There is a line that gets crossed after about nine hours. Its that moment when your sub-conscious mind catches up with your conscious mind and reminds yourself that you have probably had the most amnount of coffee that is advisable. Its when the train of thought that at first seemed BLOODY GENIUS unravels into the ether and suddenly you wouldn’t like to bet on remembering your own name. For me, this moment seems to coincide with the sense that the only way to clear ones head is to yell loudly or run around the empty office. Or both.
After days of working on the same document, our little team of two have developed a shorthand: the financials are being tracked on a spreadsheet covered in flourescent highlighter, known as ‘The Yellow Peril’. The names of projects are now three letter acronmyms or just ‘Graham’s one’. The swearing has increased exponentially. As has spontaneous bursting into song. And periodically reassuring each other that ‘we are on the home stretch now!’
Happily, these moments are interspersed with the realisation that this is actually great fun. That I am in the right job, with smart people I respect and care about. That only six months into this foray into the world of permanent work, I am left without any doubt that the salary cut is worth every penny of the sense of belonging, of contributing to something bigger than myself.
And that even if my usually pristine work area, currently resembles a post-drop Horishima, and that I know the names of the kids of the night security guards, and the weekend opening hours of all sandwhich shops in a one mile radius, I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.
Comments
that venn digram looks like a big poached egg smiley face with rollers in. that govt dept i was at had one shaped like a big teddy bear.