This is an experiment. The title says it all really but just to make really sure, this is a brief description of the *real* people I’ve had real interaction with today. Email people, telephone people and unreal people (what?) don’t figure in this post.
Soph is the obvious place to start. We career around the house in our half-formed state of wakefulness. In the kitchen I cuddle her and stroke her bum while waiting for the First Cup of Tea to brew, then she takes breakfast back to bed while I put my many carrier-bags in to the car and head eastwards.
Huw and I exchange words every morning as I stand in the queue for the Oxford Tube coach. Huw works for the bus company selling tickets. He’s short, in his late 40s, slightly tubby, bald (shaved?), wears glasses and an earring, he lives with his second wife, his kids live with his first wife. We moan about the weather, the stupidity of people (his customers, it transpires, are capable of dizzying heights of idiocy), I give him a tip on a hot new track I’ve discovered and he tells me about the delights of living in Didcot.
I always make it a point to say ‘Hello’ to the coach driver. S/he has probably been sitting behind the wheel for a few hours, been dealing with motorised twats and grumpy passengers so why shouldn’t I say something? This morning’s was a guy called Peter who’s probably in his mid-50s. I like Peter, he can be quite taciturn but when he’s on his ‘up’ days he can be the Funniest Man Alive. Today we joke about a certain London-based political figure who is on my client list – and Peter knows this.
I sleep for the journey in to London; I get off the coach and get straight on to the Underground for one stop and leave the tube station without speaking to anyone. Is this the benefit of Oyster Cards, that a small piece of human interaction has been removed from us, or is it a cost?
I walk in to Costa and the massively tall guy mouths at me (I have my iPod plugged in to my ears) ‘Medium Skinny Latte?’ and I laugh. I disconnect my ears and he and I have a quick chat over his shoulder while he prepares my coffee. I know so little about this guy and nothing about how he fills his spare time, but in this coffee-dispensing role he’s a diamond and full of witty, quick-fire observations. He always asks what I’m listening to (screwed up his face in to a grotesque mask when I said Swedish Punk) and I always ask what he got up to the previous night, he inevitably smirks at me. We laugh a lot despite him always carrying an air of ‘I’m so busy!’
Tall Guy’s colleague is short – looks almost dwarvish against her lack of height. She’s a sweet girl with a nice smile although she’s slightly withdrawn; in her mid-30s, but has painful eyes that are accompanied by permanent shadows and I wonder what her life is like. She and I share maybe two dozen words; her sadness acts like a big mental warning zone and I concentrate far more on her words and how she uses them. I pay her for my coffee and walk a couple of hundred metres to the building that I’m working in today.
I say ‘Hi!’ to the two guys on security, wave my Super Dooper Access All Areas pass at them and make my way upstairs to the desk I’m using today. This is a hot-desking environment but I’m so early I almost have the entire pick of the building.
At 10am H bounces in to the computer seat opposite mine. H is one of those ‘million miles an hour, full of bounce and energy and talks so quickly he’s sometimes hard to understand’ people who have the potential to either be Great Fun or Really Irritating – depending on one’s own frame of mind! H is in his early 40s, has a fondness for labelled/badged/branded clothes, he’s worked here for ten years and will probably retire here. He throws all of his energy in to being either H At Work or H At Home. I don’t think H considers his life in a holistic way, for him everything is neatly compartmentalised and never the twain shall meet, though he gives 100% energy to every one of those compartments. I wonder if his wife and children feel as worn out by his puppy-like energy as I do. For a few minutes he talks at me about music and last night’s television. I contribute less than 5% to the discussion.
As the football-sized office of open-plandom fills with people who start and finish later than me, I plug in my iPod to give me mental isolation from the white noise of background chatter. Isolated from the distraction, I can now concentrate and plan my next two meetings and workshops. I also write a ‘guidelines’ workbook for a piece of culture change/business process re-engineering I have to kick off next week. It’s productive time, but I could have stayed at home and achieved all of this without travelling in to London. This client has a quaintly Victorian attitude to home-working.
Hours later the girl behind the counter in the Deli laughs as soon as I walk in to the shop. I’ve been coming in here for less than two weeks and already she thinks she knows me. She’s about 19, blonde, tall, thin and has an amazingly pretty face; she’s Polish and has a typically Slav-style bone structure. I imagine she breaks hearts on a weekly basis. She makes my toasted Cheese & Tomato sandwiches with such care and delicacy; it’s like watching a form of art being constructed. She always asks if I want salt and pepper, I always say no, but she asks in such a way and with a smile that, it seems to me, she’s working to get me to convert to her salt and pepper-like way. While my sandwich is toasting I tease her, and her colleagues, about the rubbish commercial radio station they play in here. ‘We like it,’ is their response. I laugh and make sick-making gestures, pointing my finger to the back of my throat. They giggle like schoolchildren.
