Commuting for Dummies

Firstly, gentle reader*, apologies. I promised that I’d be writing blogs pretty much non-stop in 2016, and I seem to have missed that target fairly dramatically since April. In the spirit of ‘plan, say what you’re going to do, then do it’, which is the sort of anodyne nonsense that I might lay down in front of my children, I’ve managed to completely miss the mark.

And it’s not that there hasn’t been much to write home about. In the past, The Emu has brought you news on a) The state of dogs in the Emu household, b) being a parent, c) the joys of spending as much as possible of your life in France, d) the joys of running e) the not quite matching joys of cycling, f) the state of the music industry g) the world of employment, h) the state of the glorious car crash of Norwich City’s footballing existence, and i) the state of the world as we know it. And pretty much all points from a) through i) have needed some sort of commentary in the last six months.

To save me and you the bother of a really long update, however, this is the very quick summary from Emu towers:

• a) Teenage angst continues against a backdrop of loveliness and barking
• b) Teenage angst continues against a backdrop of loveliness and mortality
• c) Not currently relevant
• d) Completely knackered
• e) Hills in June were fun and scary; Velodrome in August, more fun & more scary
• f) Beginning to think that anything produced after 1979 was a bit of a waste of effort
• g) Not currently relevant
• h) Surprisingly positive, although currently holding my breath until Newcastle away on Wednesday
• i) Completely knackered

That’s us all up to date then, eh. Maybe some more on those later if you’re interested.

Or if I am. Because there’s been so much chopping and changing of late that it’s meant a bit of what analysts might call self-reflection. You get to a point in your life when a)-i) (or their equivalents) are the things that define you, then they all change, or fall away, and you kind of wonder what definition to your life is actually left. Which is far too deep and self-absorbed for this blog, but just so as you know, it’s currently all kicking off on the reflection front.

Meanwhile, and in a fairly convoluted way, I’m going to spend a few words on g), if you’ll humour me. At the end of July, I left my job. I didn’t have anything to go to, it just felt the right thing to do, and there wasn’t really a role where I thought I could make a difference any more. So off I went, waving goodbye to some quite wonderful people whose company I really enjoyed, and who it’s unlikely I’ll see again much in the future, if at all.  I’ve worked with some of these people for over twenty years, and we got to my last Friday, and at 3pm, lots of smiling faces surrounded my desk (and blocked any potential exit path). A short, kind and embarrassing speech was made. A long, rambling and embarrassing response was made. Hands were shaken, promises made, and lots of us went off to the pub, where drinks were bought, and I tried (and failed) to tell people that working together had made a brilliant difference to me. Which it had. And by 11pm, having reached a state which Private Eye used to call ‘tired and emotional’, it was pretty much time to call it a night. And in an unusual reversal of roles, and one which I just know is going to rebound on me very soon, I was accompanied home by my 18 year-old son who, sober as a judge, watched on benignly as his father pedalled furiously home. And I woke up the next day, without too much of a morning head, and started wondering what to do next, and thinking about the people and the conversations I was going to miss the most.

It’s all a bit weird, and I need to sort out, bit by bit, what to do next on the working for a living front, and how best to do it.

One thing that really is important to the future is the degree to which I travel to, from and for work. In the past, my criteria was that any job I took on needed to be at a place that I could run, or, at a stretch, cycle to, each morning. When my main office moved from an office two miles from my home in Norwich, up to Newcastle, this made the challenge a stretch too far. Being injured (see d) above), means that the commuting radius is dragging inwards, but as it happens I’m currently doing some work that necessitates sitting at a table for several hours at a time; this specific table being in my shed at the top of the garden. So, currently, my morning commute takes about 60 seconds in good weather, assuming the dog isn’t planning to ambush me en route.

And if anything, as far as a commute goes, that’s a little bit too short. I know, I know, some people just can’t be satisfied can they? After all, I’ve spent much of the last thirty (and practically all of the last five) years complaining about business travel, and now I’m whining on about not having enough of it. But, in my defence, all I’m trying to flag is that sometimes that routine, and gap between home and work, can be a great time to set yourself up for the day, or evening, depending on which way you’re travelling.

