silly life, this
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
What a life I lead. I just went to get the replacement keys for the missing laundry room key.
First, I only had one hour to make the round trip, because I was called by our 'strata company' (whatever that means) saying that the keys were ready for pickup, at 1 PM. I had a super-important meeting with the local subaltern who is running the operations architecture. He had scheduled this meeting with the support people and myself to ensure a smooth handover of the fault management gizmo I wrote. It was not to be missed.
So I left in a hurry. Grabbing some sushi rolls on the way, I arrived on the train station platform after ten minutes. Then had to wait another ten minutes for a train. This left me with forty minutes.
Then came a roughly eight minute trip to North Sydney. Then I caught a cab, cos I had just over half an hour to make a longish trip. The cabbie told me he'd see what he could do, and rushed to the 'expressway', which was miraculously empty. He got me to the 'strata company' in something like seven minutes!
I told him, on the way, that I needed him to wait for two minutes, cos I'd arranged to pick up the keys and would be right back. After no more than two minutes (really!) I exited the building, and found that he'd fncked off on me, leaving me in this quasi residential industrial parky kind of no man's land, far from urban amenities such as cabs and transit. Happily, I hadn't paid him, so I only cursed the next three generations of his family.
Then I spotted the bus. It was coming in the direction I needed to go, and I thought if I ran I could make it.
Now, I should point out that the weather forecast called for rain, and that I was wearing a jacket. The weathermen got it about as wrong as possible. It was 29oC and muggy. And as I ran across the street (already a little clammy from having run in and out of the strata outfit's building), it was bad. And I missed the bus.
Happily, there was a cab coming, and I flagged him down - even though he was heading the wrong way on the surprising midday traffic that had built up. Less than five minutes had passed since I'd found my friend the first driver missing! This driver got me back to the train station in about five minutes. I had ten minutes to cross the bridge to the CBD, and get into the building. Scrambling down to the platform, I arrived to see the message
"Next train due out 1 minute" on the display. The train was almost on time, and I exited the destination train station about two minutes late.
Arriving at my desk at about 2:02, I was greeted by the ringing phone. It was the subaltern asking if I'd be on time for his meeting.
So I scrambled downstairs. I grabbed a copy of the document I'd prepared for the meeting from a coworker I knew had had it printed, and was not even the last person to the meeting! I sat down.
And the waiting began. The last employee showed up a couple of minutes later, but the waiting continued.
They were waiting for me to lead the meeting! The careful agenda was ignored, and I fielded two or three questions. Then I returned to my desk. Elapsed time: eight minutes.