity to pursue it. Possible clients are being horrible to him as well. I think it will be very difficult. I have told him this. But I will not stop him. I don’t have the heart. He deserves to give it a try. He has supported me during the last few years of hell with MABP. Now my former business partner. That’s one good thing.

But while business is shit, I have become filled with money worries. I’m suddenly worried about spending on treats. I don’t deserve it. And I feel doubly bad because to cut back we are going to have to finally make our office assistant redundant. We can’t afford it. She brings no value to us any more. Especially when it’s dead. It’s not her fault but she will be the one who suffers. She has been a struggle the last year or so. But on a personal level I will feel mean. I still don’t know how I’m going to deal with it.

I write this post while J is upstairs studying for his next exam. I have to remain strong so he can finish doing what he needs to. I am pretty fucking bored out of my mind though. The internet can only entertain me for a few minutes these days.

I blame my entire existence over the last 10 years for my short attention span…

It has been an interesting few weeks. Not for my own business. That has been, let me just say, fucking boring. IT is not the place to be right now, though some might say it never has been. Demand is dropping, and the reasons to keep using Windows are now essentially non-existent for all casual computer users. It is merely habit keeping around 80% of home users on laptops and desktops. I digress.

As per the discussion of a few posts ago, I have been patiently sitting on the sidelines wondering when the Liquidator would strike against MABP. It has been deeply frustrating, but we’re now nearly through April. April, I had decided, would be the month I do nothing. I would let the process take its natural course.

The Liquidator thinks I might have been involved. Maybe. It’s not clear. They asked me lots of questions, and I did my best to point the finger of suspicion away. To a disinterested observer, they might conclude that the fact I know everything and MABP knows nothing looks like that I was actually a crafty puppet master, setting up MABP for a fall. The truth is anything but, but you know that, dear Diary. You know of all the shit I’ve put up with for years, for an easy life. And also because I genuinely do feel intimidated. No one understands why, not even J. I’m not sure I do either. I’m just afraid, maybe.

But the Liquidator chose to visit yesterday. I lost my temper, briefly, when I let slip a swear. Not at the Liquidator, but at the process. There I was, trying to orchestrate MABP into a graceful exit, so that I didn’t have bailiffs at the door of our office, and so he could walk away from it all and do something else – and I was sitting there being probed with questions. I’m the one worrying about what’s going to happen and how terrified I am that they will make a finding that I was a “shadow director” and therefore am liable for what happened. I could be held personally liable if that’s true.

I was – however – assured that this won’t happen. I’m being told, off the record, that I have entered the process in good faith and I have co-operated and engaged to make everything simple. I don’t believe anyone any more.

MABP has his own problems. He thinks he can still swan in and engage with me about stuff. I still haven’t found the bottle to challenge this misconception. I tried – vaguely – last week. It didn’t go very far. He could lose his house if things don’t go to plan. I would not enjoy watching that, even though others around me, J included, seem to want it to happen to make him suffer just a little, like I have. I can’t wish that on someone, but at the same time I wish I could make him understand just how upset his inappropriate and lavish behaviour has made me over the years, all the while owing me over £10k. But, as he once said, “I wouldn’t understand” the pressures of being 50 and having children. More likely I do not understand the pressures of mixing with people who earn £80k+ without even trying. And long may that continue.

As you can tell, the whole thing has made me quite bitter. So when I said to the Liquidator that I’d be more than a little cross if the finger of blame got pointed at me, and I had to suffer financially as a result, it genuinely did have truth to it. It just wasn’t very professional. I apologised, at least twice. It made me look stupid. But maybe it made my point better than handing over 30,000 transactions on a Sage journal ever could.

The Liquidator will eventually decide to do something. I’m not quite sure what. I’m just eager to find out. I find myself wishing away this month, in fact this whole year.

It is just 8 months until Christmas.

Every year Easter comes and goes. I used to make it a point to go back home for Easter, especially in the early years of living away from home. But in recent years, with the relentless rise/decline (delete to taste) of my work life, I have instead preferred to stay at home in the South and enjoy four days away from work. There are not enough of those. And I always thought I see my family enough anyway when I come North for work.

But this year, now that my evil Client from the North has sacked us for spurious reasons (see previous post) – there is even less need for me to ever see my family as the visits I do have dropped off a cliff. In some respects, I am relieved. I was tired of doing this anyway, and we were going to bow out gracefully, allowing everyone to save face. But instead, it didn’t happen.

