It’s a miserable day outside. A day matching my mood and my general outlook on life.
I’m in a frame of mind where every minor hiccup becomes an annoyance and every whinger I encounter on the workfloor shortens my temper.
People who I can usually laugh at and brush off with a wave due to the hilarious nature of complaints that spew forth with every word, become my mortal enemies who must be dispatched with a roll of my tongue and a burst of vocal venom that would have a baby bull elephant nursing a headache.
As my gaze sweeps across the scattering of humanity that occupies my workspace it dawns on me that my world is very much a working class reality, full of people whose only worry in their lives is snaffling an extra overtime shift to buy another piece of electrical gear, pay more off their mortgage or have a beer at the club.
It’s a world that is very easy to be a part of, in fact it is where I feel most comfortable yet, paradoxically, it frustrates me and annoys me much of the time.
It’s the sharp end of the Australian cultural experiment. The bottom end of the middle class where multiculturalism meets the uneducated Anglo Saxon leftovers like me and are welded into an unwieldy society, not always with great efficiency or results.
It’s a place where over the last 25 years I have learnt that at their core, humans are all the same. No ethnicity has a mandate on ignorance, shortsightedness, selfishness or narrowmindedness.It’s been exhibited by someone from every race I’ve worked with over the years.
There have been no exceptions.
But that is a conversation for a more serious time and place and for a person more forthright than me to put forward in a forum far more significant than this.
As I scan the faces, many I recognise as long serving comrades, I wonder how many would notice if I suddenly quit, vanishing from their presence at AP without a word?
I have a few close friends who I am sure would miss me but I fear most would barely acknowledge my absence, perhaps shrugging their shoulders when realising I was gone, before continuing hoeing their own row, searching for the end of their own responsibilities to AP, the ultimate prize still dangling in the fog up ahead.
So, with my mood vastly improved through venting my spleen a little and the end of another working week beckoning, I will consign my thouts to my own head until next time when I spring forth to labour yet again over my blog. Goodnight.
I’m in a frame of mind where every minor hiccup becomes an annoyance and every whinger I encounter on the workfloor shortens my temper.
People who I can usually laugh at and brush off with a wave due to the hilarious nature of complaints that spew forth with every word, become my mortal enemies who must be dispatched with a roll of my tongue and a burst of vocal venom that would have a baby bull elephant nursing a headache.
As my gaze sweeps across the scattering of humanity that occupies my workspace it dawns on me that my world is very much a working class reality, full of people whose only worry in their lives is snaffling an extra overtime shift to buy another piece of electrical gear, pay more off their mortgage or have a beer at the club.
It’s a world that is very easy to be a part of, in fact it is where I feel most comfortable yet, paradoxically, it frustrates me and annoys me much of the time.
It’s the sharp end of the Australian cultural experiment. The bottom end of the middle class where multiculturalism meets the uneducated Anglo Saxon leftovers like me and are welded into an unwieldy society, not always with great efficiency or results.
It’s a place where over the last 25 years I have learnt that at their core, humans are all the same. No ethnicity has a mandate on ignorance, shortsightedness, selfishness or narrowmindedness.It’s been exhibited by someone from every race I’ve worked with over the years.
There have been no exceptions.
But that is a conversation for a more serious time and place and for a person more forthright than me to put forward in a forum far more significant than this.
As I scan the faces, many I recognise as long serving comrades, I wonder how many would notice if I suddenly quit, vanishing from their presence at AP without a word?
I have a few close friends who I am sure would miss me but I fear most would barely acknowledge my absence, perhaps shrugging their shoulders when realising I was gone, before continuing hoeing their own row, searching for the end of their own responsibilities to AP, the ultimate prize still dangling in the fog up ahead.
So, with my mood vastly improved through venting my spleen a little and the end of another working week beckoning, I will consign my thouts to my own head until next time when I spring forth to labour yet again over my blog. Goodnight.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 