Ships at the end of the Street
April 19th 2007 05:46
I’m back at desk number two at present, in my temp job. There was some encouragement to take over desk number five, which had just been vacated, but I didn’t want to have my back to another staff member, and anyway, desk number two is in a better spot, with better light.
We’re two staff down in the office at present, and last week I entered data from timesheets until it was coming out my ears. (Whatever that expression actually means.) This was also the result of one of the other staff members being off for two days, so I wound up with two days’ worth of her timesheets as well. One of the other staff said I’d be dreaming about timesheets in my sleep. Nope, I didn’t, but I certainly have dreamt about versions of that office recently. Scary.
On another point, every so often you walk out our office door to go to the other office building around the corner, and discover that a ship has appeared out of nowhere, and is parked, two or three storeys of it, at the end of the street. Okay, it’s in the water, but it’s almost within spitting distance. And occasionally you come across sailors of various nationalities muttering their way up the street towards town. It’s a bit of a hike to the shopping area, and even worse when you’ve got to cart your purchases back again.
Seagulls wait around in the yard behind our building for any scraps, and set up raucous cries when you ignore them. Though their noise is nothing to the rattling and banging and crashing of machinery in the yard at times. One day we endured several hours of a pump going full bore while it tried to clear a cesspit under one of the sheds that had got blocked.
Those on the sunny side of the building bake, especially in the afternoons (and especially at this time of year when the sun is getting lower), and those on the other side have to do with the leftover warmth, of which there isn’t a lot. However, I can’t complain: I’m warmer in this office than I was for the last seventeen years in my other job, where the buildings were always draughty and cold winds swept under the doors, or down the side of one of them, because of the way it was constructed.
This was a glass door, and it swung on hinges that left a great gap between the door and the wall. The door was notoriously heavy, and little old ladies who came into the shop were often incapable of getting out again - on their own. We waited for the day some child got crushed in it, but it never happened, (though some made a brave attempt at achieving it). And it was a hopeless door if you were carrying something and trying to open it at the same time.
The doors at the present office are open and shut constantly, but I don’t feel the cold from them. I’m sitting close to a heat pump and am making up for years of being unwarm.
We’re two staff down in the office at present, and last week I entered data from timesheets until it was coming out my ears. (Whatever that expression actually means.) This was also the result of one of the other staff members being off for two days, so I wound up with two days’ worth of her timesheets as well. One of the other staff said I’d be dreaming about timesheets in my sleep. Nope, I didn’t, but I certainly have dreamt about versions of that office recently. Scary.
On another point, every so often you walk out our office door to go to the other office building around the corner, and discover that a ship has appeared out of nowhere, and is parked, two or three storeys of it, at the end of the street. Okay, it’s in the water, but it’s almost within spitting distance. And occasionally you come across sailors of various nationalities muttering their way up the street towards town. It’s a bit of a hike to the shopping area, and even worse when you’ve got to cart your purchases back again.
Seagulls wait around in the yard behind our building for any scraps, and set up raucous cries when you ignore them. Though their noise is nothing to the rattling and banging and crashing of machinery in the yard at times. One day we endured several hours of a pump going full bore while it tried to clear a cesspit under one of the sheds that had got blocked.
Those on the sunny side of the building bake, especially in the afternoons (and especially at this time of year when the sun is getting lower), and those on the other side have to do with the leftover warmth, of which there isn’t a lot. However, I can’t complain: I’m warmer in this office than I was for the last seventeen years in my other job, where the buildings were always draughty and cold winds swept under the doors, or down the side of one of them, because of the way it was constructed.
This was a glass door, and it swung on hinges that left a great gap between the door and the wall. The door was notoriously heavy, and little old ladies who came into the shop were often incapable of getting out again - on their own. We waited for the day some child got crushed in it, but it never happened, (though some made a brave attempt at achieving it). And it was a hopeless door if you were carrying something and trying to open it at the same time.
The doors at the present office are open and shut constantly, but I don’t feel the cold from them. I’m sitting close to a heat pump and am making up for years of being unwarm.
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