I feel like writing some stuff, so I’m going to write some stuff. Apologies if it ends up sounding like some babbling rant.
Christmas is coming, we all know it. I have to admit that I don’t put the holiday on a pedestal like some people, but it’s not as if I hate it either. It’s just that I realise it’s a push- pull holiday… you spend all of your time trying to please others in order to please yourself. I guess that’s what they mean that it’s better to give than to receive, but chances are that you are giving and receiving in equal parts and at the end all you feel is exhausted- exhausted from buying the presents, exhausted by making sure that you fill all of those end of year obligations, and exhausted for making sure everything is perfect.
At work the same is happening. It’s the last week before Christmas, which means that EVERY DAY FEELS LIKE FRIDAY… not in the good Groundhog Day way but like a treat that’s waved in your face for a moment and then taken away. And then because of the way that the holiday lies this year, there are these 3 work days between Christmas and New Year that we have to stick around for… we work on half capacity at the time and those who are left don’t want to be there. Usually, I take advantage of that time and do all of my preparations for next year while nobody annoys me, but this year there’s end of month things going on that mean that I will be busier than ever, at exactly the time when I want to procrastinate the most.
While I’m on work, tomorrow’s the Kris Kringle morning tea, which is the time when the yearly group photograph is made. I realised today that it will be the seventh Christmas I have worked there; the seventh photo. We started the group shot 6 years ago, and the first photo has about a dozen people… the one tomorrow will have about 80 people, conservatively speaking. You see the people who have come and gone through the time…
Oh Crap. That first photo. Nobody’s left from the first photo. Everyone else has moved on, except for me.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the seventh photo which proves I stay at a place for too long. It’s nice to see the growth of the place from a small organisation to a larger one each year. But of the 6 photos that have been there, which will be added to tomorrow, I’m only in one- the 2002 one. How? Two years I was on afternoon shift so wasn’t there for the morning tea. One I was there. And the rest? I have been the one taking the photo. So when in the future when I’m long gone someone tries to remember who I am and looks at the wall of Christmas photos, chances are that they won’t find me.
What else what else… sounds sometimes like my life is revolved around work. Maybe it is maybe the better way to put it is that my work life is my social life. Moving right along… recently I’ve become addicted to stalking people I went to school with online. Bless the people who invented social networking, because now I can find out what other people are doing without having to see them face to face. The best ones are the primary school ones who you haven’t seen for 15 years… it’s like spying on a stranger but for some reason you can still remember the names of their brothers and sisters. Also have become addicted to looking at those sites where one thing is up for sale every day.
Ramble over.
