Thursday 1 March 2012

You Gotta Have Friends


So this morning I saw in the free newspaper on the bus that Davey Jones had died and felt a little sad.

The news that the one quarter of The Monkees had passed away, at far too early an age, would, of course, have been sad on any day – but today I felt especially sad that I would have no one to chat to at work about it.

This is because my best friend on the project left on Wednesday – my sole bastion of sanity, who bravely held the doors of lunacy shut against the daily torrent of attack. 

This has denied me the chance to bore them rigid for at least an hour or so today banging on about The Monkees and Davey (he was on Coronation Street once you know) Jones in particular

It’s true that these days I don’t socialise much with work colleagues – I find that after eight hours of staring at the blighters I need a break in the evening and/or weekend, but I would roughly break down the kind of people you meet through work into a few categories.

1)      People you do everything in your power to avoid
2)      People you deal with because you have to, but you watch your back to
3)      People that you speak to in the car park, on the floor and pass the time of day with – ie workmates
4)      Friends who you would want to keep in touch with when you finally get that dream job at Some Other Company Inc.

Of course it is possible for people in any of these categories to move back and forth between numbers from time to time, but the amount of people who fall into section four and remain there are probably very few.

Don’t get me wrong, some of my absolute best friends are Category Fours – BP who I’ve known for nearly 20 years now, Argent – who never ceases to amaze me, CC – the lovely, but ultimately flakey friend – and now (hopefully) CM.

So – in the light of the fact that I am only able to text CM, and Argent (and, it goes without saying, Herself) about Davey Jones I’m going to say the things I would have said here – some of which you would already know, but I doubt CM would (pop culture not her strong point)

Last Train To Clarksville is an underrated and great song
I’m A Believer was written by Neil Diamond you know
Davey Jones was once on Coronation Street (longest running Soap opera of the UK) in the 1960s

And of course, finally – keep in touch with your friends.

9 comments:

The Bug said...

I liked Mike better :) Ha! But it was shocking to hear the news.

I have a handful of category 4 folks in my life, but I admit that sometimes it's hard to keep up with folks. Facebook helps. What doesn't help is how antisocial I can be!

stephen Hayes said...

I liked the Monkeys. I read somewhere that Chekhov on Star Trek was cast to look like Davy Jones because The Monkeys were destroying Star Trek in the ratings.

Lydia said...

I feel really sad about the loss of Davy Jones. How I loved that tv show...

I can tell you exactly how many 4s evolved from my decades of jobs. Seven. And two of those are Christmas-card-contacts only. The many hundreds others fell into the other three categories and I couldn't care less what else they fell into in the years since they "graced" my life!!!

Titus said...

Loved The Monkees. Wanted to sleep with Mickey Dolenz, but to eventually marry Mike Nesmith.

I think Jones was going to be the drummer, but he was so short that he couldn't be seen, so became a singer instead.

Funny, but I've always really liked my work colleagues, wherever I've been. I suspect that may be because I've never worked in the private sector.

English Rider said...

Davy Jones was a star. I heard interviews in the past that they were originally hired to just lip-sync to someone else's music. They had to talk their way into being allowed to sing for real. He seemed like a nice man.

Don't Feed The Pixies said...

bug - i have moments of anti socialism too

Stephen - i always thought they brought in chekov because the russians moaned that they had been first in space, but there were no russions on the enterprise - but now you mention it he could easily have been the fifth monkee

Lydia - category fours tend to be the exception, but a worthy exception

Titus - yes i heard that he was set to be drummer as well

English - its true that the original albums were session musicians, but the four you saw did all the singing - they had to fight for everything else

Argent said...

Mr Jones also played the Artful Dodger at some stage. Peter Tork said that DJ had already been chosen to be in the group, everybody else had to audition.

Sad he's gone.

Not many cat 4s here aither, sadly. When you think just how many hours of our lives we spend with these people....

michael.offworld said...

Don't be too hard on your workmates. One of them might be just like you.

Jerry said...

It is amazing that they were a network created group for a TV show -- and went on to make it on their own.

I've found that true friends are few and far between in the work universe.