Yesterday was a strange day. I felt really tired all day, mainly because it has been a long week at work. On Thursday night I was at work until gone 10pm and then went and stayed in a hotel around the corner from my office. I was very amused that when I checked into the hotel the receptionist seemed to be under the impression that I was going to be sharing a room with the colleague I was with. I think he’d sort of overheard our discussion about whose credit card to charge the rooms to and assumed we were a couple. I guess that is the closest I got to taking advantage of it being National Kissing Day.
Anyway, usually I sleep pretty well in hotels but I was woken up at about 3am by a bloke banging on someone’s door and shouting to be let in to the room. This went on for a while and I should have phoned reception, but I didn’t have the energy to do it. So when I dragged myself back into work yesterday morning I was really tired.
My announcement of the two-minute silence seemed to be spot on in terms of time. This is despite the first thing my head of unit said to me was that she had wondered if there had been a technical fault as it was late. But according to one of my colleagues, as soon as I had announced it was midday, Big Ben chimed on the TV, so I got the timing exactly right. This was no mean feat as there was no clock in the room where I made the announcement so I was relying on someone’s watch to give the exact time. We realised about 11.30 that the watch was showing the wrong time so we spent the next thirty minutes trying to get the precise time and this included phoning the speaking clock. But it was worth it because the silence went off without a hitch.
I had a really hectic day at work but managed to lave work at 6pm, as I went to St Martin’s in the Field to hear Mozart’s Requiem Mass. It seemed an apt thing to do given the day and as it turned out it was in support of the London Bombing Charitable Relief Fund, which I hadn’t realised when I booked it. It was really lovely to sit there and wind down after a hard week and listen to some music in tribute to those who died last year.
Having said that though, I have to go back into work shortly. I’ve been doing some particular work all week but the person who it is for refused to even look at it until this afternoon and, as the bulk of it has to be finished for Monday, there’s no choice but to go into work.
In her most condescending tone my head of unit told me that things are changing and we have to accept that working long hours and at weekends is the way it is likely to be for people from now on. I am hoping this isn’t the case as part of my normal job and this is just the exception. Because of working so late all week I didn’t have time to arrange a second viewing of the place I saw last weekend and another offer has been accepted, so I am even less pleased at having worked the hours I have. But who am I to naively want to have a life outside of work or to actually have time to buy somewhere to live? Let’s hope the end of this is in sight or I’ll be a homeless workaholic before I know it.
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