I was up at 5.45am. It was still dark. This is bullshit, I resisted thinking.
I went outside for a cigarette. Buddy came straight inside, which was unusual for him. It was cold and dark and you normally need a crowbar to get him out of his kennel in such conditions.
I got up and checked the gutters in the dim light. It was a good thing I did, as the Golden Elm, from two houses along, had dumped a sheet of leaves all through the box gutter, as it has a tendency to do this time of year. Next doors Yukka Tree dumps it’s fucking fronds into my gutter too. I must get up on the roof with my bottle of poison and spray it again. I did real damage to it last time I sprayed it, but I see I am going to have to keep spraying it constantly until it is dead. I’m not asking my next door neighbour, she always uses the excuse that she doesn’t have the authority to chop anything down, as she rents. But, I’m sure, K and G, the owners wouldn’t mind. And who cares if they do.
I prepared my muesli in the dim light of the morning kitchen. There is something kind of exhilarating being up so early in the day. It’s the whole rebirth thing, I’m sure. I’m no longer stressing “big time” as I had been about the Impossible South Job now that I am finishing next week, as scheduled.
I put the central heating on. I ate my muesli while the heating warmed up the bathroom. Then I had a shower. I cut a large piece of apple pie – leftovers from Mark and Luke’s party at my place on Saturday night – to eat for lunch, as I didn’t have anything else and I just wanted to get today over with without having to worry about finding lunch. I could eat it cold at my desk to stave off the hunger pains when necessary.
I left at 6.40.
Cars had their headlights on as they drove towards me. The roads were relatively clear as the cars morphed into red tails lights in the distance. The dark of the morning embraced me in my journey. I drove all the way with my headlights on. The street with the free, all day, the car park was more empty than it was last week. I parked and wandered to the office in the dark.
I crossed the soulless business centre in the dark. It always seems like a place where people would kill themselves, or have. What a horrible, miserable place. It reminds me of what we’d get if Tony Abbott is allowed to make the rules or, at least, get rid of the rules around building planning. Our cities would end up as dull and soulless as Tony Abbott himself.
I had to turn the lights on when I got into the office. I sure hoped there wasn’t an alarm system. I was at my desk at 7am.
I sneaked in another cigarette at 7.15.
The clueless HR chick was in at 7.15 (Oh, they are clueless, don’t start – the women’s waiting room before they give birth) when I came back up stairs. So, at least she knew I was in that early and I that I wasn’t faking it. Not that I really need that, but it is good to have.
I did what I had to do. What I have been employed to do.
I sent off the Audit paperwork - another thing outside my job description. They asked me to check it, but the head accountant had checked it, so why did I have to, I ask you? He’d signed off on it, so fuck it. I sent off all the documents, without a second thought.
The accounts lady sat with me as I did end of month for the New Zealand office. They act like I should know what I am doing, and so far I have faked it without a flaw. I’ve never done it for their company before, this was my fist go at it. I never really feel like I know what I am doing, it is a part of the job, and if you can’t fake competence just a little, you are not going to succeed with contract work.
It poured with rain some time during the afternoon and I was glad I got on the roof this morning in the dark at 6am and cleaned out the gutters.
I left at 3pm, thinking I had done everything. I just have to give myself the benefit of the doubt, as I normally always have, I vaguely know what I am doing. I can’t be too worried about trivial things people throw at me, otherwise I’d never relax away from it.
I didn’t ever want this job to morph into a longer contract. I don’t want to work for a company that has reduced the hours they commit to finance from 32 hours per week to 8 hours per week. That usually never works. It is someone, probably HR, (read, it is HR) grandstanding, only to be ultimately proved wrong. But in the mean time I’m the poor sod who gets squeezed, and is made to look incompetent, so fuck them, I am not doing anything beyond my assignment job description, I’m not getting sucked in. They might as well learn sooner than later that they are wrong.
Thank the universe for my new assignment. I was stressing about it so badly, as it is impossible to do what they want done. The Impossible Job employed me until June 30th, and now that I have a new assignment starting July 01st it can no longer morph into endless weeks of pain. It is weird, but I now feel perfectly relaxed about the Impossible Job, as I will no longer be doing it. It is really bad timing for them, he says smugly, but who the fuck cares.
And Jack even thinks that I have done him the favour, taking the Notting Hill job – I told him it was too far. But, he talked me into it, saying if he could find someone to fill in temporarily at short notice, he’d get the account and the on going fees, commissions, whatever, gold star for him. So, I’m on a win, win. Yay! And I’m my boss’ golden boy of the moment, ha ha. You shouldn’t ever have to think about work when you are away from it, certainly if you are not their permanent employee. Now I don’t. The new assignment is a breeze. It is a deliverance from hell, lovely.
I bought petrol on the way home, if Mark had put petrol in my car after using it all last week, it was on $10 worth. I went to my favourite 7 11 in Abbottsford. As I paid for my fuel and my joint rolling cigarettes, I realised that they do Tattlotto too, so I put a ticket on for tomorrow night.
I reckon two million dollars would do me just fine. It would put me where I should be, if I had had a successful career. It would be compensation for a vile grade six teacher who put me down for twelve months and a bitter auntie who put me down around the same time. It would be compensation for my auntie’s stupidity for selling her big house. And for the bitter auntie and my idiot cousin’s theft of my grandmother’s assets and for my other aunties alcoholic husband’s forgery of her will a day after she had a stroke. All of my relative’s who have left me and my brother and sister all of their money in their wills, of which we didn’t end up seeing one single cent. I learned at a young age that when it comes to money, people are horrible, lying cheats. (family are the worst) Two million would be just enough to keep a secret from everyone. It would be just the right amount that wouldn’t change my life completely. It would be a complimentary win, rather than an evolutionary kind of win.
Ha ha ha, it can't hurt to dream.
I could have a white Fiat Abarth. Sam could have a white GTI Golf, automatic, of course. I could drive the Golf any time I needed a bigger car until Sam got his licence, therefore justifying having the small Fiat. So, in reality, I’d have two cars.
I was home by 3.30.
It was rainy and wet.
The atrium had leaked water. I didn’t check the side gutters when I cleaned out the main problem this morning. I mopped it up. Then I got back on the roof with my bucket and gloves and I cleaned the roof thoroughly.
The long standing leak over the kitchen bench didn’t seem to leak at all. I siliconed it a few weeks ago. Finally? Really, finally have I fixed the dam thing? Could it be true?
I built a fire with my last fire lighter. The last fire lighter is always depressing, it means we no longer have the power of fire until we replenish the stock. No more fires on a whim until I procure another box of the smelly little white things. I could, of course, make a fire the old fashioned way, but I don’t buy newspapers any more, so we never have any paper with which to light a fire. I wonder what is worse for the environment, the whole newspaper industry, or the manufacture and ignition of fire lighters?
We ate Luke’s left over Bolognese, it was better the next day and with the addition of mushrooms and a little water I think it was quite possibly the most perfect Bolognese.
We went to bed at 10.30, Sam’s nana time. I didn’t resist, I was tired, I wanted sleep.
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