Plan was to get some night rides in over the next few weeks, because weekends are busy.
Thursday afternoon, with 3 and a half hours’ notice, my job changed. Instead of working 3 miles from home 8:30 - 5:00, I’m now attached to a team in Manchester, and sometimes working from Stoke. My 15 minute scooter ride becomes a 2 - 3 hour car drive each way. This lasts for 3 - 6 months.
Looks like those evening rides aren’t going to happen, and this weight isn’t going to come off.
Anyone fancy some interesting posts in RSU about me working unpaid overtime on a project in which I have no interest on a subject of which I have no knowledge, using techniques of which I have no experience, in a city I detest?
I have a 3 hour round trip to work at least half of the week and 2 hours the rest of it. Even with my expert wheeling and dealing I’m usually out of the house from 7.30am to 6pm. But this was my choice and is only for 3 years. It is my only way to a goal I have been working towards for 4 years so far.
I know how you feel about best laid plans aswell. I planned to do loads of riding over xmas (and the weather was appropriate). I had over 2 weeks off. But I had the worse flu of my life. I’m still building up my fitness and have a bit of a cold so am not fully over it. But I wanted to ride
You wont be too far away from me now. I’m in Liverpool and round and about that area.
I’m usually out from 7:45 ish to 5:30 ish, and I know plenty of other people have far worse to contend with. My biggest gripe, i suppose, is the way it was done. I’ve spent since March 17th virtually single-handedly trying to get a project working, only to have the rug pulled at a critical time by some posterior orifice whom I’ve never met - and with 3.5 hours to clear my desk and hand-over. For 24+ years, my deal with the employer has been I work my backside off all day for little reward, but my evenings are my own. I play sports, I teach sports, I am on club committees, I have a life. Now some no-lifer who’s project is important to them just kidnaps me and rides roughshod over my life.
Most things in life turn out to be less bad than expected, but the worst case scenario is I may not even see my girlfriend for 2 - 3 months.
But hey, mustn’t grumble.
I had thought the subtle literary allusion in the title would attract more readers than the 30-odd showing at the moment. Then a friend PMed me to say he’d never have read a thread with a title like that unless I’d brought it to his attention in another discussion! Bunch of Philistines!
That is not good news, Mike. 2-3 hours (or 4-6 round trip) seems like an unreasonable commute. Any chance of them getting you a room closer by where you could be there during the week and make the long trip on weekends?
They’d love to - then they could keep me at the office until stupid o’clock each evening because there is nothing to do on your own in a hotel room, and I would gradually begin to bond with the chief-office no-lifers. Stokholm Syndrome would develop…
But then who would ride my unicycles, check my mail at home, teach the beginners and intermediates at fencing club, teach the Morris team jigs, write the Morris newletter, check my scooter hasn’t been stolen… ? I will need to commute much of the time, but it won’t be sustainable day in day out.
Today is a ‘reading’ day, which when I have an essay to do, means writing essays. I haven’t got an essay to do today so was getting excitied about spending time out on my big wheel. Having missed so much time at christmas due to the flu, I wanted to catch up.
But no - Sam is off school sick. Oh I tried to get him to go. But when he threw up on my shoes I knew I was onto a loser.
Is someone somewhere conspiring against my having any unicycle time?
Ah yes, and have you read the modern parody by Linda Beaton? I quite enjoyed it too:
To the Computer Mouse
Nae sleekit cowerin’ timerous beastie
is ma wee suave computer mousie.
Oh no! In fact he’s ilka flirty
and doonloads a’ the blethering prattle,
spewed frae the latest worms, that snaffle
a’ ma programs and ma files
in murderous electronic style.
Doonloadin’ “cookies” withoot question,
that gie ma software indigestion,
the worms and viruses grow fat
but mousie disnae stop at that!
He doonloads a’ they trojan spies
“the hacker’s tool!” I hear ye cry.
And tae some listening port they cling
awaiting the command fae “pings”,
tae overwrite ma program files
and spew their electronic bile
a’ o’er ma hard disk.
Oh but mousie be afraid,
I’ve bocht some tools yer pals will dread,
tae calm the panic in my breastie,
fligged by thae electronic beasties.
Fir I now own an “anti-virus”,
(legitimate purchase - not a pirate)
and installed a firewall as a backer,
tae make they trojans deaf tae hackers.
(An’ I’m no feart tae run this murderin’ pattle).
So mousie ye have hud yer day.
Yer illicit trysts have gan agley.
And I’m no sorry man’s dominion
has broken yer ill-gotten union
wi the internet and a’ its pachal.
It’s aboot time!
But nae virus is beyond the pale,
if yer vigilance begins tae stale.
Fir the corporate moose on an electronic bender
can be seduced by a quark wi a hidden agenda.
Are they actually allowed to do that? I thought there were regulations as to how much they can change your working conditions before you can tell them to take a running jump. You’d never start a job that was that far away, so it seems outrageous that they expect you to do so.
Earlier this year I went through a period of spending more time in Stockport than back at home, staying up there in a not-particularly-rosy hotel. Temporarily giving up my social life, home comforts and freedom like that was bad enough, so I can’t imagine how your situation must be.
(I started thinking that taking a unicycle or bike would be impractical; by the end I was traipsing mud across the reception carpet with reckless abandon and telling work I would only go if they gave me a car big enough to stick a cycling contraption in…)
Do not let this happen under any circumstances. Where are your priorities, lad!!?
Mike: Believe it or not, I know unicyclists who cannot distinguish a Pouilly-Fuisse from a reasonably taut Chateauneuf-du-Pape (!!!)
As Matthew Arnold said: Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.
