Dealing with misery at work the gothic way
What do you do when you’re stuck at work doing a miserable task?
For the purposes of this post, updating an MS Project file of doom is the miserable task in question. Basically, I’m aggregating a bunch of information, dates, estimates and such from the bowels of Sharepoint and email and into a cohesive schedule. Once that’s done, then I have to update the other 10+ projects, resources, and leveling done. This file has 1000’s of lines of items to refresh.
I decided that I needed to listen to music, specifically miserable and angst-ridden. Type in vampire or goth + podcast into iTunes store and see what happens. A cornucopia of relevant and tangential podcasts shows up.
Ø The Ungodly Hour Radio show is “music for the rest of us” with mostly Industrial/Goth/EBM streaming for 3 hours and minimal chatter per episode.
Ø “The Count” has several themes in (his?) podcast: Vampire Club Mix, A New Wave Wet Dream, Gothic Grab Bag, etc. More streaming of the goth-friendly audio delights.
Ø There’s tons of podcasts discussing vampires in pop culture or TV, complete with episode recaps.
Ø The Darker Side of the Moon (complete with howling) is a talk radio format with goth-friendly segments; who doesn’t like “Uncle Creepy”?
Ø The Bleeding Edge podcast has a catchy show jingle/intro and the hosts sound British, and the music includes darkwave, punk, and rock elements.
I appreciate the cheese-factor and camp of these shows. A favorite DJ Name shout out to “DJ Barus the Assassin” and his Dark E Mix. I seem to lack the proper evil-invoking moniker in my daily life. Would DB devs cower in fear if my emails were signed Countess Shade blood the Destroyer? Would marketing managers bow to my greatness as Mistress M the Subjugator? Ok, likely not since I can easily be defeated with shiny objects and tech.
Now that I’ve managed to shut out the world around me, cleared my schedule of meetings (which circle of hell should those be in?) and filled up my mug with the darkest, caffeinated beverage handy (Black Dragon tea), I can delve into the assignment at hand.
How do you cope with boring and tedious tasks?
–Misty Dark, the merciless manipulator of ooky-spooky project files and tormenter of schedules
