Only idiots hire their best friends.
Let me expand upon that.
Only idiots AND optimists hire their best friends.
Otherwise, why else would you move someone you enjoy socialising with, ranting to and generally being quite natural around into the sphere of 'I'm your boss' and still expect things to be pretty much as cool as they were?
Over the past few months at work, I've been steadily playing a game of friendship Kerplonk with myself. First, my beloved and long-suffering buddy in engineering went to be someone important at a competitor company up the road. Kerplonk. No longer will anyone fix my microphone AND bring me cake at the drop of a hat (yes, I'm a taker)
Secondly, my cool producer matey decided to apply for the job vacated in my team in spite of the fact she knows exactly what it's like, thanks to my aforementioned ranting. Now I'm her boss. Kerplonk.
Thirdly and finally, my utter hero, ex-boss and general life counsellor opted to leave behind the radio station he's worked at for years to pursue bigger and better things (this is what grown-ups do when they realised they have reached the oh my fucking god disillusionment stage) Kerfuckingplonk.
So in spite of the fabulous career moves and fortune of each of these three, and in spite of the fact that they are all very happy about their new situations, I am very selfishly sorry for myself at being left behind and deprived of the people I can actually lean on at work. By the way, if you had any sympathy, I suggest you save it for someone slightly deserving of it.
The current situation has seen me being a bit of a taskmaster in transforming my new colleague from vulnerable imaging producer into a commercially savvy Judge Dredd pretty damn fast. And the reason? I really needed a holiday. I have two passionate, talented, dedicated producers on my team who currently take three times as long as me to do this job. I've been doing it two years, they've not even been doing it one. But I really, REALLY needed a holiday, and I needed to be able to leave them on their own.
Aside from the usual January blues, I was physically struggling to get up in the morning. I was waking up and jumping out of bed in full-on 3am freakouts. I had a migraine (an occurrence that only happens every few years and only under stupid amounts of stress) My head was spinning at the end of the day and I was just feeling physically ill, miserable and drained and calling everyone fuckers. Nothing medical. Just needing a holiday.
Home Comforts
So, on top of the fact that I was genuinely relishing the solitude of January and resentful of the social explosion that came around payday, it was a cheerful end to the month. My free time was spent mostly sitting under the hairdryer to keep warm, counting the chicken drumsticks in the pack to see if I had enough to last til payday and scowling at the empty air freshener that, on sensing my impoverished presence, would choose to gasp for a refill at the most poignant moments. Damn, I've got the world at my feet. The ironic thing is that I genuinely am at the top of my game for what I do as a job. Isn't that supposed to mean you're successful at existing outside of it too?
 |
| My Neighbour's Kids prioritise E-Coli |
I found solace in many places. The arrival of the snow saw not only the perfect excuse to spend a weekend in bed with my boyfriend, to puzzle at my neighbours choice of snowman material (the slurry-filled off-white stuff around the bin store, rather than the lawn), but also to experience the long-lost art of THE GYM.
I spent my formative, pre-radio-career years (i.e. before anyone in radio paid me) working every end of term holiday and weekend at the local leisure centre back home in Sussex. It was here, I insist, I gleaned the insight and understanding of ordinary family life that I trade off to this day. In fact, the broad sections of society - tiny babies, brooding teens, right through to whole families, many of which I watched grow through the years, arthritic referrals and bright, clusters of retirees, still fill me with huge fondness and nostalgia. Often, I miss the days where the only pressure I was under was to sell someone a swim and man the coffee bar at the same time. It's always a sure sign I'm sick of the weekly team meeting when I start chattering about 50+ Aquafit classes. So to visit a couple of gyms - the Spa in Beckenham and the Oasis Sports Centre - a behemoth slap-bang in central London was a huge relief at a time of stupid, irrational work-stress.
Escaping from the bullshitty land of radio / media for an hour, to end the day mindlessly pummeling a moving track, inhaling the smell of damp or sweat or chlorine or standard lemon-scented cleaners, is a pleasure universal to every leisure centre visit I make. Filled with waves of sad nostalgia, I remembered my graduate youth, when it was all before me, all that ambition and energy, all that drive and unfettered creativity, all that bullish self-belief. It came swimming back to me when I asked what coin the lockers took. I was surrounded by normal, boring people who sweat and lose their keys and forget their membership cards and go home and microwave something for dinner. It was such a relief, such a reminder of real life and it's comforts in the most middle-class way. Wherever all these bastards come from, we're all equal on the treadmill. Well, at least until you program in their weight in kilograms. Treadmills are actually pretty sophisticated like that.
