It’s bright and clear, scant clouds in the sky and although the still air temperature can only be described as brisk, the sun still has enough clout to warm the day and keep the winter woolies at bay for while at least.
I’ve been dragged out of bed early to take Megan to work. School holidays have seen her being very productive and working most days and she has recovered well from her illness on Tuesday.
As for myself, I’m not that great. The cold I described about ten days ago has been lingering without any sign of waning and my nose is sore and a ready supply of hankies needs to be close. I don’t feel sick although I was dogged by a headache yesterday and was glad to hear the final whistle blow at work as a result but generally my health over this period has been fine. Except for a very athletic nose!
My week has been average. Ordinary. Nothing to write home about. Life on the treadmill as it happens. The same repetition and boredom dogging me at work. The same feeling of inadequacy soaking me. The feeling that I should be getting something more from my working day bedevilling me yet again as I listened to the “clickety clack” of our bar code sorter as it rumbled loudly and consistently, the rhythm it beats only occasionally broken by a letter jamming in a stacker, the offending article having to be unceremoniously ripped from belts and wheels where it is stuck fast, lucky to still be in one piece most of the time. I have often wondered about the people who are destined to receive these envelopes, battered and torn, wrinkled and stretched as they are. The reputation of our corporation as sullied as the tattered piece of paper they have just received, pummelled by our uncaring handling of it. Hardly the stuff of good public relations. No wonder the Internet is killing us!
The trouble with work is that it is too easy. A lazy ingrate like myself can easily spend a lifetime bitching about it but without any ambition to do anything else. The job fits like a glove. No responsibility beyond what my duties dictate. Happy at the lowest rung of the ladder. Eager to simply bide my time, ticking off the days one after the other. Getting through the hours page by page in this long novel of life.
But it is a dying industry. Every day the flow of mail lessens. The younger generation, brought up on a diet of the latest technology don’t feel the need to write with pen and paper. The personal touch of a handwritten note not understood. The joy of receiving a letter as dead as Pharoah’s sow. I feel like an English coal miner, tenuously clinging onto my occupation as the world moves on without me and I wonder how the next twenty years will pan out and how and if the mail service will survive.
I guess it will live on in some form or another but letters are losing money hand over fist, cancelling out any advantage the burgeoning parcel business is providing. I can see the day coming when letters will only be delivered a few days a week or the length of time the mail service is required to deliver them in will be lengthened, thus easing the burden of cost. The public will complain, as they nearly always do without understanding the implications of the mass shift from tangible communication to the world of online correspondence and all that comes with the brave new world of business via the Internet
Where that leaves the lowest caste, the workers like me, buried deep in the sand, carrying out our archaic and eroding business, oblivious to the advancement all around us which leaves us floundering in a whirlpool not of our own making, who is to know?
All I can do, at the moment at least is put one foot in front of the other and carry on towards the light and make the most of what I have until the enemy comes for us. Then I may have something to authentically bitch about!
I will continue my day for now, the sliding scale of time continues on and won’t wait for me. The burden of work will soon be upon me once more and will require me to worship at the alter of high capital.
“Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more”.
Have a nice day. .
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 