Sunday Blues...

From the moment I woke up this morning... sorry I keep forgetting I have promised honesty from my blog... From the moment I woke up this afternoon (oh the shame!)I have had a niggling feeling. At first I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Had I forgotten something? What was this feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach? I ran my fingers across my frown lines and realised that soon I would have to get those frown lines filled or half my fingers may get lost in them!What is it that was putting me in this mood that made me feel I was so angry I could break down a wall? (If only I had the energy to do so! Or more to the point if only I lived in some kind of warehouse where it didn't really matter if I broke down a wall because I could put one of the scary flapping plastic sheets up that Crockett and Tubbs always found in the warehouses that they went to when they were uncovering a drug gang in Miami Vice).

I got out of bed and made a hot cup of tea and sat down waiting for me to realise what it was that put me in such a foul mood. I make the point of saying it is a hot cup of tea for those of you out there who drink the putrid iced tea and call yourselves tea drinkers(you know who you are!). You wouldn't drink a boiling cup of Coke or Sprite why drink cold tea? I noticed a noise in my flat and nearly called out to find out what it was but realised it was my own groaning and then it hit me... It was SUNDAY! Which means tomorrow is Monday... which means the following;

1. Getting up early.
2. Wearing uncomfortable clothes.
3. Sitting at a desk all day rather than being in my preferred horizontal posture of lying down.
4. Answering calls and putting on a fake smile as taught by people giving those annoying courses about how to answer a phone and sound professional yet approachable.
5. Listening to peoples problems which don't get me wrong are very important to them but which have no relevance to the divorce proceedings I am preparing for them. "Yes I understand he was supposed to bring the dog back from his contact with the dog fed and he didn't and I think it is terrible that he took your dog to the dump and then the nearest swamp before bringing him home but really all I can do is write to his lawyer about this... no an injunction is not possible in these circumstances..."
6. Sit at a computer all day writing letters about equally irrelevant happenings and having to act like I care and this is extremely important and just generally quibbling over possessions that my client doesn't really want but doesn't want her husband to have!
7. Hearing the sound of the pigeons cooing in the air conditioning vent and wondering how many diseases I am catching from these pigeons throughout the day.
8. Listening to the inane phone conversations of work colleagues with their various husbands talking about irrelevant matters.

I could go on but the point of telling you all this is because when you work in open plan offices you learn the skill of blocking things out. You no longer feel self conscious when you make a personal call to shout at various electricity companies who just won't stop threatening to issue court proceedings against you for an account you never had with them. You quickly lose all your dignity and privacy as very soon every one in the office knows your habits. They know the way you work, the way you handle situations and how many times you go to the toilet each day. However, when you feel a bit unfocused (this happens oh I don't know about 100 times a week) or you just don't know where to start or what annoying person to speak to first you find that all of a sudden everyone's conversations and movements cannot be ignored. In fact they are magnified and amplified.

One particular day as I was busy preparing for a two day court hearing and feeling pretty stressed about the whole thing,I had had numerous conversations with a particular lady who worked in my office who insisted on coming over to my desk at various intervals to talk to me about unrelated matters. As I nodded in all the right places whilst she told me that her cat had pulled a rabbit into her hallway in the night and she woke up to a smeared carpet of rabbit remnants I tried to keep my coffee down at the thought of this. Yuk! I then started to rest my hands over my keyboard to show that I was poised for working and that this conversation was stopping me from doing that as I visualised her hallway in graphic details. (Think the film the Shining with the two twins in the hallway but no twins just a rabbit!)I was horrified when she told me that she had left the rabbit there and she would have to clean it up when she returned home because she didn't want to be late which completely amazed me because she always arrived about an hour early for work each day! Or so I'm told!I've never arrived that early and don't intend to!

When this particular colleague left my desk I returned to my work and tried to get the dead rabbit visions out of my mind. After what seemed like only a few minutes she was back beside my desk informing me that she didn't know what kind of car insurance she should get for her car. It turned out she had two cars but intended on selling one at a later date. However this brought up numerous dilemnas for her. Did she just insure one car? Did she get separate insurances? Should she try and get what is called "fleet insurance" to cover more than one car? I'll be honest with you I had no opinion then and I have no opinion on this subject now. But I will say this I never want to have another conversation like this in my life. I just didn't know what to say without screaming as so all I said was "hmmm I don't know that's a difficult one". I heard others in the office sniggering as they for some reason had no problem saying to her "I'm too busy to discuss this" and handing her things to do. I however would have to work my lunch hour to make up for the time I was wasting listening to this drivel.

After numerous returns by this woman and further discussions regarding her car insurance I was on the brink of crying out of pure frustration or just ringing security and asking them to escort her from the building or better still escort me!
It was soon lunchtime and I breathed a sigh of relief when she left to go and get her lunch. Within 10 minutes she was back. I tried to focus but she then insisted on ringing up various insurance companies and discussing at great length with them her dilemnas followed by repeating the various quotes she was getting before writing them down. Her voice seemed louder than normal and it was actually managing to fill my brain so I was unable to think. She was taking over my thoughts!

When her conversations were over I breathed a sigh of relief as she was silent for a few minutes before she returned to my desk. She then stood by me with a notepad and flicked through the pages informing me of the various quotes she had been given and repeating that she didn't know what to do. Again I nodded and told her it was a "difficult one and who knows what to do for the best". She returned to her desk again and I could hear her frantically texting. I'm guessing that she was texting her husband because ten seconds later he rang and a 20 minute loud conversation with her husband ensued regarding what the insurance companies had said. By the middle of this conversation I had stopped working and just stared at her back as her head bobbed up and down whilst she relayed the intricacies of car insurance to her husband. It wasn't until she put the phone down and I had put my fingers over my keyboard again to start work that I noticed she had not even put the phone receiver down. Oh no to save time she held the button and redialed the insurance companies to discuss things further after her discussions with her husband! At this point I decided that all I could do was pray for lightning to strike me. She had beaten me. I had lost the battle of sanity and could take no more.

And so it is days like this that torture me... days that make me want to retire early. And when I say early I mean tomorrow. These are the days that fill me with dread on a Sunday and make me lose the enjoyment of a day off because from the moment I wake up I realise that tomorrow I have to listen to all of this ... this .... well if I'm honest all of this crap! And I can't bear it. Perhaps I can ask about whether I can be given some headphones that they wear on gameshows when you are not allowed to hear the other persons answers... or better still a sound proof booth to sit in to work!

Did I mention I think I might be starting to hate work and people?! Well not all people but certainly some. So as I prepare for the week ahead I realise that it's not just Sunday blues but is now an extension into Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday blues... but I do like Fridays... then again who doesn't?