Weeeelllll, there you go, after 46 years I’ve joined the unemployed, today was the first day and to be honest, it was ok. 43 years of that was with the one organisation, lots of different jobs and different towns, but it finished Friday, clearly I must be too old! There are a few things bubbling away as alternatives but we’ll see if anything develops before I talk about it – it will not be as an employee anymore.

What will I miss? A lot of the people, and the comraderie.

What won’t I miss? A few different people – no names! I won’t miss the PDP’s – a waste of time and only benefit the whingers and the overpaid who think they deserve more. I won’t miss the gossipers and the endless rumours about who is doing what to whom, who is saying things that might upset somebody. I won’t miss staff surveys that are there to tell management what they should already know and feel if they are close to the front end of the business. I won’t miss the endless approval process for minuscule and trivial things. And there are probably a few other things I won’t miss, but let’s not bog down in detail eh.

So what’s been happening;

1. The trip to Northern Thailand, down the Mekong River through Laos and then to Vietnam didn’t happen in March/April, it’s now next year – if we can travel then.

2. The wedding in the south of France was initially moved to September 2021 but is now under review as to another alternative. Smart move I think.

3. Books – been doing a lot of reading over the Covid 19 isolation, not that I didn’t read before, but I’ve been fairly ploughing through through the books. Have just read “Boy Swallows Universe” by Trent Dalton – great book. Currently reading a) an Andy McNAb thriller + “Phosphorescence” by Julia Baird – a disertation on important things for enjoying life eg a connection with natural things, networks of friends and families and I’m guessing some other things I’ll discover later in the book no doubt.

4. Gardening – during the Covid isolation I managed to get a lot of gardening done. No further comment needed but I like my garden a lot more and there is now some incentive to do a lot more out in the green and brown stuff outside.

5. Tidy up – a lot of things got sorted and tidied but there is still an awful lot more to do, there will be more time to do that now.

6. Sport and Entertainment – somehow the Covid thing made professional sports people and entertainers seem relatively unimportant in comparison to the people doing essential jobs like nurses, cleaners, truck drivers, supermarket staff, so, I’ve become a bit ambivalent about watching them and the bleating that they deserve an income !!!! Give me a break!!!!

7. Friends and Family – gee I missed seeing them over the Covid isolation, phone calls and Zoom Friday night drinks are ok ( sort of) but there is nothing like the face to face connections, the subtleties of the smile or raised eyebrow, the laugh you have with people who really know each other. Right now the Covid thing has spiked again and borders are closing again.

So what am I doing tomorrow; Coffee, clean up my office at home now that all the 9-5 job stuff has gone, then set up the work I’m looking at, buy lotto ticket in the $50m lotto, coffee, garden, watch a show I recorded. Busy busy busy.

So, until I get to write the next bit of drivel, ciao

Pauolo

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