Thursday nights are (as the regular readers know) reserved for the Wednesday/Thursday Club - or WTC for short - which is basically a bunch of like minded individuals who go to the pub and relieve themselves of the pressure of the working week by bitching about it and generally putting the world back into perspective.
Last Thursday's WTC almost co-insided with one of our numbers birthday - namely Stan - who isn't actually called Stan - but then that's the whole point of nicknames.
Sadly, the horrendous planning that's been happening of late has meant that I've had to get in the car and attempt to drive through the snow to my not-so-local office for the day on Friday. This means that I had to scale back my participation a little to account for an early start - ie: I had an (almost) early finish and a sensible amount of alcohol.
That said, there was still plenty of frivolity, some banging Ska music - exactly how Stan likes it - and truth be told, how everyone likes it once it gets going.
The job is a very similar shape to one that he and I completed last year and so should be relatively straight forward. However - I'd somehow forgotten just how stressful it is to not be fully in control of the destiny of those that work for you on a job like this. We've reached Thursday afternoon now and I've got throughmost of the pain relatively unscathed. I've spent some time explaining to Clive what's going on - nothing he didn't already know, but then he has to have a reason to be here.
As a team, we've had to deal with two changes that have effected more of the work than had been anticiapted. No matter how hard I might try to get things in a reasonable shape for the end of the week, you can almsot guarantee that some numpty somewhere is waiting behind a photocopier or desk, to jump out and stick thier proverbial cat amongst the pidgeons at the last minute.
I've also been reminded how obnoxious the rest of Europe can be - I'm amazed that I'd forgotten, but I can only surmise that it must be akin to the memories of people that are involved in very serious accidents, and that thankfully have no recollection of them whatsoever. I too have no recolection of ever having to deal with the people of Luxembourg.... it was that painful.
On top of that there's the commercial aspects of a job like this - and that is almost entirely about who is going to get paid for doing what - or not. Extremely frustrating. But we carry on rewardless. It's enough to leave you scarred for life.... See What I did there ? ;-D
This post originally appeared here: Posterous
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