Imminent PTSD?

The garage re-imagining is still determined to cause me grief, even though the builders have finished and gone. We now have to have a site visit by a few hairy odd bods from Head Office. Apparently the work has to be signed off by Health and Safety people, and also someone from accounting has to check the invoiced-for work has been carried out to the letter before recompense can be made; and we also have to have someone from Senior Management do an official inspection, and probably five or six other bullshit excuses for visits so that people who are already paid too much can have a couple of days away from their pretending-to-workplaces and stay in a local hotel, all expenses paid. It wouldn’t surprise me if a priest turned up to do a blessing, and some kind of voodoo doctor made a sacrifice.  
This job is a trial at the best of times; when I go through a month like the past one it feels like unceasing day-to-day trauma.

RC 28-2-17

baby breakthrough

In a quiet moment of reflective contemplation, I may have stumbled upon the psychological reason why I’m reluctant to start a family…..
I THINK I’D BE A TERRIBLE FATHER.

RC 27-2-17

Kettle on

Having not learnt my lesson from the SuperBowl incident, I am in the process of preparing to pull an all-nighter and sit up watching the Oscars.
I don’t know why I’m bothering really. I’ll only get upset by the flagrant display of ostentatiousness in a world where people are struggling to find ways to leave their war-torn, poverty-stricken homelands and find a safe country willing to accept them. I’ll see Kate Winslet and want to punch the TV screen while her face is on it, in response to her ludicrous statement recently that she often ‘finds it hard to leave a character behind’ and that it’s so traumatic and hard. (Try working a 12-hour daily shift in a hospital, where you’re constantly juggling administration tasks with patient needs, and where it’s a given that at least two of the people on your ward will die by the end of the week, THEN tell us how hard your acting job is…..)
Plus, let’s be honest, “La La Land” is going to win everything, because it’s set in L.A. and Hollywood is nothing if not a self-obsessed, self-serving, self-aggrandising, self-indulgent, self-worshipping incestuous cesspool of ego and narcissistic arrogance that cannot pass up a chance to pat itself on the back.
Yeah, I’m going to bed. 

RC 26-2-17
2215 GMT

Not necessary

With the detritus of Storm Doris still cluttering the pavements we are apparently about to be ‘battered’ by Storm Ewan.
In my day this would have been called ‘high wind on Friday followed by high wind on Sunday.’ Nowadays everything needs a nickname, it seems.

RC 26-2-17

Golden statues

We’re into film awards season, and films are my thing, and I’ve been drinking, so here’s a load of old nonsense about the Oscars:

WORST FILM EVER TO BE VOTED BEST PICTURE: “The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King”
BEST FILM NOT TO HAVE WON BEST PICTURE: “Babe”
BEST PERFORMANCE NOT TO WIN AN OSCAR: “Anthony Hopkins: The Remains of the Day”
UNUSED CATEGORY THAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED: Worst English accent by an American actor
MOST SICKENINGLY SELF-IMPORTANT ACCEPTANCE SPEECH EVER: probably Julia Roberts for ‘Erin Brockovich’

RC 25-2-17

Breakfast observation

Even at my age there is something deeply satisfying about the sound produced by pouring cold milk on a bowl of Rice Krispies

RC 25-2-17

Quelle excitement!

I bring you news from the world of forecourt improvements. The garage renovations and rebuilding should be completed ahead of schedule. The ‘works foreman’ of our chosen cheap-to-hire local building firm turned up today with a clipboard and an oversized puffer jacket. As the wind buffeted against the windows he pulled his tightly-fitting hi-vis vest around his ample waist and proudly informed me that, short of a bit of ‘clean-up’ and some touches of paint, the job was almost finished. 
Originally all this was supposed to have been done last October so I hope he forgives me for not falling over myself with admiration. 

RC 24-2-17

Dirty Doris

I normally laugh at the weather forecasters and the way they create fictional climate crises to justify their worthless positions, but I have to say they’ve been spot on today. When they informed us last night “Make a will and say goodbye to your loved ones, coz Storm Doris is gonna blow the flaps off your grandma,” I scoffed. But today may well have been the windiest day I can ever remember. The seemingly never-ending building work had to stop because it was too dangerous for them to use the scaffolding, and at quarter past eleven we gave up trying to tie down the bins outside and let them disappear across the car park. As usual, I took a barrage of abuse from customers who think that it’s part of my job description to control the weather. I smiled my usual smile and passed on my usual condolences while internally imagining them roasting slowly and painfully over a barbecue. 

