Saturday, November 11, 2006

My last week at home - Friday

Well, what a start, after some leaving drinks last night that included a pint of “Black Velvet” half Guinness and half champagne, I was a little slow to rise.

In my defence though, what was there to rise for? I had carefully engineered it so that all I had to do is dismantle all my kit, computers and stuff, and drive it over to one of my colleagues houses, and in my early morning state, the later I got onto doing that the better.

By rather happy coincidence, the morning would be taken up with a couple of visitors, Mum would be making her last lunchtime visit, and a friend would be dropping something off for Wife.

Mum’s visits where reasonably regular as she worked close by and it was never beyond the realms of possibility that someone would drop by and deliver something or stop in for a cuppa, which leads me to thinking that my moving to an office job affects more than just me.

It may seem obtuse of me to have only realised this now, but to be honest these times of change are such a wonderful opportunity for introspection that my consciousness is only now raising it’s head above the parapet.

So while I’m certainly going to miss an hour a week to eat chips and sauce, (the chippy offers not only the classic “curry”, and it’s northerly cousin “gravy”, there’s also “sweet & sour” and “Thai green”) with Mum in the garden, I don’t think it’s too egotistical to think she’ll miss it too.

I have even, admittedly only once, babysat* for my godson during an unfortunate emergency at his mother’s work, a delightfully encouraging experience for an eager parent to be. Sadly for me and uselessly for them, an option now closed to his parents.

All of this without even considering my invaluable skills when it comes to waiting for deliveries and answering calls from people in India with an over-interest in my mobile phone bill or more locally feigning excitement at “winning” a new kitchen, again.

Looking at it now, the outreaching effects of my change in status are huge, from as close as my own mother to as far as the call centre industry of India.

Does this global revelation tug at my heartstrings? A little I suppose, but I think I’ll just be glad that on this last day, I’ve had the opportunity to spend a bit of time out of my day as a real example of what working from home can be all about.


* Note to linguists: is that even a real word? It just feels wrong, and in my head is too easy to add an h too.

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