Imagine You’re a crab. And some 2-legged giant just caught You on a morning stroll and threw Your unsuspecting ass right into a bucket. You’re now in that bucket prison with a few other unlucky crabs. After listening to Your new crab-buddy Bob moan about his wife for a few hours, You’ve finally had it. All You’ve been thinking about is, if this is really how it ends for You. The more You listen to this idiot blabber about his problems, the more You realize, that You just can’t take this shit any longer. You’re a free individual after all. You’ve got so much better shit to do than this. You need to get the fuck outta there…
It appears the only way out is up, yet there’s nothing to grab onto inside the bucket. You obviously need to climb on top of Your mates. It’s not gonna be pleasant for anybody, but it needs to be done, so at least You’ll have a chance out there. So You begin Your climb towards freedom. You’re using all them other crabs as Your stepping stones. Meanwhile Bob is speechless. He can’t believe You’d do that. He considered himself Your half-gay best friend and here You are, thinking You’re better than him and trying to leave his crab ass behind. That’s basically illegal! So Your buddy Bob here decided to save You from Yourself and pulled You right back down with him. He’s thinking ‘Fuck yeah, everything’s back to how it was. Order has been restored.’ Meanwhile Your dreams just got crushed, cuz Bob’s too much of a pussy to admit that he should’ve done the same thing a while ago. He chose safety instead.
There’s always going to be Bobs around You whenever You start going against the grain. They’ll try to pull You down and they will succeed, if You let them. Misery fucking loves company. So You have a choice to make – You can either let Bob pull You down or You can double down, punch Bob in the fucking eye and push Yourself over that edge. Bob became dead weight the moment he no longer respected Your independence. True friends never try to hold You back. They instead help each other, whenever possible. I can’t even count all the Bobs I’ve had to shake off my legs over the years…
My initial plan in NZ was to just skip the European winter and chill out for 6 months. That turned to shit, when Rona hit. After hearing that my old job in Mercedes was gone and how most of my old coworkers were now unemployed, I figured I might as well stay here for now. That turned out to be the best move, as I was able to take it easy at work for a while. Besides doing some extensive online shopping for my apartment back home, I was also working on different ideas to pursue, once back home. That is until a few months ago, when NZ became the only place in the World where life went on as normal.
Therefore the film production was also back to 100% and I was sent to help set up the security side of a new set. Before I knew it, I was rolling around in a newish work ute clocking 60-70h workweeks. All of a sudden I had new kinds of problems. The new set was over an hour’s drive away from my home. This meant my 12-13h workdays really turned into 14-15h workdays. My little holiday had effectively turned into a proper work mission.
My housemates at the time were preparing to get married around that same time. And our landlord at the time had just sold our house at the auction, so we were getting ready to move houses a week after the wedding. I’d lived together with these housemates for a year and we were all getting along pretty well. There were lots of jokes made about me marrying one of my girls at their wedding and the general situation seemed alright. We were like a small family, or so I thought…
I caught one of my housemates trying on his suit for the wedding one day. So I complimented his suit and he asked me what I was going to wear. I didn’t have an answer, as I hadn’t been invited yet. Cue the weird gut feeling. So I confronted the couple that same night. I mean if I was going to a wedding I’d really need to take some days off, get a suit, get a gift and so on, so I just asked them if I was invited or not. The dude basically told me to ask ‘The Boss’. That there was my answer, but I figured I’d still confirm it with ‘The Boss’ herself. Turned out I wasn’t going to their wedding as, *shuffles-deck-of-cards*, there wasn’t enough room for everybody. Not even a housemate they’d been sharing their lives for a year with. It took me a while to process it, as I was constantly hammered with work.
As the wedding came and went, I realized our house had divided into the ‘core 3’ and the back room Eastern European. I couldn’t live there any longer. And I especially couldn’t move into another house with them. So I started browsing around for a new place. Took me a few days, but I managed to find quite a solid place not too far from all my worksites. When I went to check it out, I was stunned. Compared to my current house it was a proper countryside mansion. Huge backyard, big terrace and the landlord had an awesome dog.
Apparently he needed someone to live in the house and feed the dog, as he often takes trips for work. I basically agreed on the spot. That was 1 day before my moving day to that other new house. I had a lot of thinking to do that night. I could barely sleep, but that was more likely caused by this girl who came over for her dick appointment. I was gonna tell them the next morning but they’d all left for the new house. So I just sent them a text saying pretty much that ‘I’m packing my shit and moving out. Good luck and have fun at the new house. You can keep all the money I’ve paid in advance’. Well that turned into a proper shitstorm. Lots of things were said on both sides. Last I checked, they’ve all blocked me on social media. Good fucking riddance.
This move ended up costing me a bit of money, but it was definitely worth it. The rent went up by 10%, but I ended up cutting down my fuel costs and travel time by 50%. Not to even mention the amazing countryside and the lack of traffic jams. Besides the dog’s awesome and a total chick magnet.
This outstanding move in turn allowed me to push through the most intense work session of my life, where I was running a security team of 7-14 people, 6 days a week, throughout a period of 2 months. At peak times we were handling security for a crew of 300-400 production staff all the way to the Christmas break. In the end everything worked out great! My employers were happy with my performance and my bank account was looking quite healthy. Sometimes all You need to do is take a step back to assess Your situation, cut off some dead weight and move forward. Out with the old and in with the new.
I finally got to have a proper rest over these Christmas holidays and grab a few drinks with my old buddies. I got a gut feeling that there’s going to be big things happening in 2021. Some of these changes are something I need to get on right away. Because of my hectic work schedule, I’ve had to cut down on my gym sessions. But it’s mostly because I’ve been lazy at the end of the year. There really isn’t any excuse for being lazy. I’m currently in one of the few blessed places in the World, where there’s no lockdowns and all the gyms are open. So I’m going to put in that extra effort, get my shit together again and go get those fresh gains. Here’s to a better new year!