Why is it that every time I start writing about something that has nothing to do with work I end up taking a left turn somewhere and writing about work anyway?  This was supposed to be about the weather and the unusual strength of the wind and I’ve just done a paragraph on the garage. Bloody Hell. It’s the reality of this shitty work-first earning-obsessed Western culture of ours where what you do for a living and how many hours you waste doing it is far more important to people than what you might do with your family. Whatever else is in your life is irrelevant - it always comes back to that 8-hour chunk of unhappiness that dominates your sorry existence. And I fell into that trap again. 
I’m going now before I sink even further…..

RC 23-2-17

Returned

The Hell I anticipated at the garage hasn’t been as bad as I’d projected. Yes, there was loads of stuff to catch up on, and yes, the ‘construction co-ordinators’ have created nothing short of carnage in my absence, but my team coped well and kept disruption to a minimum and we seem to be back on track and settled back into a sense of normality. We can still only open one till and there’s a respectable-sized pile of rubble beside the building, but hey - you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, and apparently you can’t make a plush new overnight serving booth without breaking a few bricks and some paving slabs. Roll on March 2nd, when this should all be done and dusted and resplendent in its new appearance. 
And then we can open 24 hours, God help us……..

RC 22-2-17

A week away, part 2

Extracts from my journal last week, continued….

Weds (Feb 15)
I wish I’d brought a book. Not to read in bed at night, but to look at while I’m bored at the garage. Andy can make even the most interesting aspects of the job seem tedious, and the end of the week can’t come quick enough.

Thurs (Feb 16)
I can’t believe what a waste of time this week has been. I am seriously considering a moany complaint to Head Office (not that it would do me much good.) Andy is awful and I’ve learned nothing of use, while now being behind on preparations at my own garage. They’d have been better off paying someone to teach me in situ at my own place of work rather than wasting my time being preached at by a self-righteous waster in Nottingham. (nothing personal, Andy, you understand…)

Fri (Feb 17)
Thank God that week is over. At least I got to leave at 1pm so I was home before teatime. Andy shook my hand and said “I’ll sign you off with Head Office. Fully trained and ready to fly. You’ll be fine now, mate.” What a dick. The only thing he taught me was how to bore someone shitless by the tone of your voice and your incessant self-appraising. I don’t think there’s enough alcohol in Suffolk to chill me out this evening. 

RC 20-2-17

A week away, part 1

Notes from my diary (written when I was pretending to be writing notes of things I’d learnt during training)

Sunday (Feb 12)
Here I am stuck in a hotel on the outskirts of Nottingham. The room is basic, the bed uncomfortable, the point of being here unfathomable. At least I get tonight away, and paid for. I start my training at 6am tomorrow and I still had to fight to get the extra night in the Travelodge. They would have happily had me leaving at 3 to drive in the rain and cold. Bastards.

Monday (Feb 13)
Well that was a fun day. 9 hours working with one of those people who thinks their role in life is the ultimate in importance. My ‘trainer’ is boring in the extreme and ignorant in the whatever-is-more-extreme-than-extreme. He seems to rank himself as the most significant employee in the entire company infrastructure whereas I think any one of my employees could do his job as well as he’s doing it; even the part-time ones. He’s an arse and he’s taught me nothing. He invited me out for a meal and drinks tonight to ‘chew the fat’ and ‘share his wisdom’ but I’ve had enough of him for one year so I’ve pleaded a headache and ran back to Travelodge room 201. Later I’ll pop to the Brewers Fayre next door for a mixed grill and a few pints of Guinness.

Tuesday (Feb 14)
Nice to be spending Valentines Day 250 miles away from my wife….. Thanks, work.

RC 19-2-17 
(sorry if the different dates are confusing)

Rory not dead!

I am back from my seven-day-plus sabbatical. Full of cold, fresh from a weeks training, and enthused to do nothing more than eat crisps and look for a new job.
More tomorrow, dedicated followers….

