Thank you for the daze

         

 Last weekend I took off to the Beautiful Days festival with the eldest Tin. I’m not a natural festival person despite my love of tents, mud and music but we had a fantastic time. The music was good, the atmosphere was great and even the weather was mostly fine. Perhaps the difference this time around was being able to enjoy a festival as an adult (as opposed to as a parent) for the first time in living memory – the freedom to think ‘I fancy a pizza and a Jack Daniels’ at 1am and to be able to just wander over and get one without having to justify it or attend to the needs of three other Tins who want food from stalls at diametrically opposed ends of the site.

          Maybe it was that – but I think it had more to do with the fact that I was working there. Yes, you heard me right – I liked it because I was working there !

          Both eldest Tin and her boyfriend had worked the bars there the year before and they got me the same gig this year. I was apprehensive. I’m too old for that surely ? What if I miss my favourite bands ? What if it’s a real grind ? What if I don’t know what I’m doing ? What if people don’t like me ? Aaaaargh !

          But it was truly wonderful, not least because of the enlightened and rather unusual approach taken by the brewery we worked for. First off it meant free tickets, which I always enjoy. Secondly the style they adopted was one of the most enlightened that I can remember having worked under – basically they came at it from the angle that we were all there to have fun and they trusted us ! Yep, trust. You turned up for your shift, got stuck in and took a break when you needed one, at the end of your shift you said goodbye and wandered back out to do whatever you needed to do. No-one that I saw took the piss – it’s a lesson that so many employers (including my current ‘real’ one) could learn from. No-one slacked and we worked hard through three five-hour shifts.

          It made the festival seem like something we’d earned and as a result it heightened the whole experience. Someone clever seemed to have weighed things in the balance and found that fifteen hours work equaled a fair effort for free tickets. I couldn’t disagree.

          OK, so I missed Toots and the Maytals, but since I was by the main stage anyway I could hear and dance along to them, plus when a pump ran dry I got to use the line ‘sorry, it seems like there’s a pressure drop….’.

          As a bonus we got a very nice t-shirt that everyone tried to buy off us, met some wildly interesting people who bought us drinks, mixed with a random assortment of other bar staff who I’d never have met otherwise, had our own ‘private’ toilet (which as any festival goer knows is like your own VIP lounge) and finally did I mention the free drinks ? Lots of free drinks, a staff bar with lots of free drinks….lots and lots of free drinks.

          So thanks eldest Tin – thanks for the best weekend in a very long while. I’ll be back again next year. See you all there ?

This lot were excellent – enjoy !

It's a four letter word...

          So, as Soul II Soul once said – back to life, back to reality…. and boy is it overrated…reality that is, Not Jazzie B and co. Now if you’ve come round these parts expecting an essay on what we did on our holidays then you’ll have to be patient – I’m still waiting for the camera back so I can put up a few pics of the more eclectic sights, it’s currently still with Ms Tin Too since she doesn’t have work to go to and is still there hopefully keeping her brothers out of mortal danger.

          But a brief reflection on what can only be termed the post-holiday come down. I don’t know about you but I’m deeply suspicious of those people who announce that they’re glad to be back at work after a holiday. Why ? I can only assume that they’re doing it wrong. I’ve had some holidays which didn’t go as planned, I’ve had some where it rained every day, I’ve had those ones where at the time it seems like hell, I’ve even had Withnail & I type deals where I want to scream ‘We’ve come on holiday by mistake!’ . But never ever have I had a first day back at work that made me glad to be there. This morning I had to grimly clutch each inch of the brass stair rail and pull myself up each and every one of the industrially nylon carpeted steps to where I knew there would be a computer and a meaningless pile of emails waiting for me. I doubt very much that anyone would really notice if I’d have had another few weeks off – quite honestly I wonder if they would really notice if I wasn’t there at all – if only I could work out some way of ensuring that they would continue to pay me.

          I’m no slacker – I’ve pretty much worked every day for the last twenty five or so years – but I’m sure that there must be a better way of organising things after holidays. No-one comes back in raring to go, refreshed by their sojourn in the sun, desperate to get the sand out of their shoes and get their head out of holiday mode. Well, some do, but like I said they’re probably not too clever at having holidays, a bit like the colleague we’ve all had who proudly announces that they were so busy this year they only took half of their leave entitlement….hey, sucker, wise up , you’re working for free and making the rest of us look bad into the bargain ! So anyway, since productivity is pretty minimal on days one two and three after a break (guess where I’m writing this…) why not do some sort of a phased return to work like some do after a long term illness – perhaps on day one I could show up just to confirm I didn’t fall off a cliff and then go home again, day two maybe do an hour where I answer inane questions about what I did on my holidays (nothing that I’m prepared to share with most of the people at work) and then on day three I could perhaps use the time to delete all the emails that came in whilst I was away and then have a long lie down with a beer. I’m sure it would help unemployment in some or other way too.

          But here I sit, still smelling faintly of woodsmoke from the last campfire, still with half the beach in my ears from the last wipeout, wondering why I have my feet encased in leather when I’ve been happily barefoot for nearly two weeks….ah the futility of it all. And now I’ve got to get through til next Wednesday – then it’s a very long weekend and off to a festival, oh the tyranny of work !

          Now Lee Dorsey, there's a man who knew a thing or two about work....