Niamh Lynch has just started her second job in Madrid – working part-time as a translator and writer. And just when I thought it was safe to come out of the woods… After all the to-ing and fro-ing of the last few months, the last two weeks of my new job and newly guest-free house have been bliss. I was getting back into a routine, and the job was going great.
On Monday, we came home to find a little note pushed under our door. Little notes are the Trojan horses of our times...they look so innocuous sitting there on the mat, but they almost always hold a nasty surprise. The reason people are leaving you a note is because email would be really cold, and you might well punch them if they told you in person. This Trojan horse really did contain a blow: a moving out date for my apartment. The landlady had been talking vaguely about selling some time ago, but nothing had happened. Our contracts ran out and she said nothing. No prospective buyers came looking around. We thought it was a distant threat, and after having tried to look for a new place several months ago and found it most distasteful, I had pretty much given up the fight before I even had to start. So the search begins again, pounding the streets of Madrid in the afternoons, only this time, in 27 degree heat. Extra timeIn work, I was having a great time. I would come in at 8am, start work, and by the time I looked at the clock again it was time to go home. The people were friendly, the work was interesting, and best of all I was home having a relaxing lunch by 14.30. I have noticed an increase in work volume even in the two weeks or so that I’ve been there. It made me wonder how my boss had actually gotten all the work done before I came, but assumed that the large part of the increase must have come quite recently, and that I was taking up the slack. The mornings were getting a bit complicated with a myriad of small but important tasks, and deciding in the heat of the moment how to divide them up was getting messy. My boss, Ruben, drew up a plan, and this afternoon, we sat down to discuss it. He is a nice guy, and now that there are two of us, gets a great kick out of talking about the ‘translation department’. We went into one of the boardrooms to have a ‘departmental meeting’ and when we finished talking about the plan, he shuffled his papers around like a man who had something to say. The other day one of the lads from the office asked me, in front of Ruben, why I was working part time and wouldn't I prefer full time. I told him that no, I liked my freedom and would prefer it to more money. My colleague couldn’t understand this at all, but I assured him that I loved my part-time life. Talk about an ominous sign...Ruben took a big breath, looked at the ceiling and asked me to start work full-time. Noooooooooo! I have to admit, I was very disappointed at first. I didn’t really think I could say no to this suggestion, and I really do like being part-time. Although the freelance work wasn’t exactly pouring in, it was coming. I have to admit that between 14.00 and 18.00, I haven't been the most productive and its been more of a relaxed lunch, episode of Law & Order and a nap than banging out two chapters of my next (er, first) novel and then going out for a run…but I like it anyway! I asked what my new hours would be, and he said that if I took an hour lunch (rather than the standard two) I could be out at 5pm most days. Considering that I normally don't move off the sofa before 5, I think that is probably a more industrious use of my time…. The old wayJust to really ram the moral of the story home, I had a chat with a girl I used to work with in the old job the other day, and she is 100% as bored as I was. She briefly described the many ways she and the French intern while away the day, a task that involves lots of I-Spy and sudoku. Whatever about being naturally lazy and liking my part-time freedom, I have to count my blessings that I'm not in that horrible position of watching the clock from 08.30 in the morning until 18.00 at night, where the highlight of your day is clearing the spam from you inbox. I think I should just count myself lucky and work what is, after all, only an extra two hours a day... Read Niamh's previous job logs Share your comments about Niamh's blog |