A short walk away and indoors once more, I catch the eye of the massively tall guy in Costa; he raises an eyebrow at me and I nod (I have my iPod plugged in again), in some things I am boringly consistent. He is much busier this time and so is his small friend who can barely manage a half-smile in my direction. I’m in and out of the coffee shop in moments with barely a word spoken.
Throughout the afternoon I say ‘Hi’ to people I don’t know as they walk past my desk. Most of them absolutely reek to high heaven, and unpleasantly so too, of tobacco as they go back to their desks from ‘smoking breaks’. I am amazed that an organisation is prepared to lose approximately 20% of its workforce for up to 45 minutes a day on paid smoking breaks. And what about the non-smokers? Don’t they deserve 45 minutes paid leave a day away from the office too, or is an unlevel playing field acceptable to you? Am I being too hardcore?
My next human interaction is the coach driver who delivers me back to Oxford. I don’t recognise this one, he’s a new guy.
At the stables the first person I come across is H. She tells me she’s permanently tired yet propels herself and the wheelbarrow full of haylage across the yard as if she’s turbocharged. She takes the piss out of me. It seems to be in the job description of all of the staff at the yard, that they *must* take the piss out of me. I ask her what’s new, she says ‘not much’ and then reels off a list of things that have happened today. It’s a routine conversation. I ask how my boys have been and she says ‘Fine’, and means it.
As I walk towards Tom and Vin, J arrives. She’s cute and could break many hearts as she grows from her 14 years, but an early teenaged girl is not the person she looks like. Secretly she’d like to ride and even compete with Vin but the circumstances haven’t been right. I let her try Tom last week and although he’s too big for her, he looked after like a star. J and I chat about horses and school then she goes off to ride her pony and I tote up with carrots and walk, like an over-laden John Wayne, to the boys’ stables.
While I’m saying hello and feeding carrots to Tom and Vin K comes in. She’s got a horse in the same block as Tom and Vin. We chat about her health – she is fighting cancer and has just finished a course of chemo – and I ask when she’ll be likely to start riding again soon. Her horse recently had a few feet of stomach removed after a mild colic attack.. I hope they both fully recover.
The boys take carrots from me as if they haven’t seen food for several days, Tom actually tries to communicate this message to ne through his clever use of eye-language. I laugh. He looks offended.
In the toilet I get changed from my suit in to my jodhpurs, riding boots, two t-shirts and two sweat-shirts, put on a fleece and a quilted windbreaker, then riding hat and gloves. I put my suit in the car.
In the tack room Sammi is gathering a bridle and saddle to go and tack up and ride. She says a cheery ‘Hi’ and I ask how The Princess is today. Sammi’s response is more personal than H’s but it still involves taking the piss out of me. We natter about many things including last night’s Facebook activity. She, like me, is counting down the days for the start of the Eventing season and, also like me, is very excited at the closeness of it now. Sammi has three horses to compete this year; I’m going to struggle with just Tom!
Not strictly ‘human’ interaction, but this deserves a mention. Both horses work brilliantly. Vin has just 20 minutes of long, low, slow work, intended to strengthen and build support for his recovering back injury. Tom has 40 minutes of mentally- and physically testing work that includes counter-canter, walk-to-canter and a lot of effort on simple transitions. Tom could be a star this year, if I don’t lose my bottle and throw away all of the work we’ve done over the winter.
With the horses groomed, rugged-up for the night and chewing on yet more carrots I drive home.
Soph and I have a cuddle and I ask her about fourteen times how her day’s been. We eat and sit on the couch and talk, touch and watch television while I catch up with non-work internet traffic. A few hours later I have a shower, cuddle up to Sophie in bed and fall asleep immediately.
Footnote:
Today has been unusual. There have been no meetings where normally three or four would have taken place. There have been no workshops where there is usually at least one, and I’ve left out email contact because I don’t think that counts as human interaction. This has been an interesting exercise. And a revealing one.
So, how’s your day been?
I love this post Bren – it’s really interesting to read about someone’s day in “real life”.
Mine would be stupidly boring though. I sit in my little office and listen to the radio, procrastinating from doing any real work and dreaming about the time I’ll be free.
Agree, a great read. I was again analysing behaviour on the footpaths of Wellington at lunchtime on Friday. I came up with something quite succinct: If you feel you owe the world nothing, it’s mutual.
An interesting read, indeed.
In answer to your question: dull.
That’s the problem with working from home – as I have been all week – no people to meet.
Tucked away in my makeshift office, my only interaction was with the wife… and that only extended to “cup of tea, dear?” several times.
I was actually joyous when the kids came home from school.
This is a brilliant post, I may reserve the right to steal the idea in the near future, though only when I have a busier day to make it more worthwhile!