Strangeness. In my head.
Sep. 28th, 2002 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerWorking in Kent tends to be an ongojng process. My Dad is a confirmed workaholic. He starts work around 8am and leaves after 6:30pm (or later). He works frequent weekends and has been known to go in at 1am if there's a problem that needs his help. Of course, he's a doctor, so part of this is par for the course, but still.
While I'm working with him, we go in and out together, as he has a car and I don't. So I'm working long hours. I also frequently work in the evenings/weekends, because I don't have a lot else to do in Kent (I also play computer games, but sometimes work gets done). I also help him when he needs me in the evenings/weekends. So I tend to work quite long hours.
Yesterday was a somwhat unusual case in point. Dad has some figures predicting care in the London and South East area that are being used to decide which hospitals do what work (or something along those lines). He put these together with a tool written using Excel (I must remember to rant about Excel at some point), which produces all the information he needs in 7 different spreadsheets, ordered in a particular way. Of course, he actually needs them in around 20 worksheets ordered in a subtly different way (and coloured, with totals). He's obviously too busy to do this, and so I'm doing it. Of course, I'm terrible at repetitive work. I can't keep my mind on it for long, and I keep having to go back and correct mistakes where I lost concentration. But it's still more efficient for me to do it than him, so there you go. I started work on it on Thursday afternoon, took it home when we left the office at 7:15 and planned to do it on Friday morning.
Of course, it wasn't that simple, there being a few things he'd failed to explain to me. But I was getting there, except there were a few other things that I ended up spending yesterday doing:
7:50am wake up
8am-1pm, data transfer
1pm-2pm, grab lunch and get driven (by Mother) to the hospital where my Grandmother is.
2pm-4pm, talk to Grandmother. Be amazed at medical science*
4pm-4:30pm - look for Ashford station. Be under the impression that the Channel Tunnel station is in a seperate place ot the inland station. Be eventually disabused of this notion. Catch a train to London.
4:30pm-6pm - train to one part of London, tube to a different part, another tube to a third part. Arrive at the Royal London Hospital and meet Ravinder (one of two people from school I still keep in occasional contact with).
6-6:30pm be amazed by the fact that the East End is now predominantly Indian.**
6:30pm arrive at the BodyWorlds exhibition.
6:30pm-7pm - queue. Chat to Ravs and his friend Clare. Both are junior doctors working in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at London hospital. They try to avoid talking about work. They mostly manage.
7pm-9pm Be completely fascinated by the BodyWorlds exhibition. Those of you who can make it to this exhibition really owe it to yourselves to go. It's incredible. If you have any interest in the human body you have to see this.
9pm-9-:40pm tube to Victoria train station
9:40pm-11:00pm train to Rainham. Mum picks me up and drives me home.
11pm-1am - work with Dad on the figures, sort out some final problems so that I can finish up the data without him.
1am-2am talk to Erin, try to cheer her up. organise her visiting me from Tuesday to Saturday.
2am-8am, sleep.
8am-9am, wake up to wish Dad a happy birthday (complete with cake, candles, cards and presents) and see him and Mum off for a week's holiday.
9am-10am type journal entries.
If I'm a little wierd, grumpy and twitchy today, and I ramble a lot, this is why. Another symptom seems to be enjoying Linkin Park, but there's not a lot I can do about that either.
*My knowledge of certain bits of medical science is fairly up to date (in a general "awareness of" sense), but not my knowledge of broken bones. When one's grandmother breaks a hip one expects her to lie in traction for weeks, while friends and relations sign her cast. This is followed by weeks of physiotherapy. One does not expect an operation the next day to stick a 'dynamic pin' into her hip, physio from the day after that, and her to be able to walk (with zimmer frame) to the toilet by herself a week later. I wonder what else I've missed.
** Bangladeshi is now apparently the most common language. There's an international curry festival on. Every second shop is an Indian restaurant (most of them have people standing outside trying to persuade that there's is the best one.
While I'm working with him, we go in and out together, as he has a car and I don't. So I'm working long hours. I also frequently work in the evenings/weekends, because I don't have a lot else to do in Kent (I also play computer games, but sometimes work gets done). I also help him when he needs me in the evenings/weekends. So I tend to work quite long hours.
Yesterday was a somwhat unusual case in point. Dad has some figures predicting care in the London and South East area that are being used to decide which hospitals do what work (or something along those lines). He put these together with a tool written using Excel (I must remember to rant about Excel at some point), which produces all the information he needs in 7 different spreadsheets, ordered in a particular way. Of course, he actually needs them in around 20 worksheets ordered in a subtly different way (and coloured, with totals). He's obviously too busy to do this, and so I'm doing it. Of course, I'm terrible at repetitive work. I can't keep my mind on it for long, and I keep having to go back and correct mistakes where I lost concentration. But it's still more efficient for me to do it than him, so there you go. I started work on it on Thursday afternoon, took it home when we left the office at 7:15 and planned to do it on Friday morning.
Of course, it wasn't that simple, there being a few things he'd failed to explain to me. But I was getting there, except there were a few other things that I ended up spending yesterday doing:
7:50am wake up
8am-1pm, data transfer
1pm-2pm, grab lunch and get driven (by Mother) to the hospital where my Grandmother is.
2pm-4pm, talk to Grandmother. Be amazed at medical science*
4pm-4:30pm - look for Ashford station. Be under the impression that the Channel Tunnel station is in a seperate place ot the inland station. Be eventually disabused of this notion. Catch a train to London.
4:30pm-6pm - train to one part of London, tube to a different part, another tube to a third part. Arrive at the Royal London Hospital and meet Ravinder (one of two people from school I still keep in occasional contact with).
6-6:30pm be amazed by the fact that the East End is now predominantly Indian.**
6:30pm arrive at the BodyWorlds exhibition.
6:30pm-7pm - queue. Chat to Ravs and his friend Clare. Both are junior doctors working in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at London hospital. They try to avoid talking about work. They mostly manage.
7pm-9pm Be completely fascinated by the BodyWorlds exhibition. Those of you who can make it to this exhibition really owe it to yourselves to go. It's incredible. If you have any interest in the human body you have to see this.
9pm-9-:40pm tube to Victoria train station
9:40pm-11:00pm train to Rainham. Mum picks me up and drives me home.
11pm-1am - work with Dad on the figures, sort out some final problems so that I can finish up the data without him.
1am-2am talk to Erin, try to cheer her up. organise her visiting me from Tuesday to Saturday.
2am-8am, sleep.
8am-9am, wake up to wish Dad a happy birthday (complete with cake, candles, cards and presents) and see him and Mum off for a week's holiday.
9am-10am type journal entries.
If I'm a little wierd, grumpy and twitchy today, and I ramble a lot, this is why. Another symptom seems to be enjoying Linkin Park, but there's not a lot I can do about that either.
*My knowledge of certain bits of medical science is fairly up to date (in a general "awareness of" sense), but not my knowledge of broken bones. When one's grandmother breaks a hip one expects her to lie in traction for weeks, while friends and relations sign her cast. This is followed by weeks of physiotherapy. One does not expect an operation the next day to stick a 'dynamic pin' into her hip, physio from the day after that, and her to be able to walk (with zimmer frame) to the toilet by herself a week later. I wonder what else I've missed.
** Bangladeshi is now apparently the most common language. There's an international curry festival on. Every second shop is an Indian restaurant (most of them have people standing outside trying to persuade that there's is the best one.