So now, here I am, up in the Northern counties again, at home, with mum, dad, J, my youngest brother (who is back living at home thanks to various nonsenses involving a new house, moving out, an ex-girlfriend, and unsatisfactory explanations for everything), and my nephew. The brother and the nephew are thick as thieves, and have so far conspired to keep my awake first by getting takeaways delivered in the dead of night, and then talking (mumbling) for hours and hours whilst playing computer games. The brother is 24 this year, and seriously needs to grow up. The nephew is 19 soon, and is also seriously being misled by my brother. Not that he needs it. He’s taken up residence here, and now my mum and dad have a serious handful to deal with. He is angry, aggressive, ignorant, dozy and, worst of all, a serial liar. I do not feel comfortable with him around, and I have to say I don’t even recognise my own brother any more.

So, suffice it to say, it hasn’t been the family reunion I had been looking forward to. I hadn’t seen my mum and dad since Christmas. My other brother moved out in January, and he hasn’t been seen or heard from either. My older sister is busy looking after my other three nephews (two of whom are demonic, and the third will no doubt get there). And my younger sister hasn’t come home for Easter as she’s off on holiday. It’s good for her as her other half earns a very decent income…

Life is strange. Families are even stranger. J is not enjoying the experience (except for the dog, whom he loves) – and my mum and dad seem very stressed about everything now. It’s not what they needed. I’ve told them that if they can’t make the brother move out (which would also dispose of the nephew) – and there’s no reason why he can’t, he earns decent money – then they need to sell the house and downsize. It would be sad, but it needs to happen. They went on holiday and came back to a shit-tip, and complaints from the neighbours about noise and parties all night. Yes I know 24 and 19 are the ages to do these sorts of things, but my mum and dad don’t deserve this. They’ve done their child bringing up years. They’re now having to babysit moronic young adults who don’t know they’re born, with the opportunities they’ve had, living a middle class existence sheltered from actual, proper hardship. The only hardships they suffer they are now bringing upon themselves in their negative attitude to everyone.

Perhaps I am unfair. I was never like them. Neither was my other brother. But I think that’s because we appreciated what we had, and tried to build on it. My other brother took a long time but I think he’s now getting there. Though, sadly, I will now be incredibly distant from him.

Happy Easter. At least there’ll be some chocolate to console me.

Dear FORMER CLIENT OF 9 YEARS,

Further to our phone call earlier, and having had time to compose my thoughts, I felt I would like to write back with a formal response.

I recognise that no contract has ever been in place between our respective organisations, but I was happy to allow this on the good faith understanding that you have always treated me fairly, and I have done everything I possibly could over the last 9 years to look after you as a client. To dismiss me and my business with no notice shows this was misplaced – a mistake on my part.

As I said on the phone, I reject your premise that we have not been sufficiently attentive. I have always responded immediately to every call I have received, I believe the same is true of J, and I have always done everything in my power to make sure that CLIENT was looked after. I can cite three recent phone calls from CLIENT’S DEPUTY MANAGER and CLIENT’S RECEPTIONIST where problems were investigated and dealt with the same day.

You said that you didn’t feel like you could call any more, but you have never once detailed any concerns about not being able to reach out to us. You have never asked for us to visit more often. How can we possibly have known that you were unhappy if you had not communicated with us? I thought we had a better working relationship than that. I could understand budgetary concerns – it is a very harsh financial climate for education out there – but, again, you didn’t express these either.

I am sorry that after such a long time of looking after your school you felt it necessary to offer us no notice, no warnings and no opportunity to change or improve by any clearly definable standards. IT has become an extremely complicated world, with dozens of moving parts, interconnected and overlapping, making fault finding and resolution a slow and often frustrating process for all concerned. Your repeated explanation that “there are many niggly things” is categorically and comprehensively so vague that it leaves me bewildered as to how I could possibly respond.

You would not, and could not, treat one of your staff in the same way that you have treated me. I would never have expected it from you in any case. Perhaps I misjudged that.

As I said, we were planning on discussing with you towards the summer an amicable hand over. We would always have wanted to give you several months notice not to let you down. I’m sad that the reverse could not have been extended.

A genuinely upsetting and disappointing end to nine years.

You will no doubt not be surprised to learn that the client never responded. I would like to think that that means they thought I had them “bang to rights”. No doubt their holier-than-thou attitude defended them from that.

The word “liquidation” always sounds odd. Especially when considered in its usual context involving failing companies. Liquidation is the dissolution of a corporate structure and the disbursement of anything left to the creditors.

The emphasis is on the “anything left” portion. There is generally nothing left. In fact, if there is or was anything to begin with, it goes into the liquidator’s pockets. That’s capitalism for you.

The issue is quite high on the agenda at the moment primarily because the “other business” in the office, the one that I have been moaning about for five years now, is approaching liquidation. It has been living on borrowed time for the last five months or so, but it has always managed to scrabble together enough money to buy off the worst creditors over that period. Now there is nothing left, and it really can’t.

