bizgirl

Artemis was sitting on a bench-seat near the bottom of the lighthouse-slide that takes pride of place at Frank Kitt's Park. He saw me and waved me over.

"Natalie, hello, commiserations on the job-loss."
"Hi Artemis, thanks," I said, sitting down next to him.
"Any jobs on the horizon?"
"No. Not that I've looked hard. I'm going to start looking properly next week. Not that I'm in any rush. It's quite nice being unemployed now that summer seems to have arrived, and I've discovered I'm eligible for the dole when my severance pay runs out, so I won't be totally financially crippled."
"You'll be looking for more library work?"
"It's the only thing I'm qualified for, really. I suppose so. There's lots of library jobs around Wellington, hopefully something will pop up."
"You seem to be a very good librarian. I'm surprised they let you go, actually."
"Thanks Artemis. But, yes, they seemed to frown upon my law-breaking."

We chit-chatted about our respective Christmas breaks for a bit, and then Artemis pulled a spiral-bound sheets of A4 paper from his bag.

"Natalie, my school drama group has been working on a new production over the summer break, and, well...um..."

His sentence ground to a halt. Artemis, lost for words? What could this mean?

"Go on," I prompted.
"Well, " he said, and then the rest of the words came in a tumble, "we're doing a play based on your blog."
"You're what?"
"We've created a play based around the stories you've told in your blog. You're the main character, and the other younger me is in it - and Josh, Mrs Darjeeling, all the other librarians."
"You have got to be kidding."
"No, not at all. I've got the script here," he said, handing the spiral-bound A4 paper to me.

I flicked through it - all the names were there. He wasn't making it up.

"You can keep that," said Artemis, "I thought you might like a copy. Although, it's still a draft, really."
"Thanks. I'm, um, stunned is the only word to describe it."

I looked at some pages at random.

"You haven't changed the names at all?"
"No. I considered it, but changing the names of people whose names you've already changed seemed a little redundant."
"I suppose so. Did you write all this yourself Artemis?"
"Yes. Well, I suppose I should say I adapted it myself. A lot of it is verbatim from your blog. That's why I wanted to talk to you, you see. I thought ... well, actually, the drama teacher thought ... I had better check with you to make sure that it would be all right to use your writing."
"Um, I suppose it's fine. I'm very flattered, in fact."
"Don't be, you haven't seen the play yet."
"Will I get to?"
"If you want. We're just workshopping at the moment, and we'll be rehearsing once school starts back. We'll probably be performing it at the end of the first-term."
"I can't wait."
"Actually," said Artemis, looking at his watch, "neither can I - I have to go. Look, have a proper read-through, and let me know if there's anything you really don't want appearing. We've got a few months to fine-tune things, so changes are still pretty easy to make."
"Okay, I will."
"Thanks Natalie. Perhaps we can catch up again soon."
"Perhaps we can."

He offered me a ride home, but I declined, it being such a beautiful day and all, and Franks Kitt's Park being such a nice place to be. I spent the rest of the afternoon basking in the sun. I watched kids playing at the park for a while, then took a walk around the waterfront to the white sands of Oriental Bay, where I lay down and read the script from start-to-finish.

And, if I say so myself, it wasn't too bad.

Continued here...

The blow of being dooced was softened by the joy of going on holiday, albeit, a now open-ended one with financial ruin looming in the near-future. Still, I vowed to forget about my unemployment crisis, put the blog out of my mind, and postpone all romantic encounters until at least next month. These pre-emptive New Year's resolutions were fairly easily to keep, as I flew home (tickets paid for months in advance, thankfully) to a quiet week with family in a mercifully un-internet-connected home. When the family finally got the full story out of me, they were suitably sympathetic about my job loss, outraged at the treatment meted out to me by my employers, and astonished as to the impact my blog ("what's a blog, exactly?") had had on my life. Needless to say, on top if it being Christmas, my role of prodigal daughter resulted in me being even more well fed and cared for than usual for the holiday period.

I used my week at home to read. As per usual, I got books for Christmas, and I had finished most of them by the time it came to fly home on New Year's Eve. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (great!). Little White Car (fantastic!). Northern Lights (amazing!). Sick Puppy (just ok!). The Corrections (for the third time - still brilliant). Middlemarch (a classic!). Killing Paparazzi (crap, but fun!). Before I knew it, I was out of reading material, three kilograms heavier, on a plane back to Wellington, and a life of no money, no job, and no boyfriend.

I arrived home to my flat, still an internet-free zone. Thankfully the power, phone and gas were still on, but for how long is anyone's guess - the overdue notices awaiting me in the post made me even more disbelieving of my decision to refuse a five hundred dollar 'loan' offered to me by a slightly more affluent member of my family. As the New Year approached, I sat on my own in my darkening back yard, listening to the reveling coming from various parties around the neighbourhood and eating the last of my two minute noodles. I must have been more tired than I realised, as the next thing I was aware of was waking up shortly before daybreak, feeling stiff and sore from my awkward sleeping position, and covered in a thin sheen of dew. An auspicious start to 2005...

Anyway, it took me another couple of days to get access to an Internet-connected computer. Thankfully, noizyboy returned from his holidays, and, having read of my plight, called me up to ask if I might want to pop around to his place for dinner and a web catch-up. I was there in a flash, made some vague seasonal small-talk, but he could see I was itching to get onto the PC, so he left me to it, and I quickly got down to business, pecking away haphazardly at his annoyingly shaped ergonomic keyboard.

Thanks to the mysteries of the Google search algorithms and the endless fascination that is my referral stats, I could see a lot of the people coming to the site had been searching on the word 'dooced' post. Since my post on that topic has magically jumped into the top 10 on the returned hits, a lot of people were clicking through to me as a result. That was about the only interesting piece of news to be gleaned from my stats, so I flicked over to my gmail account to see if there was anything good there.

