I had a premonition it was going to be a bad day.
It actually occurred to me on Tuesday, as I gaily sorted away in the solitary comfort of the small parcel area that it would be well nigh impossible to avoid being rostered on the Bar Code Sorter come 2pm Wednesday. I had avoided it on Monday, was rostered on Small Parcels Tuesday, only one place to go from there!
The day started with Linda’s usual early morning departure and my inability to return to the beauty of sleep. To make matters worse, the slats under our mattress once again decided to disconnect from from the mainframe of our bed and fall on the floor, requiring me, for about the tenth time in a fortnight to pull the mattress off, replace the slats and return the mattress to the bed. Not as easy as it sounds.
It’s a metal framed bed. I have tightened every bolt I can find and it’s as firm as catwalk model’s thighs yet the slats keep dropping. Time for a new bed? All well and good but the prices for anything we might want are frightening. A little more maintenance will be administered before we write off our current bed.
Then my sinus’ started to play up and then a sharp head pain above my eyes set in and the skies darkened and the thought of what lay ahead in the afternoon hours dimmed my normally positive view of the world and skewed it towards a vision altogether unsociable.
The rest of the morning was spent doing mundane tasks, hanging out washing, clearing the dishwasher and picking up dog droppings in the backyard.
My renewed vigour when it comes to cycling seems to have cooled but that is mainly due to the slight physical ailments I’m suffering at the moment and I’m sure my enthusiasm will return at short notice.
I wandered over to Kambah for lunch with my father. He has been ill all week and his faith in his imperviousness to the flu due to reliance on his regular shot is surely rattled. He has looked terrible these last few days. Pale and drawn. It’s unusual for him. Even when he has suffered colds and flu in the past he has always looked strong. For a son who has looked upon his father as a physically tough man and a natural force of nature it is a reality check. He will be 75 soon and time waits for no man. It’s a shock to have to accept that this sentinal of strength is mortal too.
Finally, it was 2pm and the moment I had been visualising in my mind all morning rang true.
I had arrived at work at my usual time and waited in the clock-in area, our usual ritual, for the supervisor to pin up the roster sheet which will comdemn us to a little purgatory for a couple of hours, the supervisor merely deciding for us what form damnation will take. Nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Like a latter day Nostradamus, my visions became reality and I was assigned to the “Death Star”, the BCS with a cadre of Vietnamese crewmates, all of whom hate each other. Unfortunately the machine is such that it is imperative that we work together but it is nigh impossible when your workmates won’t even talk to each other let alone give a hand when the going gets tough. So, I end up doing three tasks on the machine instead of one but managed to threaten the supervisor as he walked past for putting me in this mess.
Fortunately the machine ran out of mail after 90 minutes and our full stretch of servitude wasn’t served and things brightened up considerably.
Not much to say about the day after that. It had started out badly but after 4pm just became another dull day to be endured. The usual thing happened after our 8.30pm break, no chairs and nowhere else to go so I wandered the halls of CMC until a spot opened up sorting large letters and I spent the last 30 minutes of the working day in a cubicle with “Gospel” Young, whinging and whining about the conduct of those who run the place and the lack of common sense seemingly inherited from birth by them.
Just another day in the flywheel of life and more of the same today.
Not much we can do but put the shoulder to the grindstone and carry on with the best humour we can muster. Endure and survive. Have a nice day.
It actually occurred to me on Tuesday, as I gaily sorted away in the solitary comfort of the small parcel area that it would be well nigh impossible to avoid being rostered on the Bar Code Sorter come 2pm Wednesday. I had avoided it on Monday, was rostered on Small Parcels Tuesday, only one place to go from there!
The day started with Linda’s usual early morning departure and my inability to return to the beauty of sleep. To make matters worse, the slats under our mattress once again decided to disconnect from from the mainframe of our bed and fall on the floor, requiring me, for about the tenth time in a fortnight to pull the mattress off, replace the slats and return the mattress to the bed. Not as easy as it sounds.
It’s a metal framed bed. I have tightened every bolt I can find and it’s as firm as catwalk model’s thighs yet the slats keep dropping. Time for a new bed? All well and good but the prices for anything we might want are frightening. A little more maintenance will be administered before we write off our current bed.
Then my sinus’ started to play up and then a sharp head pain above my eyes set in and the skies darkened and the thought of what lay ahead in the afternoon hours dimmed my normally positive view of the world and skewed it towards a vision altogether unsociable.
The rest of the morning was spent doing mundane tasks, hanging out washing, clearing the dishwasher and picking up dog droppings in the backyard.
My renewed vigour when it comes to cycling seems to have cooled but that is mainly due to the slight physical ailments I’m suffering at the moment and I’m sure my enthusiasm will return at short notice.
I wandered over to Kambah for lunch with my father. He has been ill all week and his faith in his imperviousness to the flu due to reliance on his regular shot is surely rattled. He has looked terrible these last few days. Pale and drawn. It’s unusual for him. Even when he has suffered colds and flu in the past he has always looked strong. For a son who has looked upon his father as a physically tough man and a natural force of nature it is a reality check. He will be 75 soon and time waits for no man. It’s a shock to have to accept that this sentinal of strength is mortal too.
Finally, it was 2pm and the moment I had been visualising in my mind all morning rang true.
I had arrived at work at my usual time and waited in the clock-in area, our usual ritual, for the supervisor to pin up the roster sheet which will comdemn us to a little purgatory for a couple of hours, the supervisor merely deciding for us what form damnation will take. Nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Like a latter day Nostradamus, my visions became reality and I was assigned to the “Death Star”, the BCS with a cadre of Vietnamese crewmates, all of whom hate each other. Unfortunately the machine is such that it is imperative that we work together but it is nigh impossible when your workmates won’t even talk to each other let alone give a hand when the going gets tough. So, I end up doing three tasks on the machine instead of one but managed to threaten the supervisor as he walked past for putting me in this mess.
Fortunately the machine ran out of mail after 90 minutes and our full stretch of servitude wasn’t served and things brightened up considerably.
Not much to say about the day after that. It had started out badly but after 4pm just became another dull day to be endured. The usual thing happened after our 8.30pm break, no chairs and nowhere else to go so I wandered the halls of CMC until a spot opened up sorting large letters and I spent the last 30 minutes of the working day in a cubicle with “Gospel” Young, whinging and whining about the conduct of those who run the place and the lack of common sense seemingly inherited from birth by them.
Just another day in the flywheel of life and more of the same today.
Not much we can do but put the shoulder to the grindstone and carry on with the best humour we can muster. Endure and survive. Have a nice day.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 