Not the best of months

The Discipline Diaries #72

Jacqui James

Oct 30, 2024

man wearing black notched lapel suit jacket in focus photography — Photo by Ali Morshedlou on Unsplash

“Not the best of months”

Is the considered opinion of my newest professional disciplinarian, I kid you not.

It’s true.

October has sucked MAJORLY!

For once, it isn’t really me doing it - I’m frankly not to blame for the series of mini-disasters that have come my way.

In the past 30-odd days I’ve had serious dramas at work, a nasty sports injury (even though I am not currently engaged in competitive sport), exacting dietary requirements, less than perfect health, dogs abuse from some of the more delightful members of the British public and the misfortune to spend a morning, last Friday, with one of the most passive-aggressive, arrogant, self-serving sons of bitches imaginable.

Odious, wilfully ignorant, hubristic dick.

Not to put too fine a point on it! Yeah, it was last Friday morning, whilst my injury was in its infancy and REALLY starting to play up that I had to suffer one of the most infuriating experiences of my entire life.

On a semi-regular basis, I get mistaken for a fool.

I’m not entirely sure why, especially because some people, typically those of supreme quality, immediately recognise that they are dealing with a hyper-competent individual.

Jacqui James is a genuine all-rounder (cricketing term meaning: can bat, bowl and field equally well and to a high standard).

It seems that those of a certain level quickly get the cut of my jib and treat me accordingly, on the other hand some of the absolute dregs and plenty of barely above average folk get completely the wrong end of the stick!

Why is this?

I was actually being advised on how to do my job by someone who has never done my job, could never do my job and is making less money at doing his job than I am at mine.

You literally couldn’t make this shit up!

It drives me crazy, especially when I go to such great lengths to try to ensure that my success doesn’t make me arrogant or aloof (except where necessary!)

What are these lengths?

Namely, employing pro disciplinarians to check my attitude and conduct - the very old-fashioned way!

It especially galls, then, when arrogant maskholes give it the large one as though they are some kind of great Oracle, when in actual fact they more accurately resemble a great orifice.

Long story short, is that it has been a very, very rough month here and when my gas hob bust 3 hours into my cooking a great good - diet compliant - dinner I was lucky to not completely lose the plot.

Starving, tired and miserable I somehow managed to take myself off to bed for an early night rather than raid the fridge or freezer and do something I’d later live to regret.

Perhaps most people would have forgiven me for a Ben and Jerry’s binge, given the extremely trying circumstances of the last month. A sustained onslaught of everything and anything that could go wrong actually going wrong.

But it isn’t the opinion of most people that matters. Right now, it is only the opinion of one man that matters - where adherence to strict dietary requirements is concerned - and that man is a professional disciplinarian, mentor (or life coach, as you Yanks say) and he is paid to take dim views on certain types of behaviours.

Probably the only reason I haven’t yet done something very stupid is because poor decisions lead to heated posteriors and I just don’t have it in me right now.

I really don’t.

However, I’m only 10 days into an extreme dietary experiment that has previously gone spectacularly wrong… so there’s plenty of time for trouble yet.

Jacqui James

Not the best of months

The Discipline Diaries #72

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