It's temporal displacement time again. I have said before that I think recruitment consultants work in a different time dimension than those who consider themselves normal people, working to GMT or some other internationally accepted variant. They, consultants, have a different take on time to the rest of us and for them it matters not one jot whether an eon passes between getting back to us to talk about opportunities in outer Mongolia or some other far flung place like Carmarthen. Whole species can have evolved and become extinct before a return phone call. My theory on the end of the dinosaurs is that they were told to wait by a recruitment consultant because "he'd be back in a minute" and they starved to death.
However there is another temporal shift going on now. I am in my sixth week of unemployment, though I do now have a part-time job (that's 14.5 hours a week MAX Job Centre guys if you are reading) that should keep me going for another six weeks or so. I am now honing the new routine of being unemployed, looking for work and carrying out a part- time job.
The thing is though, that time is shifting. You see I used to hang on until 1pm to eat my lunch at work even though I was so hungry by that time that I could have eaten my notebook and several of the 250 rubber bands that seemed to have mysteriously found their way into my desk drawer. This acted as watershed for the day; after that, going home time (6.30 to 7.00pm) would be that much nearer and more achievable. Dinner may or may not have been with the family and by the time the dishes were washed, next day's sandwiches made and coffee drunk it was easily 9pm. Evening life didn't start until then.
But now lunch has been pulled forward to 1200 over the last few weeks. I am beginning to think anxiously about food around 1145 and sandwich preparation might be starting at 1150. Dinner is now around 6pm, with the family, and the dishes cleared by 7pm at the latest. By flinging a small child bodily off the Mac at 8pm I can catch up with emails and the like much earlier. At this rate of meal pull-forward, by the summer holidays (if I am still unemployed by them) lunch will be at 10am, dinner at 2pm and the bottle of wine will be opened at 4pm (though that's not such a bad idea come to think of it) and we will be several days ahead of ourselves. By July 1st we will be on July 7th's meal times. Breakfast will be taken the night before.
Part-time job time is different as well. I've stopped wearing a watch and my battered Filofax lies unloved and forlorn. Three months ago I was filling in the many appointments and meetings in pencil, altering and amending them to meet the changing circumstances, being dynamic and flexible as a senior manager in International DooDads. Now the pages are empty except for "sign on at Job Centre" and "dentist 0750". And I forgot to go to the dentist in any event. After I grovelled and promised never, ever to miss another appointment they let me off with 50 lines and gave me another appointment - at 0750 next week. I accepted it and it was only after I had walked most of the way home I wondered why? I mean, I am not at work so why am I taking a 0750 appointment? I could have wandered in at say, 1130, and been home making my lunch at 1145 (see, time is creeping again, it does this if you are not careful).
It's the same with the part-time job. I can work from home much of the time (research and analysis if you must know) and log my hours accordingly. Without the stricture of office hours, turning up and spending 50% of the day chatting to colleagues and whinging about your other colleagues, I am working at very odd times. A few hours here, a half morning there, even a full day next week. So as I do not fall foul of the lovely people at the Job Centre I have to call a halt at certain times of the week and postpone work until the following week. Then start again. Try logging this work pattern with the Job Centre. Believe me they do not have any way at all to cope with this. Not one form in the many, many forms we looked at last week can record this working style. "Does not compute" they shriek and then their heads spin on their axes (they aren't armed - my wife tells me this is the plural of axis) and pop off onto the floor smoking and whirring. So as not to cause them any more distress I am therefore "signing off" for the next 6 weeks as neither party can cope with the bureaucracy involved in trying to sort this out. I'll just have to go through the whole signing-on process all over again.
Other people now have to cope with my time. When the optician called to say my new glasses were ready I was in the shop waiting as they put the phone down to me. Library calls to say my "ordered books are ready for collec...oh it's you already Mr Eyes on the Prize" as I hand over my library card at the desk. I had a call last week from an independent pension adviser acting for one of my pathetically tiny pension funds. 'Can we see you to discuss your pension?" they asked. "Yes" I said "what time and date?" "Oh we have slots from 0830 to 2000hrs every day, each day". "Right" I said "tomorrow at 0830". "Let me just confirm that Mr Eyes - that's 8pm in a week's time." They found it hard to understand that I really DID mean tomorrow at 0830. When people ask "what time is convenient" and I say "any time" they find it really difficult to cope with this level of flexibility compared, I suppose, to customers demanding all sorts of obscure times to suit their busy lifestyle. "No" they cry "you must be really difficult and obnoxious so we can be awarded our employee of the month dealing with idiots award and send email recordings of your telephone aggression around the company." But not me, not right now. My time has been feng shui'd into a calm, relaxed haven of peace and tranquility.
So what shall I do now?
I think I'll go for a walk into town.
Or wash the car.
No it's 1130 and lunch time.
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