Ho hum

Those of you who know me will recognise (I hope) that I have a buoyant personality. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not it is an engaging one, but I think even someone who doesn’t much care for my presence would admit that I am a “glass half full” sort of bloke.

That said, twenty-four years (which is what it will be at the end of this month) of putting up with the endless and tiresome drivel this place and its antecedents routinely pours over a body for no regard or reward is taking its toll. It is getting harder to get up and wind my way in here in a morning; I find that I no longer really care and that even those areas of work that I would previously have found interesting no longer really engage my interest.

And it’s cumulative, this sapping of the will and morale. The place drains you just a little faster than you can replenish it, so every day the reserve of patience is a little lower and a little quicker to exhaust. I may have mistimed my holiday plans by about a week. I am taking the week leading up to Easter off. I almost think that I should have taken the week before that off, or even this week. The batteries need a recharge and the cylinders, a re-bore. In the longer term I think I need a more complete change: just holding down a job isn’t really enough at the moment.

I thought that I’d had my mid life crisis about ten years ago; for about fifteen minutes after a particularly brutal drinking session down the Bedford Arms in Clapham. Damn it, I think I’m having another one now.

Give me twenty minutes to get my head back together.

Ho hum

Those of you who know me will recognise (I hope) that I have a buoyant personality. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not it is an engaging one, but I think even someone who doesn’t much care for my presence would admit that I am a “glass half full” sort of bloke.

That said, twenty-four years (which is what it will be at the end of this month) of putting up with the endless and tiresome drivel this place and its antecedents routinely pours over a body for no regard or reward is taking its toll. It is getting harder to get up and wind my way in here in a morning; I find that I no longer really care and that even those areas of work that I would previously have found interesting no longer really engage my interest.

And it’s cumulative, this sapping of the will and morale. The place drains you just a little faster than you can replenish it, so every day the reserve of patience is a little lower and a little quicker to exhaust. I may have mistimed my holiday plans by about a week. I am taking the week leading up to Easter off. I almost think that I should have taken the week before that off, or even this week. The batteries need a recharge and the cylinders, a re-bore. In the longer term I think I need a more complete change: just holding down a job isn’t really enough at the moment.

I thought that I’d had my mid life crisis about ten years ago; for about fifteen minutes after a particularly brutal drinking session down the Bedford Arms in Clapham. Damn it, I think I’m having another one now.

Give me twenty minutes to get my head back together.

Lunch

I am back from lunch. I met up with an old colleague of mine who is just about to celebrate his second promotion since I worked with him. That means that he coughed up the price of the M&S sandwiches and coffee. Next time, we go to Pizza Hut: it’s cheaper and you can feed your face until something gives in your lower abdomen and you’re not sure if it’s important until you stand up.

After catching up – I had to cancel last time on account of Dad and somehow we let a year go by – we wandered off to Carphone Warehouse so that Andy could shout at them for flogging him a duff Blackberry. It’s always instructive to witness him in these circumstances since I know of no-one who is more aware of his consumer rights. In the end I was disappointed. Not in Andy’s performance – he was just warming up – but it seems that the Champ has a glass jaw, for the Mighty Carphone Warehouse, having defended and even extolled the virtues of the Blackberry simply caved in and gave him a new handset.

I am going to have a coffee and an apple now and reflect on the sad fact that we don’t always get our money’s worth when it comes to free entertainment.

Lunch

I am back from lunch. I met up with an old colleague of mine who is just about to celebrate his second promotion since I worked with him. That means that he coughed up the price of the M&S sandwiches and coffee. Next time, we go to Pizza Hut: it’s cheaper and you can feed your face until something gives in your lower abdomen and you’re not sure if it’s important until you stand up.

After catching up – I had to cancel last time on account of Dad and somehow we let a year go by – we wandered off to Carphone Warehouse so that Andy could shout at them for flogging him a duff Blackberry. It’s always instructive to witness him in these circumstances since I know of no-one who is more aware of his consumer rights. In the end I was disappointed. Not in Andy’s performance – he was just warming up – but it seems that the Champ has a glass jaw, for the Mighty Carphone Warehouse, having defended and even extolled the virtues of the Blackberry simply caved in and gave him a new handset.

I am going to have a coffee and an apple now and reflect on the sad fact that we don’t always get our money’s worth when it comes to free entertainment.