RC 18-2-17

Sleepy and strained

I’ve really been struggling this week. I just can’t handle late nights anymore. The SuperBowl was great to watch, but it’s killed me. A return of cold weather hasn’t helped either. I feel low on energy, high on stress and very cold.
I’ve got to go away next week for training as well. They’ve decided I need to spend some time at a ‘recently expanded forecourt’ so I can handle the extra hours of opening without breaking down or breaking the till or something.  That sounds great to them, I’m sure, but it means I’ll be away from my own garage at a time when it’s being refurbished, so I’ll have loads of shit to sort out when I get back.
March can’t come quick enough this year, I tell you… 

RC 9-2-17

Glad I guessed now...

My Super Bowl prediction was only 3 points out! Do I get an award? A telegram from the Queen? Unlimited respect and kudos? No, of course I don’t. Like the painfully defeated Atlanta Falcons, I end up with nothing. Apart from a pounding head and a tired body. It was hard to get to sleep after the all-night excitement, and after the bastards went into overtime it was gone 4am before I turned the telly off. Then, of course, I went online to watch some post-match comments flutter in to various media outlets, and to catch the emotional interviews on the NFL website. So I eventually fell into bed at 5am, only to wake up just after 7 worrying that I’d missed the alarm and was late for work. Today will be a struggle. I thought booking the morning off would be sensible, but now I haven’t slept much I might have been better off working normal hours and getting home usual time, instead of having to plough through a whole 2-8pm shift on barely two hours sleep! It might take me all week to get over it. But at least I’m not an Atlanta Falcons player. I’m confident I’ll recover by the weekend, but how on Earth do you recover from throwing away a 28-3 lead in the biggest game your sport has, with 200 million people watching around the World?

RC 6-2-17

Reflections on sleep

Why is it that your feelings of tiredness adjust according to how much sleep you are anticipating getting in the night ahead?
On any normal Sunday I would be fully awake now and thinking about putting a film on, but because I am aware of the fact that I plan to sit up all night watching the SuperBowl I am feeling really sleepy. Stupid body clock. Stupid mind-over-matter psychological-trick-playing head. Stupid life. 
It started about 6pm. I got a little rush of excitement thinking about the game, then a little thought popped up along the lines of “wonder if I should try to get a couple of hours sleep in now, to sort of ‘put some hours on account’?” Since then I’ve been fighting my own subconscious to keep myself from talking myself into falling asleep. And now it’s too late to get a kip in, and I’ve actually made myself drowsy with the effort, so now I’ve started worrying whether I’ll be able to stay awake right through til the finish.
Thank God for coffee, that‘s all I can say.

RC 5-2-17

2130 GMT

Is there anything sadder than viewing alone?

I have actually been sensible, and I have learnt from recent mistakes. Tonight is the SuperBowl, and I have every intention of sitting up to watch it, so I have booked a half-day off work tomorrow. The match and its aftershow will finish about 3.30, so I can be in bed by 4 and still get the equivalent of a good nights sleep before rising at lunchtime to head in for a 2 - 8pm shift. 
I’m so well organised…
All I have to do now is drink and snack and enjoy (as much as you can enjoy a sports event that is based on being social when you’re completely on your own) and try to predict a winner. I’m pretty awful at this, and I’ve changed my mind hourly all week, and all the ‘experts’ seem at a loss as to what to expect, and it might all be scuppered by a moment of Donald Trump nuke-based madness, but working on the assumption that the match WILL go ahead…..
I’m supporting Atlanta, as they’ve never won before. I think it will be a high-scoring game. In fact - if I was working for the NFL website (which I’m not, incidentally) and I’d been asked to take part in their BOLD PREDICTIONS segment, I would say “For the first time in SuperBowl history, both teams will score 40+ points.” I think the Falcons have possibly the best, most innovative offence I have seen in my scope of limited viewing experience and limited knowledge, but I don’t think it’ll be enough. I think the Patriots will take it by virtue of keeping it close, making big defensive plays, and having the good sense of timing to finish with the ball at the end.
Final score: New England Patriots 34 Atlanta Falcons 31
But I’m well aware of the fact that posting all this amateur analysis is a risk. This time tomorrow, if it ends Atlanta 9-6 New England, I’m going to look like a bit of a twat.
(So what else is new?)

RC 5-2-17