These are hard times we're living

Yesterday was a very rewarding day, albeit in ways I couldn't really foresee:

• One of my favourite enigmists (yes, I'm kind of a nerd that way), who runs a daily section in the biggest national newspaper website, published (under my full name) a game I sent him, publicly stating his appreciation
  
• For the first time in my life I've followed a live Internet broadcast by one of my favourite webcomic artists (yes, I'm kind of a nerd that way, too), watching him draw a strip and listening to him cocking about with his "bros", and I actually got him to laugh out loud at a joke I chatted (I'm even more of a nerd, that way, I know).

So, it might be childish, shallow and ultimately short-lived, but I'm going to bask in my self-appointed genius and glory for the next day or two.

On a completely unrelated note, since we're in a worldwide recession, the developed economies are struggling to avoid collapse, and most big firms are axing jobs everywhere, tomorrow I'm leaving for a 5-day, fully-expensed company ski trip to the Alps.

Oh yeah, I've been worse.

Weird Night

Last night was definitely one of the weirdest nights I've had in quite a while.

I had to stay late in the office (not unusual fare, and 10 PM is not even that bad, given my job). By pure chance all my teammates had already called it a day, and of course all client employees were long gone. And by that I mean everyone in the building.

So there I was, right after delivering a project document, all by my lonesome, in a quiet and dark office (which is actually the best situation if you have to work late: no distractions and no colleagues popping in with any issues that need dealing with immediately). I turned off my laptop, packed my stuff up, put my coat on, went down the usual back stairs, pushed the back door open, and found an iron gate right in front of me. Locked.

The very iron gate that's always left open, so that the occasional consultant that stays late can actually leave: the same iron gate I've gone through countless times at night (during office hours the front door is open). Apparently the security guard that stays till 9 PM, and who should check if anyone's left in the building, failed to spot me (I'm 1.95, but never mind). Or maybe it just slipped his mind. Anyway, it didn't really matter: I was stuck.

Just to be sure, I checked that the front entrance was also locked, as usual (yup), and that there wasn't a button or key or something that opened the gate (nope, duh). I knew from past experience that there was no other way out (long story...), but that the security post in the main client building (24/7, less than 50 metres away) had the keys to my building. Right, then, a no-brainer: I just needed to ring them up.

Which proved to be the real challenge. You'd figure somewhere in the building there'd be a sign, a memo, a bloody address book on the guard desk with the number, but I couldn't find it. Well, I didn't look for long, but after all I was the only person in a locked building, with almost all the lights off (and no way to turn them on: the main panel was locked), rummaging aroung making light with my cell phone: just a little suspicious-looking...

At a point I even went back to the office, fired up the laptop and searched the client intranet portal for the bloody number, but again I failed to find any mention to it (I found several promising ones, but nobody picked up: strange, isn't it, at 11 PM?), not even on the yellow pages or anywhere on the Internet.

In the end I resorted to calling a colleague who I knew was having dinner nearby, begged her to go fetch the guards, and accommodate my shattered ego in the lobby. To keep my mind from the preposterousness of the situation, I texted or tried to call all of my friends: the only reply I got was a friend (who shall remain anonymous to protect the innocent ba***rd) calling just to have a good laugh at me. How lovely.

After what felt like an hour (of course it was actually not even 15 minutes: I had a consultant helping me out, after all) I saw my colleague and a guard approaching the main entrance and trying to get in. I say "trying" because apparently the security man was either too heavy or too big (or both) to get the emergency mechanism in the revolving door to work: so he handed over the keys to my bemused friend, who had to come in herself and rescue yours truly.

After a stiff talk by the security guard (yes, it was him reprehending me for being trapped in his building), and after a laugh with my friend (it was a funny situation indeed), I headed off to the subway to catch a late train home (yeah, no fancy taxi rides for me: the client is in the same city I'm based in).

While waiting on the platform, I was approached by an odd couple of gentlemen, one of whom was... just a tad intoxicated (he couldn't even stand: his friend, luckily for them quite big, had to carry him around). And of course he proceeded to happily chat me up... in an unmistakably Dutch-accented English.

In the short timespan of the wait plus the ride, I got to know that:

• The two of them were also management consultants, in my city for business
• They were from the same Dutch city where I spent my Erasmus year (where I met the friend who called to make fun of me, and where he still lives)
• The drunk man's son is called like me
• Lots of pointless but exhilarating bits and pieces of information about his life, beliefs and philosophy.

All this while he was trying really hard to get a picture of me (the above coincidences must have struck his drunk imagination), with the train roll adding to the difficult task of doing it with unsteady arms and legs.

So, if in a few days a blurry photo of an amused-looking Dude, with a grey scarf and a black coat, pops up on facebook (or flickr, or wherever) on a middle-aged Dutch consultant's profile, together with (I'd wager) a lot of other pics of the bloke getting drunk in a club, please don't tell me.

You can't make this stuff up.