The Week in Chaos

It is weeks like this that make me thankful that I only work four day weeks these days.  I was so bloody tired after spending part of the week commuting between Crapchester and the West of England for a work course and the rest trying, unsuccessfully, to smear dog shit on that fat bastard's car in retaliation for him stealing my parking space and my car consequently getting covered in bird shit, that I ended up sleeping a large proportion of today away.  (On the subject of the shit smearing, I have to say that I was not being 'sizeist' in calling my antagonist a 'fat bastard'.  For one thing, he is.  For another, I feel that I have earned the right get sanctimonious about the weight of illegally parked wankers, having lost a significant amount of weight since being ill last year).  I have to say, that I feel a lot better for all that sleep.  Now, you might well be wondering, why the commuting for a course?  Well, I simply don't do overnight stays for work.  Under any circumstances.  Even if it means catching the milk train back home (is there still such a thing?) and getting up and back on another train three hours later, that's what I do.  I give up enough time to this lousy job, without wasting my own time.  If I'm not being paid for them, then work doesn't get my hours. 

Besides, I make it a rule not to socialise with the people I work with and if you do those bloody overnight stays, you are expected to.  I have nothing in common with this lot, other than the fact that we do the same job - and I really don't want to talk about work outside of working hours.  Not only do I hate my work, but it is deadly boring.  Not only that, but in a previous job I had to travel a fair amount - I've had more than my share of depressing budget hotel rooms and evenings spent in bland bars.  Not to mention all the time wasted in airport lounges.  Anyway, from Crapchester to the venue for this training course was easily commutable by train.  Or should have been, if it hadn't involved  GWR and two changes of train.  But that's another story entirely.  It wouldn't have been so bad if the training event had had any value or had been well organised.  It was, to be frank, the most shambolic and worthless event of its kind that I've ever attended.  honestly, if anyone in management ever has the temerity to accuse me of being 'disorganised' again, I'll remind them of this event: no wi fi or projector at the venue, meaning that the first day was cut short as there was no way to deliver some of the presentations.  On the second day, this lack of facilities forced a guest speaker to use their phone to give a presentation.  As someone with a teaching qualification who has regularly prepared lessons and schedules of work, I find this level of chaos offensive.

So, all that shit took up the first half of my working week.  The other two days were just a slog, complicated by fat bastard's parking antics.  Part of the fall out from the fiasco of Monday and Tuesday has been my launching a personal campaign at work for my organisation to cease forcing employees to attend training venues so far from their place of work, not to mention frequently difficult to get to.  Bearing in mind that, in common with other parts of the public sector, this is an employer which has spent the better part of a decade telling us that it can't afford to fund above inflation pay rises, I'm appalled by the waste involved in its training policy, as it is incurring significant costs in terms of paying for excessive travel, not to mention hotel bills and the like.  I'm not optimistic that I'll get anywhere, though, as I know from long experience that logic is an alien concept where my employer is concerned.