Tommy says…

The following story is completely factual. Any deviation from reality is either completely coincidental or due to hallucinations induced by sustained sleep deprivation

00:00 Midnight, the floor is still half full and pretty lively. Joker #1 and Joker #2, who are *always* here despite having no work to do, are still here and joking around, not going home. Plenty of work to do, more arriving every 10 minutes. The air con turns off with a whine at exactly midnight – a strange silence fills the office. Can not handle – must send email to building security to keep air con on till 4am.
01:30 Face time is up – mass clearing out of juniors with no real work. Just the seriously working left now. Receive SMS asking whether I was asleep. Reply “not even close”.
02:15 The lights switch off – for a moment the office is as dark as the night outside, broken only by the few mmonitors which are still lit, accompanied with the click-clack of keyboards. Then somebody stirs, and the sensor switch sends the lights flickering back on. About a third of the floor remains dark – they must have all dropped dead at their desks.
02:30 Receive the final batch of tasks – can finally work in peace. The office is empty except for the desktop publishing lady who is on duty for another few hours. Click clack. It’s kind of fun to be in the office alone. When the lights die again, I don’t bother going to the switch and try to avoid moving – the dark is more soothing for tired eyes.
03:00 File sent to the world – time to go home. Cab ride takes 10 minutes – so tired I’m ready to just plonk into bed and…
08:15 …and it’s 8:15! I’m not going to make it in by 9. No time for breakfast – pack lunch, answer a couple of emails on blackberry, and run. No bus in sight – off we go a-walking to the city, hi ho.
09:20 Unread emails: 19; number of shed hair on desk: 6; number of paper cups from last night: 4
11:00 Flurry of morning work has died down a little. Open a link I received by email. “Bottling up work stress leads to heart attacks and death”. Good to know. The scientists conducting the study recommend talking openly about your frustrations, perhaps shouting at the other person. I wonder how that would work with an associate director who is particularly frustrating to work with. I suppose the rest of the floor would soon get an email informing them “Tommy has decided to go travelling. Good luck with his future endeavours.”
12:15 New Zealand on the phone. They are 3 hours ahead of us, so want the stuff 3 hours earlier. Seriously. Australia should just take it over and make them follow Sydney time.
15:00 “Boss, I heard the grads are working terrible hours and on the brink of suicide.” “Really? Let’s give them a break – tell them to give us a funny joke presentation before the whole firm on Friday. Yes, that’s just 24 hours away, but they should be used to deadlines like this.” Pointless midnight meetings, anyone?
17:00 Take a walk to the convenience stall to buy some juice – sidewalks full of people going home. Wishing I had a job where sunset meant going home, not the start of the second shift. Shake head, grab my juice, and head back to my desk – work has been piling up in the five minutes that I was gone for.
20:00 Dinner has not arrived. Hungry…
20:30 Dinner has arrived. No longer hungry.
23:00 Work is winding down, but there’s an urgent meeting to discuss defamatory material for the joke presentation tomorrow. Joy.
24:00 Midnight, the floor is still half full and pretty lively…