Chaos come again.
(good book, incidentally)
In lesser news, every meeting I attend I learn new survival skills, when to ask the killer questions that I've always asked, or, as I learned today, to let go, ask a few evil questions the way a stallion rears to show its strength, and then lean back and listen carefully and take mental notes on how to avoid responsability for the mistakes that they're determined to make.
The philosophical security discussion that ensued in closer quarters, was also in part a lesson on such patience games, from someone who cultivated these skills not because he doesn't care, but because he cares enough to play by the rules of submission in order to make a subtle difference anyway.
It reminded me of every time I've heard someone claim that they were going to change the system from the inside.
Some people really are doing it.
Lunchtime was a pleasure of lamb stewed in prunes, a guy from our parent consulting company joining us after this morning's meeting, eyebrows raised in surprise at the casual (or casualty) conversations, the way we two newbies get along so seamlessly with the gang of goldenboys he stranded us with last week.
It's a bank, apparently we're not supposed to be laughing so hard, and especially not so sincerely.
The way St�phane looks over shyly to see if I'm laughing before he lets looses his booming guffaw, the way C�dric returns my pseudo-angry glares with twinkling amusement. We're arch-rivals the bottom half of every other hour. The way the big boss likes to call me jeune fille and ask questions that raise everyone else's eyebrows. His reputation as a cold bastard is betrayed by his eagerness to laugh.
Andr�-Marc's comfortable conspiratorial winks, the way he speaks to me as a comrade-in-arms rather than a formal colleague despite his perfect profile and perfect tie. The way every time some deeper meaning was understood beneath the loaded paroles of the meeting, everyone's eyes would seek out mine to share that signature nod.
As for greater news, Mr. Pyke's warnings of the best laid plans of mice and monstres aft gang agley were underlined by Nicolas' (the guy from my parent company) news this morning.
Turns out that when the rest of the gang found out about the layoff (good communication they got there), they grilled a little harder on the Nantes project.
The conditions of my layoff being that I would still give them three weeks for one final push to find me a contract before I could leave.
So this morning they offered me the contract.
(although I've yet to speak to anyone at the client company.)
Which doesn't necessarily negate my carefully laid plans. At some point next week I'll find out more about the terms and hopefully also the tasks, but for the moment the details seem dubious to me. Lots of HUGE promises, and lots of smallprint too. Four months of documentation is what it sounds like from a cynical eye. Four months in Bretagne, where faeries chew affectionately at your ankles in the menhir-filled fields, but four months of work that might dull my appreciation of such things. Four months that might cause even greater problems with regards to maintaining my skills and executing my longer term travel plans.
And of course, they want me to start right away, so not only would it be cancelling my vacation and plans to chew affectionately on Mr. Pyke's shoulder for his birthday, but it would delay any travel whatsoever until MY birthday in the end of November.
I've half a mind to make my decision telling them to fuck off based on the libido factor, but I couldn't anyway. The cold-calculating-bitch chips I implanted in my brain would stop me. The same chips which stop me from just saying yes, taking the money, and running.
However, while I'd love to forget about all the job hunting efforts I've spent so far and how a four month delay might affect them, the fact that I'm ready to return to North America right now (not something easy for me), the fact that there's more than libido that's urging me to stick to the plan...
If I could forget all of that, forget my career plans, forget all of it, I'd empty my appartment this weekend, call my landlords and tell them I'm saving them some time and fucking out early, pack a suitcase filled with sensible shoes and knee-length skirts, and bolt on a celtic adventure.
Aside from the celtic adventure part, the Nantes contract still seems to have something to offer. Experience with certain technologies like Nokia firewalls and Cisco toys that are conspicuously missing on my resum� and are causing me some worry.
(although taking some time to catch up on training and grab a certification in Toronto, the heart of security certificationland might be an answer to that one)
But it has a lot of things that are sending warning bells off in my head, like ending up unemployed for Christmas, after spending four months documenting my brain into numbness.
In all honesty, my heart wants to buy certain key people plane tickets (seeing as the Nantes contract also offers certain major financial advantages, or should at least, like room and board) and oblige them to learn to scamper with faeries with me, my heart wants to say fuck you to common sense and worry about my career in a non-palindromic year, after I've successfully lived in the manifested poetry of the rolling hills of Bretagne.
My brain, my brain wants to tell them to fuck off right now, apologize for having agreed to let them continue searching for contracts, and say I'm getting on a plane anyway.
Somewhere in between the two I have to find a compromise, and despite this new crimp in plans at least I have a backup to fall back on. The fact that this decision has to be made NEXT WEEK raises the ante a bit, but not so much. Not with the available brainpower.
And so the pendulum swings again between mind and heart and tonight I have a date with my cousin who's torn up about his girlfriend leaving him, but sometome this weekend...
...I will find time to email Steven, and discuss this with Mr. Pyke and the other shining stars that I am so fortunate to have surrounding me.
Either way, it'll be all over in less than a month, I hope, because I'm eager to go back to talking about something other than me me me, and my overly complicated decisions that are based entirely on the fact that I have so many opportunities carefully arranged on a fractal of silver platters.
All these problems caused by the fact that I have too many horseshoes wedged in my rectum.
Hardly something to be losing this much time on, one would think...
Or is that what got me into trouble in the first place?
All this thinking.