First full day at the office since, oh, it must be 2000! I'm talking about a business/commercial office, not my home office - that is an ongoing job with no office hours, 24/7. This is a temporary stopgap as the next person doing the job can only start in December and it's the busiest time of year, so I have obligingly stepped into the breach for a fee.
At first I fretted over getting up at 5.30 in the morning to miss the traffic, but I needn't have worried - the rooster next door is in full summer mode and begins tuning his throat at 4am, leaving me with plenty of time to lie there waiting for the alarm to go off. It's quite startling to notice how light it is at 5.00 and I thank my lucky stars that it's not winter! It was an easy drive into Claremont, with minimal traffic until Wynberg Hill, and even that was just due to the usual inability of people to close gaps, and missing a gear, causing a domino effect all the way back down towards Constantia. I did have a near miss when someone had to swerve to the side of the road to avoid driving into the back of me as I turned onto the Blue Route, as those early morning pedestrians (absolutely oblivious to the fact that they do not have right of way or should even be crossing at an on-ramp) were allowed to cross by some misguided person who also had no idea why he was on the road. So that could have been a nasty start, but as nothing happened, I put my foot down and turned the music up for a blast up the freeway!
I cruised into the parking garage well before 7.30 and was dismayed to find that the fee for a day's parking is R50 - when I worked there previously, the company subsidised the parking, but not this time. The cappuccino at Limnos (conveniently situated inside the building) was as good as I remembered it to be, and a generous size which could be sipped on for an hour or so. It, too, had suffered the effects of the demands of our labour force on the economy, but it has been built into my price, so no worries!
The young man who set up my computer so that I could begin work asked me if I knew how to use Outlook Express. My reply was along the lines of: "Just because I look as though I am the oldest person in the building doesn't mean I can't use a computer!" and he didn't dispute my inference. Oh well, I suppose it's that time of life when I am getting close to being the oldest person in the building, although not yet of pensionable age which is a good thing as I don't have one. An insurance salesman once asked me what my biggest asset was, thinking I would say property or something like that, but I whipped out a snappy reply: "Me!"
That is true for all of us. Our biggest asset is ourself - find out what you love to do and do it. If you don't like what you're doing, do something else. Never make do with what is expected of you and have a life less lived. I have changed jobs many times in my life, always on my own terms and always to do something new. You can also do it.
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