Today is Friday.
Fridays are special. Fridays are sacrosanct even.
Friday afternoons, inparticular, are an institution.
I have been working for a very long time. In this time, I have rarely worked to capacity on Friday afternoon. You slack off. You do the random stuff you need to get you through. You tell all around you that it's POETS Day (Acronym: Piss off early, tomorrow's Saturday). You might do the Guardian crossword, go chat to a mate in another part of the office, take a meeting down the pub with another person with the same work ethic.
Having this view, I looked at my diary for today. A team meeting at 1.30 it said, Then virtual drinks at 4 pm it said.
With these facts in mind, I made the informed decision to book a massage at 2.30 - take a late lunch they said. It will be fun they said.
What didn't make the equation was the work I've been doing this last fortnight. I've spent many an hour in long phone calls sorting out documentation with the Legal and Credit teams.
In my job, dealing with Legal and Credit often means trouble. Dealing with bean counters and pedants never ends well. (I will say that the folk I've been in meetings with have been wonderful, but still, it's Legal and Credit)
My colleague and I finished most of the work on Wednesday. We asked for feedback. Nothing came.
This morning I worked on some other stuff. No sign of feedback.
1 pm, the 1.30 meeting gets moved to 3.30.... dammit.
1.05 pm Legal come back with the need to meet to make some changes to the document.
1.10. Message my team leader that I'm taking a late lunch to go to an appointment. Will be a few minutes late to the team meeting, Oops. Sorry. (I was NOT going to miss that massage).
1.15. Get on the phone with Credit and Legal to discuss the documents with the caveat that I need to leave at 2.20 as I have an appointment. (Nobody is going to stop me getting that massage!)
2.20. Legal, Credit and I make a pact to reconvene at 4.30.
2.28 Not looking at my appearance, jumped in the car to go to massage appointment, slightly disappointed that on an ordinary Friday afternoon I'd have walked the 10 minutes down the road.)
2.30. Enter my wonderful therapies place, announce that I'm going to have to cut the massage down to 45 minutes instead of the hour, apologise profusely and get a most wonderful massage. Very necessary. Human touch is a wonderful thing. My lower back and butt feel much better.
3.30. Leave massage therapies place and drive back home.
3.40. Dial into team meeting. All good with the team leader.
3.55. Go to the kitchen and make a Negroni.
4.00. Dial into virtual drinks. Needed to be done. The bloke who hired me left today and I wanted to say thank you and goodbye.
4.29. Leave virtual team drinks.
4.30. Dial into another call with Credit and Legal.
4.50. Finish the business with Credit and Legal.
4.55. Submit the documents for approval in the system.
5.00. Say goodbye to my workmate who was hanging around til I'd finished in support (also with a whisky in his hand muttering about the sanctity of Friday afternoons).
5.03. Make another Negroni.
5.05. Shut down work computer. Open home computer. Have a virtual drink with an old work husband.
And apart from the last thing on the list, this afternoon should not have happened like this. It's Friday afternoon. You don't work on Friday afternoon. It's the rules.
This is the second bad Friday afternoon I've had in two weeks.
Hoping next week, it won't be like this. Mind you, we've pretty much finished the work with Credit and Legal. But mark my words, they're thrilled with the work my colleague and I have done for them. They'll be back.
I will also say that I am very grateful for having a job, love the people I work with, prefer being busy and despite moaning about Credit and Legal, the work is reasonably stimulating.
Today, despite having my plans slighty disrupted, two other things came out.
This working from home lark has it's good parts. Rocking up to appointments in your ugg boots being one of them.
The ability to make a Negroni at 4 pm on a Friday, and drink it with your colleagues over the computer is the other.
Still. Working on a Friday afternoon should be outlawed.
Moan over.
Today's song: (Brought to you by the 30 day song challenge)
Day 22: A song that moves you forward (I love working out to this song - perfect for boxing and high intensity)
Fridays are special. Fridays are sacrosanct even.
