Episode 3: Work Crisis

Or how to miss out on the stress of waiting for a holiday

I’ll condense this particular story, since I’ve probably whinged about it to the point of boredom in the past. The key facts are this.

• The person writing manuals for the company I work for quit after 3 months (or “did a runner” as someone at work put it).
• She was writing the manual for the product I’d just spent a year on (my criticisms of her work had been constructive and at her request… and I’m sticking to that statement).
• The product was due for release and needed a manual.
• Her three months had produced a big heap of words with no sense among them
• I sort of volunteered to “finish” her work (I later realised that I’d volunteered to squeeze 3 months of work into 2 weeks).
• I ended up redoing all of her work in the week and three quarters before it was time to leave (in all fairness, 2% of the final product might be recognised from her draft)
• I worked morning, noon and night to get the job done.

If anyone reading this has heard the full version and wishes I’d given it to them in the above form, they can sod off - it is my right to whinge on about things when I’ve actually worked hard.

The point I’m making is that my mind was so occupied with the above that I missed out on the anticipation on holidays you might otherwise get. The only time I devoted to the anticipation, was the few extra shopping trips for those holiday essentials - painkillers, alka-seltzer, toiletries… pretty unpleasant stuff really (I think we were planning a bout of dysentery, rather than a nice relaxing holiday) - books and of course a suitcase.

The suitcase was one of the more notable things we bought. It was 32” in size (however they’re measured - I don’t know but it’s probably a measurement of width or maybe across the diagonal like a monitor - I just DON’T KNOW - it was not computerised!!!) and a lovely tartan design it had too. It had wheels, a handle, zip, locks… everything!!! It only cost £13. This is the best buy of the century. We expected it to be ripped to shreds on the plane, but reckoned the loss of £13 worth of case to be easier to bear than the price of a baggage-handler-proof model. As it happens, the case is as good as new and we’ll be using it again one day.

But I digress.

The end of holiday anticipation is usually marked by leaving the house. This we were to do at 2am on the Friday morning in order to meet a bus at 2.30am in the centre of Newcastle. Despite having pre-arranged to have the Thursday morning off work, I went in for a half day to finish the magnum-opus I’d got lumbered with and so my mind did not really kick into the holiday mood until lunchtime on that day, when I put the last full stop in my text and left the office, finally switching off from work.

I think I actually did switch off from work.

Which is quite surprising, because I’m always thinking of it.

I’m thinking of it now.

Episode 4

Written: May 1998
Posted: 29 October 2001
Ashley Frieze