The Boss has finally noticed that I’m not operating at full strength over the last couple of months so has decided to put me into storage.
We’re working on a particularly large renovation so he hired a storage container for me to use as an on-site office, which means I’m within yelling distance, but far enough away to be able to doze off and/or daydream.
He bought me a MacBook Air for me to project manage everything and so far I have created some lovely colour-coded tables and notebooks. I’ve played around with the fonts and sizes and can easily pass a couple of hours highlighting and un-highlighting everything in bold or itallic.
My office also doubles as a mini-kitchen, complete with a table and chairs for the labourers to take their breaks. I have a kettle, microwave, toaster, fridge and radio, plus ample supplies of biscuits which is an ongoing struggle of avoidance. I also have a set of shelves where I have arranged (and rearranged) loo roll, cloths, tea-towels, kitchen spray, etc). It’s truly amazing what you can find to do in a storage container.
I miss being more hands-on, but my balance is shot, I don’t walk in a straight line and when I yawn, the labourers start yawning too. I’m a bad influence. So, The Boss does all the wandering around the site stuff, looking serious and important, then feeds all the relevant information back to me, which I promptly forget. After much trial and error, we’ve now developed a system of notes which he sends straight from his phone to my Mac. Genius. I then put them in the correct colour-coded table.
As I’ve been so poorly, The Boss has been picking me up for work recently and this is when the real work gets done. We brainstorm, which is quite funny as it’s my brain that’s playing up, but actually, it’s a good way to push projects forward as we swap ideas and chew over problems.
A couple of people have asked me why I’m so determined to stay in work despite feeling absolutely dreadful but I’d rather feel dreadful yet useful in work than dreadful and useless at home. I’ve been there, done that too many times.
However, I do have one fear. I remember as a kid watching a film where the baddie was hiding in a storage container at a port. The doors were closed and the last scene was of that container being craned onto a huge ship, bound for somewhere thousands of miles away. Every time I close my eyes (just for five minutes, lol), I worry that I’ll wake up on my way to China with nothing to sustain me but a packet of Kit-Kats and a half-eaten ham roll …