Perspective
It’s awful, isn’t it, this recession thing? I mean, really, I feel terrible for the banks. All those lovely sunny holidays they used to take, all gone up in smoke, so now all they have to look forward to is three foreign holidays instead of four. Poor buggers, we should start a collection after mass.
I’ve had a horrible, but suddenly wonderful six weeks. I broke my leg back in March and was faced with at least six weeks of sick leave, which was at first kind of exciting, but then, after three weeks slightly dull, until that one morning, when my company of 11 years decided to make me redundant. At first it was surprising, and then, as the word came down, it was upseting. But then, the more I thought it through, it became a revalation. i have wanted to get out of this company for years, and now they want to pay me to leave. i couldnt ask for a better present.
It was awkward, stupid, and unreasonable whatt they did, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought, yeah, bring it on. Pay me to leave. fantastic. They reviewed my progress last October and pronounced me a guiding light in my area, and then reversed it 3 months later to suit their redundancy needs. My biggest worry now is, now that they have begun the process, that they will drag it out. I would love to leave them, as much as they would love to think I want to stay. Emails are flying back and forth with careful wordings, but I just want to send a big fat “Get me out of here” on that finishes it off once and for all.
For some reason they are under the impression that I want to stay with them I want to leave, and persue, god knows what, but all I know is that, for the first time in ten years, i am looking forward to summer. Not since I was a child have i looked foward to summer as I do now. No looking at schedules and wondering what schedule will bring me wherever, no having to not plan weekends and weekdays around my job. For the first time in years, i can look at my calender and think “I’ll have that month, thanks”.
I have stuff in my head, cycles through France, trips to the west of Ireland, camping in northern Italy, swiming in Clogherhead just because i want to, that I can now see that i can now achieve, simply because i am being made redundant from a company that still thinks I want to hang on to their coat tails. My arse.
The one thing this “Recession” has given me is perspective. I once sat in a back garden in a house where I rented a room, drinking beers with an ex-commando and his nephew. Brian was huge. A big gentle giant that could snap your neck if he got the order to do so, but spent his time in retirement tending his garden and entertaining his nephew. Brian could sink pints like the best of us, but only ever used his commado skills on the way home from the pub to sneak into peoples back gardens to take cuttings of plants he liked to propogate in his own back garden. If he was ever seen crawling through bushes, we never found out, but Brian always won the Warsash best gardens competition. I had a suspicion that he knobbled the competition whilst robbing their plants, but i never felt the need to prove it.
Brian had a nephew who was mad into cars. He was 10 years old, and he knew everything about carburetors, fanbelts, tunings, CC’s, and all that stuff i have no clue about. Andrew was one of those annoying little kids that knew more about stuff then I did, and I hated him. He’s probably about 20 now, handsome, young, and intelligent, and as I sit here slurping the spilt Guinness off the surface of my desk, i feel an irrational need to punch him. He was a lovely kid, but I remember him for one moment and one moment only. I came home one night and sat, as i liked to do, with a few beers out in the garden, minding my own business, when he came out and sat beside me. I chatted to him, polite as I was, and the subject turned to cars:
“So what do you drive then?” he asked, innocently
I shifted manfully into an all knowing pose. “Nissan Almera” I said, and puffed a rather proud Benson & Hedges circle of smoke into the summer night air.
“Oh” He said. Not at all impressed.
Nonplussed at the affect, I continued. “Nippy little fecker it is too”
“Hmm” he said, unimpressed.
“How fast does it go then?” he continued
I felt the need to impress. Brian was inside, cooking up some dinner for his nephew, and i felt the onus was on me to entertain this little fellow, after all, bless him.
I took a long, theatrical drag from my B&H. “oh, about 120 i suppose” I said nonchalantly staring into the distance with knowing, distant air of one who knows such things.
The kid bit his lip. Then furrowed his brow. Then did something I would always hate him for. He made a complete tit out of me.
“Well, ” he said, “The power Nissan Almiera is quite a poor car, with a sad with a lack of torque, top speed of 110mph and 0-62 in 12seconds. The fuel consumption is a major plus at 550 miles to empty, so you cant go wrong with value for money, but frankly, a top speed of 120mph? i don’t think so”
I did keep my composure, despite almost choking on my cigarette, and resisting the temptation to belt this nephew of a British army commado’s nephew a quick in-place-putting back of the hand mind restraightener. I had just driven 5 and a half hours back from Hull and could care less for torc, or fuel con-bloody-sumption, and had only wanted to impress the little sod, but now i was faced with sitting here, respledid in my ignorance, being told by a 10 year old, that i was full of shit. The fact that I was full of shit, and trying desperatly to make myself and my little green car look more exciting than we actually were was neither here nor there. I was determined to impress the little fecker.
“Well, It did do 120″ i said, rather stupidly
“No it didn’t. it couldn’t have”, he said. The little shit.
I paused. and then, to my disgrace, I admit, I said “Well it was downhill all the way”, and flounced of into the kitchen for another beer before he could respond, firmly Put in my place by a ten year old.
The last thing I heard , before Brian sent him of to bed was Brian saying “Don’t argue with your elders. Just because they’re wrong, it doesn’t make you right”
Bloody kids.