There was. Actually, thanks to everyone who did take the time to email and comment. It's very sweet. And, for whatever reason, amongst the messages of condolence and seasonal greetings, I had five separate requests from journalists wanting to chat about my blog, and, specifically, being dooced. It seems 'blogs and being dooced' was the tech story of the New Year in the UK. The BBC, Times, and Guardian all had articles on the phenomenon. There were also two emails (BBC Scotland and, my sole non-UK bit of media correspondence CBC Canada) wanting to organise phone interviews.

And all the emails were at least a week old. I sent belated replies, but, considering nearly all the publications in question seem to have actually published stories while I was away, the media spotlight seemed to have passed, so I won't be holding my breath for any big-time international exposure quite yet.

I also got an email from the Bloggies organiser, informing me that I had been chosen to be one of the panelists for several of their categories. My job is to help narrow down their short-list of nominees to half-a-dozen finalists. I don't quite know how I'm going to find the time to peruse the 100 or so websites that I've been asked to look at in order to decide which ones are the 'best', so, in the honour of all good panel-judged competitions, I think I'll just end up voting for the ones I've heard of (good luck JonnyB - you've got my vote!), or, failing that, ones that I like the sound of (eg. myboyfriendisatwat.com).

I considered doing some online job hunting, but I was still in holiday mode, so put it off for another day. I'm not officially unemployed until the end of the month, so I figured (at the time) that I'd need to start looking properly in another week or so.

And, finally, there were emails from Josh and Artemis. Josh emails me all the time, regardless of our current state of entanglement or otherwise, so that was no surprise. Despite its cheerful tone, the "happy new year" and "anything I can do" platitudes, it was plainly a groveling admission of his festering guilt in the role he played in getting me fired. I clicked gmail's 'report spam' button, and moved onto Artemis's email, which held much more interest, as he's never been in touch via the web before.

He had something to discuss, and now that he had no way of tracking me down at the library, wanted to meet me somewhere to 'talk it over'. I emailed him back, suggesting some times and places. I got an almost instant reply, suggesting tomorrow, at Frank Kitt's Park, down by the waterfront in town. Having nothing else to do, and the usual interest as to what Artemis might possible be scheming, I replied that, yes, I'd be there.

What's he got planned now, I wondered?

I was to find out the next day.

I was in a last-day-before-the-holidays-haze, going through the motions before the start of my endlessly-awaited two week summer break from the Library.

The daze was probably a good thing: the citizens of the city appeared to be dump-trucking their books onto the returns desk before departing on their own holidays, a situation that would normally drive me to despair - but today was merely a reminder of what it was I wouldn't be doing when I was lying on a beach somewhere, probably feeling (a) vaguely guilty for not doing something, and (b) the dull throb of my occupational overuse syndrome aching away in my right shoulder.

So, when Mrs Darjeeling phoned the desk and requested my presence in her office as soon as possible, I suspected nothing. More so, I was naively optimistic that the news might be good: my stand-down time from the library web-team was surely at an end, so I thought I might be about to get the green light to rejoin the geek-squad. I walked into her office. The inevitable request came...

"Shut the door please Natalie."

Ohhh, she looked stern. Trouble.

"Natalie, I have to ask you if one of your more recent online entries contains any element of truth to it."
"Um, okay, fire away."
"Your entry regarding the copying of CDs. Did this take actually take place?"

Ohhhh ... shit.

"Um, yes."
"And did you copy CDs taken from our collection?"
"Yes."
"You wouldn't happen to know exactly how many?"

27. But not all the tracks off each, necessarily.

"Um, a few, I'm not too sure..."
"It's a moot point, anyway. The damage has been done. Not only is copying of our CD and DVD collections in direct contradiction of the terms of your Employment Contract, it's also quite illegal. You must be aware we've passed on lesser cases involving patrons to the police..."

I hiccupped in terror.

"...which we won't be doing in this case, " continued Mrs Darjeeling, "but, I'm afraid this incident, on top of your previous warnings means the Library really has no choice but to terminate your contract."
"You're firing me?"
"I'm afraid so Natalie. As this would have been your last day before your holiday, it has been decided to give a month's severance pay, instead of the usual fortnight, so as to not completely ruin your summer. I have here your letter of dismissal and final payslip. I wasn't required to give you a Reference Letter, but I have."
"Um, thanks."
"I've been assured by the legal people that everything is in order, but you do, of course, have the option of taking legal advice against the Council for unjust dismissal."
"Would I have a chance?"

Mrs Darjeeling took off her glasses, and looked across the desk at me.

"Natalie, really, it is beyond me why you've got yourself into such a pickle. You're obviously a very smart girl, but you seem intent on undermining the good work you do here with this ... this ... blog business. I've been happy enough to overlook things so far - the grey area you inhabit has been suitably vague enough to warrant any serious reprimand. But this latest entry, it's ... really ... just a step too far."
"Copying the CDs?"
"Yes, Natalie. I mean, really, you, of all people. Our resident music expert."
"Well, that's why, isn't it? And besides, everyone else does it too."
"They do not Natalie, and, certainly, those that do don't disclose their low-level work-based illegal activities in an online journal."
"No."
"There are many people who watch what you do, you know. I dread to think how many other cases like this are going to crop up. I'd like to think we at the Library have been giving you fair warning that discretion might be the better part of valour when it comes to your written exploits. It seems, however, that all we've been doing is giving you enough rope to hang yourself with."

And so, on that appalling metaphor, Mrs Darjeeling passed across the papers, ending both our discussion, and my job.

My summer holidays had begun.