I spent a brilliant weekend last month with my parents; two of the kindest, smartest and funniest people I know. I’m not just saying that because they’re my parents, they just really are all of those things at once – I reckon I can do, at a push, two out of three of kind, funny and smart at any given time, but never all three at once. Like all families, we tell stories, and my mum was telling me about her morning commute with my dad in the 1950’s. They both had jobs that meant driving to the railway station each morning, and to do this, my dad had bought a Morris 8 ‘Tourer’. I think the word Tourer, meant ‘without roof’, so my mum had to borrow (and break) her landlady’s sewing machine to make a roof for it. The car also featured a battery that discharged itself overnight, so had to be bump started each morning. This all sounds a bit of a nightmare, but I’ve seen a picture of the car and, despite all of the above, the rusting running boards and the sheer impracticality of owning it, I still can’t believe they sold a thing of such great beauty. Apparently they had to do so in order to buy a pram to transport my elder sister about in, so I’ve mentally laid the blame at her door ever since.

Anyway, back to their morning commute. My dad, apparently, as the one who knew how the car worked (and who knew how to drive), would sit in the driver’s seat, and my mum would start pushing, an exercise which wasn’t really helped by her office shoes having a fashion-conscious 3” heel. Slow progress would be made, until around the corner would walk a smart middle aged man in city clothes, wearing a bowler hat and carrying an umbrella. Without a word, he’d place his hat and umbrella on top of the car, push along with my mum until the motor engaged, retrieve his hat and umbrella, and continue his walk to work. This would have been odd in itself, but apparently it happened every day, without a word being exchanged, for a number of weeks, until my dad finally got the starter motor fixed (or bought a pram, I’m not sure which happened first).

I was reminded of this story earlier this week, when I had the first commute for over a month, down to London for the day. To start with, I wasn’t quite sure what to wear. I had a half day conference with some IT Director types in the morning, followed by an afternoon where I had to be approved for a British Library reader’s pass, followed by a few hours where I needed to look and behave like a serious researcher. To add to the sartorial dilemma, I had to cycle to the station and back. I’d had a similar problem the week before, when I’d done some work up in York for the day, returning back just in time to get to see the mighty Canaries just about hang on to a 2:1 win mid-week against a very average Wigan side. I was still wearing suit and tie in the stands, and at half time got a load of abuse from a complete stranger – “what, are you f’ing selling f’ing stocks and f’ing shares” he snorted at me as he pushed by to the pie stand, giving an excellent example of what passes for wit in Norfolk. Anyway, I opted this morning for a linen suit, to compromise the cycle/seminar/library dilemma, with a lively blue and white checked shirt to appeal to the IT Directors. I teamed (as Trinny and Susannah would no doubt say) this outfit with some brown DM shoes, partly because I knew that most of the IT directors were from the public sector. Honestly, you might not think it, but a lot of thought goes into looking an uncoordinated mess for the modern man, and even more impressive when you think that this was all put together at 0530, in the dark, as I’d managed to get a cheap ticket to London on the 0624 train.

Anyway, these are all the social interactions I had on the journey: Said hello to the ticket collector at Norwich. A nod to the train guard when I got on the train. An ‘excuse me’ to my fellow commuter as I got up to get a cup of tea. A cheery hello to the lady who makes the tea on the buffet car, and several good mornings to the group of people who make it their business to treat the buffet car as a non-alcoholic standing room only pub at 0700 in the morning. A quiet chat with an old friend who I used to work with. A thank you to the ticket collector in London, as the new ‘ticket free’ mobile ticket isn’t recognised by any of the automatic barriers. A resigned smile to the owner of the armpit I was pressed up against on the Northern line. A good morning to the receptionist at the hotel where the conference was.

In most cases, I got a bit of a good morning back. Which was nice, but, on reflection, not really enough, because as I walked down the stairs to the conference room, I looked down and noticed that my flies had been undone since I’d left the house that morning. Worse, there was a lively piece of blue and white checked shirt, literally flagging the fact that they were open.

I mentioned earlier about the conversations that I was going to miss, now that I was no longer at work. As it goes, ‘Your flies are undone’, seems like an odd one to miss, but, I thought, as I made the necessary adjustments before walking in to the meeting, quite important.

* I’m in the shed. Will be down in 5 minutes, ok?