Friday afternoons, inparticular, are an institution.
I have been working for a very long time. In this time, I have rarely worked to capacity on Friday afternoon. You slack off. You do the random stuff you need to get you through. You tell all around you that it's POETS Day (Acronym: Piss off early, tomorrow's Saturday). You might do the Guardian crossword, go chat to a mate in another part of the office, take a meeting down the pub with another person with the same work ethic.
Having this view, I looked at my diary for today. A team meeting at 1.30 it said, Then virtual drinks at 4 pm it said.
With these facts in mind, I made the informed decision to book a massage at 2.30 - take a late lunch they said. It will be fun they said.
What didn't make the equation was the work I've been doing this last fortnight. I've spent many an hour in long phone calls sorting out documentation with the Legal and Credit teams.
In my job, dealing with Legal and Credit often means trouble. Dealing with bean counters and pedants never ends well. (I will say that the folk I've been in meetings with have been wonderful, but still, it's Legal and Credit)
My colleague and I finished most of the work on Wednesday. We asked for feedback. Nothing came.
This morning I worked on some other stuff. No sign of feedback.
1 pm, the 1.30 meeting gets moved to 3.30.... dammit.
1.05 pm Legal come back with the need to meet to make some changes to the document.
1.10. Message my team leader that I'm taking a late lunch to go to an appointment. Will be a few minutes late to the team meeting, Oops. Sorry. (I was NOT going to miss that massage).
1.15. Get on the phone with Credit and Legal to discuss the documents with the caveat that I need to leave at 2.20 as I have an appointment. (Nobody is going to stop me getting that massage!)
2.20. Legal, Credit and I make a pact to reconvene at 4.30.
2.28 Not looking at my appearance, jumped in the car to go to massage appointment, slightly disappointed that on an ordinary Friday afternoon I'd have walked the 10 minutes down the road.)
2.30. Enter my wonderful therapies place, announce that I'm going to have to cut the massage down to 45 minutes instead of the hour, apologise profusely and get a most wonderful massage. Very necessary. Human touch is a wonderful thing. My lower back and butt feel much better.
3.30. Leave massage therapies place and drive back home.
3.40. Dial into team meeting. All good with the team leader.
3.55. Go to the kitchen and make a Negroni.
4.00. Dial into virtual drinks. Needed to be done. The bloke who hired me left today and I wanted to say thank you and goodbye.
4.29. Leave virtual team drinks.
4.30. Dial into another call with Credit and Legal.
4.50. Finish the business with Credit and Legal.
4.55. Submit the documents for approval in the system.
5.00. Say goodbye to my workmate who was hanging around til I'd finished in support (also with a whisky in his hand muttering about the sanctity of Friday afternoons).
5.03. Make another Negroni.
5.05. Shut down work computer. Open home computer. Have a virtual drink with an old work husband.
And apart from the last thing on the list, this afternoon should not have happened like this. It's Friday afternoon. You don't work on Friday afternoon. It's the rules.
This is the second bad Friday afternoon I've had in two weeks.
Hoping next week, it won't be like this. Mind you, we've pretty much finished the work with Credit and Legal. But mark my words, they're thrilled with the work my colleague and I have done for them. They'll be back.
I will also say that I am very grateful for having a job, love the people I work with, prefer being busy and despite moaning about Credit and Legal, the work is reasonably stimulating.
Today, despite having my plans slighty disrupted, two other things came out.
This working from home lark has it's good parts. Rocking up to appointments in your ugg boots being one of them.
The ability to make a Negroni at 4 pm on a Friday, and drink it with your colleagues over the computer is the other.
Still. Working on a Friday afternoon should be outlawed.
Moan over.
Today's song: (Brought to you by the 30 day song challenge)
Day 22: A song that moves you forward (I love working out to this song - perfect for boxing and high intensity)
No comments:
Post a Comment