Escape
 | |
| Post Office Staff Hard at Work |
The day DID eventually dawn, when I set the alarm for the last time, forced out a 6 mile run and gathered up my suitcase. The sheer stress of preparing for a holiday is unmatched when your mind is about as ordered as a pack of broken spaghetti. However, I was delighted to see the boy turn up, pallid and slewed in a cold sweat, having overdone it at the karaoke the night before. It took the pressure off immensely to realise we were both in an equally retarded state of usefulness with food, shagging and sleep at the top of the priority list. Closely followed by more wine.
Thus began the nerve-wracking descent into the Derbyshire wilderness. The village of Chelmorton, between Bakewell and Buxton, offered both a church AND a pub for our revelation. Once we'd made ourselves comfortable jumping on the bed, drinking tea and secretly fretting at the intimacy of the toilet facilities in our barn studio, we quickly headed out into the 3G-devoid snowiness of the night. Five minutes later we were being interrogated by a man on a bar stool and the other friendly residents of the village, ordering Staffordshire oatcakes and freaking out by how fucking huge the moon was over the Peaks and graveyard.
We wandered old railway lines and quarries, marveled (he quite patiently) at viaducts, ordnance survey maps and sheep and drank worrying amounts of coffee. He didn't even bat an eyelid when I spotted a bargain in WHSmith and snapped up "Great Victorian Railway Journeys... with a Foreword by Michael Portillo" Perhaps he'll dump me when we meet up next.
At any rate, the night we spent in Manchester was a stark contrast to follow all that blowsy country stuff. On our arrival, the noise, torrential rain and bustle sent us both into a sensory overload which culminated in disaster: lunch in Pizza Express. We followed it with a bemused wandering around our accommodation, which, although cheaper than anything else we could find, could still sleep six. Thus our reintroduction to city life consisted of the following:
1. Frightened lunch at Pizza Express
2. A gallery where we snobbishly slagged off the modern art and predilection for The Smiths before getting overexcited about the Impressionists.
3. Hiding in our apartment
4. Taking a shower and putting on some makeup (the latter doesn't apply to him, by the way)
5. Going to YuZu, a brilliant Thai restaurant and getting trashed on Saki.
6. Going back to the apartment and smashing down a bottle of wine, half a Bakewell tart, some Galaxy chocolate and a DVD, at which I cried.
7. A battle of wits over whether we should make a drunk film or not. Not, it turns out. Oh well.
8. The nicest sleep ever.
10. More coffee
11. A cathedral
9. Getting wallet-raped on the train fare home.
Pretty much all you could ask for in a holiday. It was great to recover the simplicity of our own impulses and natures, and frankly horrifying to return to London, where we said a cheerful, romantic goodbye, and I wandered into M&S Food, stifling a full-on panic, which has lasted until about now. God, this city. God, this lifestyle.
Ugh all this Commercialism and Waste repels me...
... which is exactly why I went on a shopping spree today. In the Apple Store, on audibly letting out an expletive at the price of a simple Macbook case, I found myself overcome with hilarity. I really hope I'm not the only one who descends into a childish combination of aggression and deviance when faced with the ambassadors of the Apple brand. After being repeatedly offered help by the little spectacled blue monkeys, which I enjoyed refusing, I took my overpriced item to the till. Only to discover it wasn't there.
I'm sure the woman who served me, a South East-Londoner herself, found it a little funny when I said, "Done away with the old tils then eh?", because her enigmatic response was a very grave, softly-spoken, "WE are the tills now" which sent me into a fit of smirks and giggles that I could only stifle enough to finish the transaction and leave the store. I don't know what it is about this brand and it's behaviours that I find so irresistibly uncomfortable, apart from the fact it makes everyone look like a stupid tit doesn't it. Really, come on. Everyone in that shop looks like an retard. Even the stupid little drawstring bag, that sits so satisfyingly in the nook of your back and makes you feel like you can go in French Connection for a browse because it looks like you've got loads of pointless money. It's like having a 'kick me' postit stuck on your back and feeling good about it.
Phew, there we go. No ill effects gleaned from that holiday. Still as socially regressive as ever.
See you at work.
No comments:
Post a Comment