Monday, part 2

Published on 23 May 2005 in , , ,

Well the day got off to a good start when I woke up at 4am and my body completely refused to go back to sleep.

Normally in situations like this, I switch to the quiet mutterings of Up All Night on Five Live, but instead was treated to something that sounded in my grogginess, and in its quiet volume, like someone twiddling around a short wave radio, picking up a random assortment of radio stations in close succession. Apparently it was a repeat the Five Live Sporting Century, but the random clips of cheering, musak and chatting didn’t do much to send me back to the land of nodd.

Five Live did manage to pump out Morning Reports at 5am, followed by Wake Up To Money, before it was back to some other random repeat at 6am – it was about sport I think, so gave up and ended up bleary eyed listening to something about podcasting on Radio 4. I finally admitted defeat at 6:38 – if there is anything to get me out of bed, it’s a documentary about jazz presented by Ken Clarke.

So it was up early and off to work to do something I really didn’t want to do. Go to work, cos that meant passing over the rather quiet picket line (well it was 8:30).

Not being in a union, and having my own views on the subject, I politely walked on. Or at least I hope I did. It’s quite possible that I stumbled across looking like some raving lunatic who hadn’t had enough to sleep. Which would have been true.

My decision to walk on wasn’t taken lightly. It was one I put a great deal of thought into. But I have my views and others have theirs, and I’ll respect someone’s right to strike, if they respect my right to work.

And then that was that. The rest of the day was dull and uneventful – nothing went wrong, nothing broke. With New Media not exactly being a highly unionised division, the place was pretty busy. And then it was time to go and walk past another good natured and polite picket line and head for home – a journey that saw me mistake Platform 13 for Platform 15 and nearly end up on a train heading to East Grinstead instead of Balham… But that’s another story…

And Tuesday is tomorrow, and Tuesday is another day. A better day.