Working Nine to Five, what a way to make a living…..

I started writing this update on Thursday evening, I’d just eaten a large bowl of chilli and will probably be eating the remainder for the rest of the week as I’d forgotten that Max was off to Paris until Tuesday, but it was a rather good chilli. As am aside, Max travelled all the way down to Exeter to catch the coach to Paris with Laura. I received a text from him at about 11.30 at night to say they’d just pulled into Reading Services on the M4 J  I was knackered, but happy knackered if that makes sense? This week has been the most “Full on” week as far as work goes for probably 12 months, but I’ve survived, ok it was only Thursday, we can call bullshit our way through a Friday at work, I’ve been doing it for years. Neville was sitting on the sofa next to me, every so often looking at the screen to make sure I’d mentioned him in a good light.

As well as checking up on my writing Neville has also decided he want's to critique my glass of wine each night, he's more of a Merlot mutt than a Pinot pouch. 

I’ve decided that instead of writing my day to day activities, which let’s face it, can be quite boring, I’d write about a specific subject and publish when I’m ready. This week’s musings are about work, with a bit of Neville thrown in for light relief.

I’ve written before about what I do for a living. I’ve been in banking in one way, shape or another since I left school. At age 21 I joined an American bank in the Collections Dept. and that’s roughly where I’ve stayed for the last 34 years. When Anna was about 7 or 8 she was asked by a teacher at school what her parents did. “Mums a Nurse and Dad gets people to pay him money” was her answer……. Well I suppose that’s true in the widest sense. The way I look at it is the bank have leant you £1.00, my job is to get you to pay back £1.20.

I’ve been working for my current (& probably final) employer for the past 14 years, since I designed a Collections system for the Dutch bank I worked for which ended up with me being made redundant. I’ve also written about how supportive my employers have been to me whilst I’ve been ill. At no time have I been under pressure to return to work, or to do more than I’m feeling well enough to do. That support continues to this day.

On Monday I went to my first external customer meeting since Lary was cut into my throat. I was nervous, I was scared. The meeting was at a Care Home in Worthing, at 10am. Now Worthing is a pretty shit place to get to at the best of times, but in the rush hour on a Monday, just multiply the shit by a factor of 10. I arrived on time and was greeted by the customer as if nothing was strange about the way I looked or spoke. We were supposed to be meeting a third party who eventually arrived over an hour late, with little explanation, his first comment was “Oh, what’s that?” pointing at my stoma. His delayed arrival meant that I got to have a good look around the home. Prior to Lary I used to use the “Sniff” test when I was at a care home. Does it smell of stale cabbage? Do the carpets smell of wee? Obviously that type of test has had to go out of the window as far as I’m concerned.

I hate people who are late for meetings with no good excuse…….. 

I eventually got home after spending around five hours in the car, I was knackered, I was slightly peeved, but I’d done it. I’d done my job and hadn’t had to clear out my stoma during the meeting. My voice had behaved itself. I’d made the right decisions as far as the customer was concerned. To paraphrase Arnie “I was back”.

The rest of the week was positive, a couple more cases transferred to my portfolio, one looks like it’ll be a real humdinger to challenge my diplomacy. A challenge I’m looking forward to.

Our Head Office is based up in London, not far from Euston Station. My Laptop had been opening with the Blue Screen of Death for the past week, so on Thursday I took the train up to town to see our IT Dept. This was the first time I’d been into HQ for over a year and I wasn’t sure if my staff pass would still work. By the time I arrived my throat was playing up and my voice was rather squeaky. First challenge was overcome when my security pass got me through the barriers. Second challenge was finding the chap in IT who was going to look at my Laptop. Luckily his directions were spot on and after a quick double take when I first spoke (I’m getting used to that) he proved to be really professional and diagnosed a shagged out Laptop, promised a rebuild by Monday and provided me with a loan machine. I was in and out with 40 minutes and on my way home with no mishaps.

My work diary is begging to fill up with customer meetings, internal meetings, supplier meetings and even the odd “Corporate Entertainment” meeting, it’s been a while. This means that instead of sitting at my desk and trying to work out how to fill my day I’m now having to work out how I’m going to fit in my daily walk and play with Neville. He’ll always get the attention he needs, be it from Max or I during the day. He’s still teething quite badly and has probably an hour a day when he’s a little shit who just wants to bark, bite and run around manically, but he’s getting much better. A Kong stuffed with cream cheese, a piece of frozen carrot or a lamb bone will usually calm him down. He had his first puppy class last Wednesday. Three other pups were there and it turned out that one of them had an assistant who’s a coach of the U6s at Redingensians, what a small world. Nev was a bit overwhelmed for much of the session and just wanted to play with the other puppies, but he behaved himself and when we got home he was fine with the training drills we’d worked on, he was also totally knackered and didn’t wake up until 7.30am the next morning, bliss…….. I feel like I’m a proper dog owner now as Nev has drawn blood on my hand. It wasn’t really his fault though. We were taking our morning walk to the park when as the entrance we met 6 or 7 other dogs being walked by a couple of people. The other dogs were fine and just wanted to say hello to Nev, but he’s still very timid around other dogs and tends to hide behind my legs. I failed to notice that he’s slipped out of his harness and was no longer on his lead. So when I went to put his lead on his collar he went into a bit of a panic as the other dogs had surrounded him, he barked manically and bit quite hard into my left hand as I went to pick him up. Being still a puppy means his teeth are like little needles. Blood everywhere, very painful hand, but dog calmed down and the walk continued in a happy manner until I realised the bleeding wasn’t going to stop and we returned to home for repairs. 

Tonight will be a quiet one, yeah right! Carol and I are off to the rugby club for a Burns Night Supper, of course I won’t be able to wear my Clark tartan tie this year. I did look at buying a Clark tartan waistcoat but bulked at the £250 price tag! Last year started off as quite a tame affair, but apparently I went from being pretty well sober to totally sparko in the space of about 20 minutes, or put it another way, in the space of about ¼ bottle of decent Malt! This year I’ll behave………

As always, thanks for reading.

To be continued………….

#Shoulder2Shoulder