The past week at work

Monday

So late was I in getting ready for work that I had to put my tie on while waiting for the train, a cup of coffee balanced on the bench beside me.

I felt tired all day, so that I had to find easy things to do.

I nearly fell asleep in the weekly planning meeting.

Tuesday

Again very tired. Now that I have made the decision to leave the agency I cannot seem to motivate myself to go there. Today I arrived at 10, and made no attempt to explain why I was late.

Most of the afternoon I spent talking to Eleanor (trainee account executive, had been due to leave but now persuaded to stay on). Neither of us had much to do. She described her divorce (some years ago, but the memory obviously still rankles).

Wednesday

In the morning Yvette (agency head) and Julie (account executive) went off to see our car hire client. I was left alone in the agency as everybody else was either out or off. I looked at medical sites on the internet to see why I might be so tired - the time rushed by while I was doing this.

In the afternoon Julie's brother Martin came in to the office and sat in the account execs room talking to her. England football shirt, jeans, clean white trainers. Until a couple of weeks ago he was going out with Andrea, who is now working in the PR division upstairs - no-one knows why they broke up.

He talked about his army cross-country running ("eight mile runs, some five-minute miles..."). He talked about his planned holiday in Grand Canaria. He mentioned he was born in Cyprus (his father had also been in the army).

He stayed for about two hours, handed round a packet of soft mints, then left.

When he had gone Eleanor asked Julie: "Is he stalking Andrea?"

This led to an outburst of invective from Julie about how badly Andrea had treated him and how she didn't want them to get back together. There is certainly a disparity between them - Andrea is nine years older than Martin, has probably double his salary, they have almost no interests in common. "She was just using him" said Julie, "and now she's bored she won't even talk to him."

Thursday

Extremely quiet in the agency today. I think everyone was bored in various different ways. Yvette very blase about the collapse in business.

The only person to be occupied was Eleanor. She worked on an ad for our IT client, and it was obviously too much for her. Rather than ask for help she struggled with it, becoming red-faced and starting to swear.

I openly read newspapers. Jonathan (copywriter) openly read a book of short stories. Julie played games on her computer.

Lunchtime I went to look at the books in Waterstones, which always cheers me up.

Returning to the agency I was in time to see Yvette make an exhibition of herself. She rang Julie complaining that she was unable to park her car in the tiny space in the mews at the back of the building (it is closed by an automatic gate and is only for people in our building). She wanted Julie to go upstairs and find out who owned two cars and tell them to move them. She was shouting so loudly that everyone could here what she was saying. While Julie went upstairs the rest of us crammed ourselves into the toilet lobby where from the window you can look down into the mews. We saw Yvette in her car, the top down, vainly trying to manouvre her sportscar into a space that was over-parked by the cars either side. We saw Julie go down to her and explain she couldn't find out who owned the cars.

Eventually Yvette left her car in the middle of the mews, blocking in almost everyone. We heard her coming up the stairs telling Julie what she was going to do to the two car owners when she met them. Her arrival in the quiet agency was like an explosion.

Later I briefed Jonathan on some copywriting. He is an odd character. He told me very seriously "I really envy people who have incurable diseases as they have such a desire for life whereas I couldn't care less."

Friday

Fridays always seem to bring a sense of relief. I went straight to see my Financial Services client before going into the office. The River Thames looked lovely as I crossed Hungerford Bridge.

What a boring day. Mid-morning I went out to a florist to arrange for flowers to be sent to one of our more important clients (it's her birthday). The flower shop seemed a quaint comfortable world (it is a business that seems to be recession-proof: "People always want flowers" the owner told me).

Later I wrote some copy, and did some research for our toy client. Time seemed to be passing excrutiatingly slowly. I stopped drinking coffee for the rest of the day as it was making me feel ill.

The final stage of the afternoon was completely dead. I talked to an Irish girl who is temping upstairs. And I read more of Hemingway's Fiesta.