A day in the life

"I heard the news today oh boy..."  Well, a great song.  Another pre-written blog;

Monday 7 2011 - shift at work.  I'm back at Mansfield Woodhouse again, and watching people coming and going with their lives paused for a shopping trip.

I can see them bumping into people they know, catching up on events in their lives.  I see parents, with their children in pushchairs, speaking to them in nonsensical words.  They then say hello or goodbye to me in a clear and precise manner, but I just say hello or goodbye back, or some variant thereof.  I do not judge their obvious lack of speaking correctly to their children.  I don't even point out that when they call their child a "little bugger", that they're actually calling them something that if they knew the meaning of the word, they may think twice.  What can I say?  A lot of people don't understand the English language in England any more anyway.  What does it matter if we're becoming a nation of illiterates?

There are all sorts of people.  I bumped into Brian, who I worked with at Chesterfield.  He's had the same job for four years now, and it's the first time we've spoken in, it must be seven or eight years.  It's interesting to catch up with people.

Brian was the one where he broke his leg on a site, so the company picked him up and left him on sites just to "make the numbers up".  I know, how shocking.  They would put someone else on there for the workforce to see, then put Brian there, and at the end of the shift take Brian off and replace him with someone else for the workforce to see.  That's a story I heard.  The good old days.

There are all sorts of people, and there are also a lot of things going around my head obviously.  I find the whole sizing people up, watching them, and all of that quite a difficult thing to do because I'm sort of invading their space.  Also, although I am sort of trained in conflict management, I still dislike conflict, which is a normal outcome of this sort of thing.  I can't be all stealthy in a bloody uniform and stupid hat, so I've quit doing the whole hiding behind stuff, because then you're likely to be accused of it.

Years ago I did a shift at a famous wholesalers.  While I was walking around watching people I spotted some tinsel on the floor which, rather than getting down on my knees to pick it up and then search for where it went, I kicked it under the shelving.  The manager of the store called me to their office and accused me of hiding it to steal it later after he'd spotted me on the store's CCTV.

In a good many words I called him an idiot, which made him call my bosses, and then I was removed, chastised, and docked pay.  Whatever, he was an arsehole.

Now here I am doing much the same job.  I think I would probably not dislike it so much if I didn't work so much.  I fill out my time doing a job I'm not proud (but I am working, which I am proud of) by thinking these things and watching those around me, hoping they will maybe chat, and share their hopefully more interesting lives.

Take care everybody.  Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.

Marv - 8th March 2011 (40 years, 3 months, and 10 days old)