Secrets, snacks, bedsits and orbits

Today’s post is brought to you by two unconnected items both of which were incidental conversations. The first conversation was around the complexities of working away from home and the fact that corporate governance limited this to 5 years. Apparently those of us that work away, it is not for all, should be limited to 5 years in order to minimise the risk to home life. The second was a conversation with a friend that alluded to the ‘secret’ life that I lead when working away, this friend had concluded that I had some second life that was kept isolated from home.

Before I embark on this post I would like to make it clear that I do not suffer from any conditions, neuroses or incapacities, well no more than is normal anyway. I am 40 years old and have worked all of my life, the majority of it working away from home. I have had some brief spells of returning home every day but they have been coupled with a minimum of 4 hours commuting just to take the edge off it.

Lets hit the ground running, there is no secret life. Rarely are two weeks the same and even if they were the ability to operate a Monday to Friday life is far beyond my talents. I am sure that there are cases of super lotharios who have kept a weekday partner secret but it really can’t be easy. Imagine a partner that never sees you at weekends? who only experiences the ‘school nights’ of late evenings and early rises, I can’t see that as a seller to be honest. So weekdays are filled with work, the ‘advantage’ of a hotel is that one can work late, work from ‘home’ and start early in the morning, this isn’t just work its immersion.

Hotel living, as I have explained before, is not like a holiday there is no luxury to it. With rare exceptions I don’t dine in hotels, the menu is something that would result in an athlete gaining weight and I am no athlete to start with. I always depart hotels before breakfast and am no fan of that particular meal anyway, evening meals are never more than a snack. A hotel room is, in reality, little more than a badly equipped bedsit; a bed and a bathroom is not the largest environment to live in. You know when you leave your house like a tip on the way to work? I don’t, that is simply not an option. I tidy the room because one thing you don’t want is an annoyed housekeeper. Those mornings when you can’t find your wallet and just leave it to hunt down later, not for me I am on my hands and knees looking for it. In short after I leave my ‘home’ in the morning several strangers will visit before I return, there is no privacy.

When you come home and get that eerie feeling that something has moved? I don’t get that because stuff moves all the time, it moves to where the housekeeping staff thinks it looks best. A change in housekeeper midweek is given away by a new location for my toothbrush or a different arrangement of shampoo bottles. In some hotels I get a fridge but in most every meal has to be a single shot and hot food doesn’t happen, well if you exclude powdered soup that is. I enter the hotel at night and say good evening to reception, the next human interaction I get is when I say good morning to the receptionist on the way to work.

Even when I was driving the risk of a sudden flight meant that my entire life was packed into a small rucksack, I don’t do hold luggage, everything. I am not a sportsman but hobbies, clubs and associations do not suit working away from home. I actually find it very difficult to fill my time when I am not working and am always grateful when the occasional quiet periods at work come to an end. If there is not enough work to fill the day and the evening then it all becomes a bit of a struggle, there is only so long you can spend in the shower after all. Currently I have Rachel’s story and a sketch pad full of the next tattoo to keep me entertained in the evening and fill in the gaps between work.

I don’t keep up with birthdays or other occasions and rarely attend leaving parties and the like. For me the whole world is a series of transient events, if you are not in front of me or involved with me today I wont chase and nurture that relationship why would I. We are all moving in different orbits and when they coincide we interact, when they don’t that doesn’t end it simply gets paused until the next time.

There is of course one major benefit to being a single man working away from home, yes that’s right I can’t have pets and so wont suffer from mad old lady syndrome that is apparently brought on by cats!

Animals real and dressed up

Whilst thoroughly enjoying catching up with Geoff yesterday we hit upon the subject of horses, Geoff’s Mrs you see is in the middle of reviving her horse riding days. We carefully considered the metrics of horse riding, the population of the equine community and the popularity of these animals and I think we agreed, without a shadow of  a doubt, that horses are for women not men. I have tried several times over the years to counter my belief that men and horses are natural partners but on each occasion I have failed, for me its a simple issue of orientation, what the horse sees as ‘up’ I see as ‘down’ which results in compression of parts of my body not intended for compression. Both of my children enjoy horses, although my Son came to it later, but I think this is because at their ages horses are one of the few means of mobility that are not-self powered, I have no doubt that it is my daughter who will continue this relationship in the long-term. It would seem that Geoff’s experience with horses is due to come to an end soon as June seems to want an animal that is more suited to petting and curling up on laps than her Dale pony, I hope it’s before he has mashed body parts.

The hotel this evening has gone mad, or perhaps American? I checked in, walked to my room, boiled the kettle and sat down only to have to get up because the telephone rang. I answered the telephone to reception asking if everything was alright, if I needed anything and if there was anything else they could do, why? what was the point in this call? I checked in, at which time you secured my payment mechanism and provided me with the details of my room at this stage our interaction was successfully concluded. If my room had some defect or error then I am wholly capable of picking up the telephone and informing you, in fact in my experience the biggest issue in any hotel is key card failure and if mine had failed you would have been calling the room at the very same time that I trekked back to get a new key card. I am not sure where this ‘just checking’ form of customer service originates but my best guess is our American cousins, I am not sure that I am ready to adopt the gift. I am an adult, if I ask for goods or services then I am more than capable of communicating  any problems with them and I will, I don’t need checking up on like a child. There are some occasions when it is reasonable to ask over an experience, a meal in a restaurant would be a good example or perhaps when checking out of a hotel but this was too much.

Perhaps it is just that I am not a ‘people person’ because I have also been hugely irritated by what seems to be a sudden growth in idiots dressed up with buckets collecting cash. It is not that I am against charity, although in the UK we seem fixated with it, but these people are everywhere and if my pockets were big enough to give them all change then I would not be able to walk in the first place. There are a growing number of occasions in the calendar when we expect to be accosted by the red nose/Pudsy brigades, but it seems that the buckets are in constant use now by people collecting for things that I don’t even understand. A journey home now involves walking through charity collectors at Stratford underpass, again at the top of the station and then at Colchester, all of these I see on entrance and exit so that is 6 separate times.  I see people desperately struggling for change because it is so ingrained in us that we have to give money when you shake a bucket at us, if they do the same journey as me their commute is being subject to quite a high charity tax. I am well equipped to walk past this people with impunity but I am concerned that the elderly are simply being mugged by the latest breed of ‘hoody’, these people are thoroughly disguised and essentially demanding money with menaces. Can I suggest that we update the old concept of helping elderly people across the road to ‘helping the elderly past the charity collectors’?

Having had a long discussion with my sis yesterday I have to make mention of the marvelous way in which DL* has dropped into her imagination, it really is quite astounding. I am not sure how much of this is female logic, how much is too much time at home and how much is inability to accept that I am resolutely single and therefore present no threat to any of my female friends, but hey its entertaining. Between Jo and DL* they have formed the perfect relationship DL* has the passion nailed and has a great take on the intimate details while Jo has the romance and thrill buttoned down, seriously if you merged their thoughts you would have a match made in heaven, ladies your minds are wonderful tools and I enjoy my time in them.

 

*Dream Lover