It leaves me feeling very nervous. I am personally owed money by the company, money which I foolishly personally guaranteed. The company owes money to my own business. The owner of the other business still owes me money personally. It is all completely farcical. I look back and think I should never have allowed myself to get in this position, but life can’t really be like that. My life has been down many interesting twists and turns as a result of the fateful decisions of five years ago to support someone I didn’t really know all that well at the time. I’m not sure what the hell I was thinking. Maybe I was just bored. I just read some of the posts from the time. They were interesting, and I did recognise it was a big decision, but I was thinking about my business, not his.

To be fair, the money that I’m about to lose is offset by the money that I have gained over the years. Not by much at all, and it is a pittance in comparison to the £300,000 or more that my alleged business partner has taken, either in salary, fake dividends (“transfers”), cars, fuel, insurance, subsistence, you name it. Kids joining a kickboxing club? That’s £400 right there.

I should be exceptionally bitter about it. But I can’t be. It has led me to where I am now. I am generally bored with my work, and my own business, but as long as I don’t get too many days where I get one call after another, and basically don’t leave my desk or computer, then I can deal with it. There are enough interesting people and nice customers. They just about offset the bad ones.

But there are hard times ahead. I’ve been dreading this moment for months. My alleged business partner (MABP) has plundered all the money he can. I am worried that, even though my name is not connected officially, I am still on the bank account, and still could suffer in some way. J worries with me that a bailiff or someone will arrive in the office and want to steal all our stuff, just because we share an office with another business that is being liquidated. It could easily happen. HMRC have already come knocking for MABP.

When it all finally goes pear shaped, there will be recriminations. I have to be strong enough to move on, and hold the line against MABP that I have spent 5 years on this, it’s all gone wrong, and I can’t do it again. It is affecting my sanity. It is affecting my life. My partner is also struggling with it. It’s made him ill recently, I’m sure of it.

We will get through it, but I don’t think the current arrangements will survive. We will either have to leave our office, because we can’t afford the cost on our own, or we will have to find someone else to sublet to. There is really no other option, as I cannot see how MABP will find the funds he needs to get started. I won’t be doing that again. The ledger of debt against him proves that one.

But it will be very difficult. Very difficult indeed. He will plead with me for money to tide them over before payments come in. He will do everything to persuade me that I must stick with him. But I don’t owe him a living. I’ve done that for five years, babysit his company and his ambitions. They have come to nothing. I have to move on. He has to move on.

The car crash has been unravelling in slow motion for four or five months now. I have seen the writing on the wall for ages and been trying to make as many danger signs as I could, but MABP just wouldn’t listen. It was all about the pipeline. The pipeline will save the day.

It won’t. It didn’t. And added to the whole thing a farcical drama involving a wanker masquerading as an investor, who spent weeks pretending he was interested and then brought the whole process crashing down with an odd text message accusing someone in the company of feeding him negative information about the company. Utter bollocks. And strangely vicious. Who would lie like that rather than just bow out professionally?

None of it makes sense. But then again, none of it ever did. It was all done on a hunch, and has changed direction at least three times. It was all back-of-a-fag packet, in an attempt to go from 0 to 100. He never wanted to grow organically and service contracts in a controlled manner. It was always one crazy scheme after another. All the while wanting to look like the big MD in his big corporate branded pickup truck (known as the Dickup Truck in the office) – dipping his hand in the till whenever he wanted.

It may – hopefully – soon be over. With, hopefully, a graceful way out for everyone.

We might then be able to get on with our lives…

This year I have, apparently, made several resolutions. None of them I’m keeping, but oh well.

The first was to try and be more positive. Life is not usually worth living, and there are dark moments everywhere, but actually for me my life is generally quite acceptable. Work puts me under serious stress, but I’m not dealing with life or death here. About the most distressing a day gets is whether or not I have fucked up someone’s computer, or worse, lost all their treasured photographic memories. That alone can be awful, and it’s happened before, but, at the end of the day, it isn’t important. Not really.

Whilst I would be sad if I lost all my old photos, I would also wonder what it is I’ve lost. I look at them now and think, oh, that’s depressing. I used to smile OK. I had more hair. All bad thoughts. Would I really miss them? There are so many in fact that I might just go – oh, I can’t even remember what was there. Tragic. And I don’t even look at them anyway. I looked at them just now for the purposes of this paragraph. Point proven.

So the resolution to be happier should be an easy one, right? Be more philosophical about everything. Be more zen. Be more Buddhist. There is nothing supremely bad. Or supremely good. It’s all just a bit meh. So stop overreacting to the fact that the phone always rings when I’m on the phone to someone else. It just is. Deal with it.

