Dom Davis (The Blog)

So the school holidays are over and the trains are fuller in the mornings. Getting a table seat is no longer guaranteed and I run the risk of not being able to easily use my laptop in the mornings which reduces my already limited time to do things. There really isn’t enough time in the day.

Work could easily eat up 12 hours a day just keeping up with stuff if I let it (I don’t, I view it as a failure of the project planning rather than a failure on my part as the deadlines zoom past and recede into the distance).

There’s a further 8 hours per day worth of stuff that I’d like to get done to improve things at work which gets crammed into my morning commute, but really requires a table and takes 3 weeks to do a single days work due to the time and setup constraints.

I’m also editing a book for a friend which would only take a week, if that, full time, which I’m also doing during my commute and evenings while The Zozo watches her soaps.

My home time commute is reserved for a few games or watching a little telly. Blogging gets crammed into the walk to and from the station.

Realistically it’s 7:30 by the time I’ve got home and eaten leaving about 2 hours to spend with The Zozo on weekdays otherwise it eats into sleepy times and leaves me tired.

Weekends I quite often get a day to myself which is good for a bit of downtime but means I don’t get to see The Zozo as much as is like. While she is at work I try to go to the gym, play games, sort the house, shop, sort out my websites, go out and take photographs, organise my existing photographs, edit a load of video, work on some personal projects and catch up on my TV. Many of these tasks fall by the wayside, usually starting with sorting the house :S

When we both have a day off The Zozo and I like to go out, do something, see a film, have a meal out and relax at home. We’ve also got lots of places further afield we’d like to visit that require 2 contiguous days off.

I, therefore, propose a plan involving 100 hour long days and 10 days to a week with 5 day long weekends. I’ll still miss my deadlines but I’ll get to see The Zozo more and get my own stuff done

You¹ sit the other side of the office to me, and yet your music is on so loud I can actually identify the song you’re listening to from the sound being leaked from your headphones. Either buy better headphones or turn it down. It can’t be doing your hearing any good at all and it’s annoying the hell out of me. *bum tish bum tish bum tish*

In the interim I shall plug myself into my headphones which a) don’t leak any sound so I can listen to my iPod with it turned up to 11 without annoying people and b) stops sounds from the outside world from leaking in meaning I don’t need to crank up the iPod to 11 unless I want something to be deafeningly loud.

¹There’s two of you actually, thankfully not both at the same time

I find it quite sad just how quickly I’ve adjusted from my nice life of playing working at home and it’s commute of… lets go wild here, lets call it a whole 2m, to my resumed life of commuting for over an hour to and from a real office where I do a full days work. Once again my weeks are a blur of get up, breakfast, shower, get on the train, walk to the office, work, walk to the station, get the train home, cook, eat, watch some TV, snuggle with the Zozo, sleep with the weekend providing blissful respite at the end. I’ve got so used to just keeping my head down and slogging it to the end of the week that this week I actually lost site of when that was. The combination of the 4 day Easter weekend and a day off tomorrow to do the last day of my photography course meant that somewhere I’ve lost a day.

I discovered I’d got out of whack when my boss asked me to give an update since I wasn’t in tomorrow. I told him that I was in tomorrow and it was Friday that I was out. His retort was to claim that tomorrow was indeed Friday which I was forced to poo-poo since that would make today Thursday. It was pointed out to me that, yes, it was Thursday which was met by incredulity by me. He once again assured me that it was Thursday which was finally confirmed by my consulting iCal for the current day… and then my iPhone just in case my laptop was wrong… and then Outlook on my work computer just in case it was an error with Macs and/or Mac programs.

The realisation that it wasn’t 16:50 on a Wednesday with a whole 9 and a half hours left to finish up what I was working on before the weekend and was in fact 16:50 on a Thursday with a scant 30 minutes to finish what I’d been working on caused a number of feelings to collide in my head.

Firstly there was panic that I’d gone from being ‘quite behind’ at work to ‘seriously behind’ and I’d have a job on just to leave everything in a state where I could pick it up again easily on Monday. Secondly there was feelings of embarrassment that I had vehemently argued it was yesterday without checking my facts, and indeed doubting the facts when they were thrust in my face. Thirdly there was feelings of relief and joy that it was now (or very soon to be) The Weekend™. Needless to say the latter feeling won out, I spent my remaining 30 minutes quickly trying [and failing] to finish off, hand off or otherwise park everything I was doing before grabbing my bag and legging it. I’m still waiting for it to sink in that the working week is over.

My new job is 15 minutes walk from the station in Norwich which, unlike London, puts it a little out of the way. I couldn’t even tell you where the nearest Starbucks is, Pret has to be over 10 minutes walk and I don’t even know if Eat exists outside of London. While there are analogs closer we’re still looking at a 5 minute walk before you get to a news agent and sandwich vending establishments.

There is, of course, the ubiquitous Sandwich Man, which I think is now mandated by European legislation offices over a certain size, who comes at 11ish and apparently we have access to a canteen over the road that supplies overpriced, badly cooked food to another company and is quite happy to rip off employees from surrounding places which I’ve been warned off.

I discovered all this on my first day, choosing the sandwich man (prawn in maryrose sauce bap, crisps) and being quite impressed with his fayre.

Tuesday I brought a packed lunch. Cheaper and much better for me, plus the paucity of snack vending establishments nearby means I can’t easily supliment my lunch with crap and defeat the object.

Wednesday was a team lunch so we went out for food, Thursday and Friday I was off.

Monday there was no bread (we’d been away and not got round to shopping) so I had a tuna and red onion sarnie with crisps from the sandwich man.

Today I made my lunch, put it in my shiny new lunch box and promptly left it in the kitchen. Sandwich man again for me then. Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll get into the habit of packing my lunch and actually remember to bring it. As it is tomorrows lunch will be today’s lunch rescued out of the fridge (if I remember :S )

The last few months I’ve been working The Zozos shift patterns and working from home, with the last couple of months being self employed. Weekends, as a concept, dissapeared and there were just days working and days off. Days working were 8-3:30 with zero commute. Mondays were a thing of the past.

All that came to an end this morning when a Monday suddenly hoved into view and I had to go rejoin the commuterate.

Thankfully I’m being eased into it. 3 day week this week with a nice 4 day weekend… although there’s a Monday lurking behind that. I can tell.

It’s going to be odd. I’m used to being able to potter about, nip to the shops, do my shopping on a daily basis and cook for The Zozo when she gets home to a warm house with a lit fire. Poor old Zo is now going to be comming back to a cold house where she’ll have to build and light her own fire and then either eat alone or starve until I come home. At least with this job I’m not being woken up at 5:45, I’m getting home well before 19:45 and I don’t have to fight for a seat

On Monday The Zozo spotted a job ad that not only matched a large number of my skills but that also looked like it could be quite fun.

Tuesday I had spoken to the agent, found more about the job and sorted a date for the interview.

Thursday I had the interview.

Friday I had the job. I start in a week or so. Funny how things turn out.