Thursday, a day I like a lot but ultimately seems to be a let down. Thursday gives me the same feeling that I assume football fans get when their team is defeated in a grand final. It’s great to be here but you go home empty handed at the end of the day.The job isn’t finished so to speak. You have to come back next year. So too with a Thursday. Like a stayer rounding the final turn at Flemington, you can see the finish but there is still a way to go and a lot more to put up with before you reach the shining oasis that is the weekend.
Work has been a bit of a trial this week but not because of any problem I’ve had with co-workers or management. It just seems like a lead or cable has burnt out in my head, leaving me in a torpor and causing a malaise in my attitude and performance. I just don’t feel like doing any work!
I was rostered in the small parcel section yesterday, doing what I normally do, sorting mail which is being returned to sender which is how I usually spend most of the first two hours when I’m there. Normally I burn through the mail and strangely enough I enjoy it. Yesterday it was a different story.
Two bins of mail sat on the trolley, an amount of work that may take fifteen minutes to complete on any other day. But yesterday as I gazed at these two inanimate pieces of mail sorting equipment, I almost felt like I had been asked to join Burke and Wills on their ill-fated journey to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Tedium clouded my judgement and the spark of life that keeps me focussed and proud of my work in this particular section was drowned and washed away by a feeling of boredom which I could not control.
I wandered about. I accepted my usual free cup of coffee from Neal. I wandered back to my section and pondered life for a while, fervently hoping that the mail, like a salmon straining to swim upstream in an Alaskan river, might lift itself out of the plain, plastic box in which it is imprisoned and launch itself through the air, across empty space and into it’s correct destination on the flat bed sorting frame of which I was in nominal command. Alas, it was not to be and as the barren world of mail sorting seemed to close in around me, suffocating my life force, my senses returned and the thought that the mail was a salmon swimming upstream receded slowly, reality bit and I did the only thing that I really could do. I wandered off to the locker room to retrieve my chocolate bar, because after drinking my free cup of coffee in the afternoon, I always devour my chocolate bar. It gives the day some purpose and I find the strength to continue my mind numbing role in the communications industry.
Eventually, after a great deal of thought and reflection on how the hell I ended up in such a morass, I completed the job and finished my work before the first break. Mission accomplished!
After the break I spent some time in the large parcel area which is about as exciting as cleaning dog excrement off your shoe and still my mind wandered about not willing to help me focus on the job at hand. I chatted to several confederates before once again heading off to my rostered section and getting myself in some sort of order before the evening onslaught began.
That’s when I got myself into trouble.
After dinner and a short period of concentration on the job at hand I retreated to the safety of the locker room for some much needed rest followed shortly after by a brief sojourn to the toilet to play with my mobile phone and check Facebook. I’m sure I wasn’t gone for that long but in my absence the work built up and I was forced to extend myself and sweat a little when I finally returned to my station. All reticence to do my duty melted away as the idea of being overwhelmed by work scared me enough to coerce me into a major effort. After an hour of solid labour my ship had righted itself and my section was once again buoyant and I actually despatched the mail earlier than is usually the case. Nothing like a spoonful of fear to get you motivated!
And so I was able to spend the last hour of the day reclining in the comfort of the small letter area, swapping yarns with my comrades as we watched the clock and waited impatiently for the working day to wind down.
And I suppose that is why Thursday is so frustrating. We are close to the end of the week but there is still two days of work to be endured before we can rest. A bridge too far.
So wherever you are I hope you have a good day and can endure all that is thrown at you with grace and good humour because tomorrow we really will feel the heat of the weekend advancing slowly towards us. And it will be time to celebrate.
Take care.
Work has been a bit of a trial this week but not because of any problem I’ve had with co-workers or management. It just seems like a lead or cable has burnt out in my head, leaving me in a torpor and causing a malaise in my attitude and performance. I just don’t feel like doing any work!
I was rostered in the small parcel section yesterday, doing what I normally do, sorting mail which is being returned to sender which is how I usually spend most of the first two hours when I’m there. Normally I burn through the mail and strangely enough I enjoy it. Yesterday it was a different story.
Two bins of mail sat on the trolley, an amount of work that may take fifteen minutes to complete on any other day. But yesterday as I gazed at these two inanimate pieces of mail sorting equipment, I almost felt like I had been asked to join Burke and Wills on their ill-fated journey to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Tedium clouded my judgement and the spark of life that keeps me focussed and proud of my work in this particular section was drowned and washed away by a feeling of boredom which I could not control.
I wandered about. I accepted my usual free cup of coffee from Neal. I wandered back to my section and pondered life for a while, fervently hoping that the mail, like a salmon straining to swim upstream in an Alaskan river, might lift itself out of the plain, plastic box in which it is imprisoned and launch itself through the air, across empty space and into it’s correct destination on the flat bed sorting frame of which I was in nominal command. Alas, it was not to be and as the barren world of mail sorting seemed to close in around me, suffocating my life force, my senses returned and the thought that the mail was a salmon swimming upstream receded slowly, reality bit and I did the only thing that I really could do. I wandered off to the locker room to retrieve my chocolate bar, because after drinking my free cup of coffee in the afternoon, I always devour my chocolate bar. It gives the day some purpose and I find the strength to continue my mind numbing role in the communications industry.
Eventually, after a great deal of thought and reflection on how the hell I ended up in such a morass, I completed the job and finished my work before the first break. Mission accomplished!
After the break I spent some time in the large parcel area which is about as exciting as cleaning dog excrement off your shoe and still my mind wandered about not willing to help me focus on the job at hand. I chatted to several confederates before once again heading off to my rostered section and getting myself in some sort of order before the evening onslaught began.
That’s when I got myself into trouble.
After dinner and a short period of concentration on the job at hand I retreated to the safety of the locker room for some much needed rest followed shortly after by a brief sojourn to the toilet to play with my mobile phone and check Facebook. I’m sure I wasn’t gone for that long but in my absence the work built up and I was forced to extend myself and sweat a little when I finally returned to my station. All reticence to do my duty melted away as the idea of being overwhelmed by work scared me enough to coerce me into a major effort. After an hour of solid labour my ship had righted itself and my section was once again buoyant and I actually despatched the mail earlier than is usually the case. Nothing like a spoonful of fear to get you motivated!
And so I was able to spend the last hour of the day reclining in the comfort of the small letter area, swapping yarns with my comrades as we watched the clock and waited impatiently for the working day to wind down.
And I suppose that is why Thursday is so frustrating. We are close to the end of the week but there is still two days of work to be endured before we can rest. A bridge too far.
So wherever you are I hope you have a good day and can endure all that is thrown at you with grace and good humour because tomorrow we really will feel the heat of the weekend advancing slowly towards us. And it will be time to celebrate.
Take care.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 