It’s been a total failure. But at least I have made a conscious effort. So maybe not a total failure. I’m just more upset that I bothered to make a new year’s resolution. That is always definitely a conscious effort I make to avoid.

The second resolution has been to try and leave the office on time, especially at weekends. 1pm sharp, gone. This needs to happen. It isn’t. I may have improved on leaving times by a few minutes, but today I was there at 7am, and, though I left at 6:30pm, that’s still an absurd length of time to be working.

The third resolution has been to try and get back to being a bit more active. Whilst moving house to as far away as it has has had its advantages to this point, I am definitely getting a belly. Not a fat belly. Just an ageing belly. It sags now. Also, my eyes are developing lines. And my hair is just a joke. I could try and get back into the sit up regime that I used to do, but I have less time now. I’m spending more time in the morning doing crappy pre-office paperwork. See Resolution 2 and its general failure.

The fourth resolution has been to find something different and fun to do in leisure time. As always, this usually has to involve the other half. J, I think, would like to join a gym and all that jazz. I wouldn’t. I hate other people. It’s also embarrassing. I would rather us spend more time together doing fun things. That might even involve more time having sex. What a weird thing to say. But sex can be a fun mutual pastime. We didn’t get enough of that last year. I know he agrees too. But life and work make us both miserable at the end of the day at times, and that is hardly conducive to the mood…

4 semi-resolutions. 4 semi-failures. I’m sure there are more, but I can’t think of them right now. That’s probably because I’ve broken them and conveniently forgotten them.

Good.

I started writing this cheating… at the time it was not actually 2018 yet. I was in a Travelodge somewhere in the Midlands. I’ve never been here before, but we decided that we’d spend some time away before going back. Well, about one day away anyway. So I wrote this bit in advance…

It’s time to look ahead. The new year should lead to some changes. This year things cannot stay as they were. The world is different now – politically I mean – and it makes me somewhat stressed as to what is coming. Trump is a madman, and I cannot see how that situation gets any better. I think it will get worse before it does…

In my own life, I have to find something else to do. Work cannot stay as it is, because it’s too depressing. I need to be able to exert some control over it, which is something I haven’t been able to achieve in many years. I am not sure what I can do though. I wanted to sit back and have a good think over this period, but it hasn’t happened. And J doesn’t seem very inclined to talk seriously about it, only to say that he agrees that “it’s over” as far as our current business is concerned.

The trouble is that we have a certain standard of living to maintain. That sounds ridiculous I know, and I am hardly last of the big time spenders, but I do enjoy my treats. I like spending some money on coffees and nice bits of treats. We’re going to a zoo today, which will involve similar things. It’s not like this costs a fortune, but if I was earning any less (and we don’t really earn much) I would be really worried about where the next meal was coming from. And I’d start becoming obsessed again with buying cheap crap from the supermarkets… I’ve had that moment before.

I hope J and I keep going strong. We have things we could improve, but having our own home should make us more secure and more comfortable. We are getting there.

Family-wise – that’s the big worry. I’m not sure what the future holds. There is so much illness around in my dad, my mum, my family in general… Nan is, of course, the biggest. And I am sure I’m going to start feeling more and more worse for wear. I don’t like the way my face is getting liney. I can see there is now more eyebrow than there used to be. And my hair is still the joke it has always been. Mid 30s are here to stay.

Is there anything that could improve with these things this year? It doesn’t seem so. Biological processes can’t be stopped. My eyes are worse than they were… I would be very worried about trying to learn to drive a car without glasses now. That’s crazy. I don’t wear them from day to day, but I do feel better wearing them. I don’t have to squint and strain to read road signs or just generally read the conditions. Perhaps I should, but they do make me feel a bit awkward at times.

I hope that this year J and I finally find more interesting diversions to pass the time. Netflix is all well and good, but it is extremely stationery. The trouble is after work you don’t really want to do anything else. I suspect the future lies in some sort of exercise related activity – more walking, mainly – chiefly because J is concerned about the flab he still has. I must admit at times I think I’m getting a bit podgey again too. I used to do sit ups in the morning, but now I tend to sit and read e-mails and do boring admin things for work. Joining a gym sounds expensive and dangerously close to bumping into the kinds of people I don’t like. So what can we do instead? We need to get our thinking caps on for this year…

It’s now the 2nd of January when I finish writing this. The 1st day of the year started with chores, nachos, beer and TV. Lots of music, thanks to a program on 4 Music which played every single Number 1 of the decade so far. As a former chart and stats nerd, it was good fun. But my relationship with J has forced me to move on from things like that I used to enjoy. I think I tried his patience at times. I need to learn this year to be a bit better at being less bossy…

Here’s to 2018! Let’s see what you got.