Sleepless in Cape Town

I can't sleep. 

 Maybe it's because I've been getting by with four hours sleep lately. Suddenly presented with a night with no deadlines, no looming exam to cram for, no early morning flight... in fact nothing but nine hours up for grabs for slumber my body has like stage fright or something. My brain has swallowed its own off-button. I've always been terrible at mornings and fantastic at nights though. It’s amazing that I've managed to build any career at all up to now considering my brain usually only warms up around 6pm. 

A few years back I was working as a process engineer at a washing powder plant in Gauteng. I'd been at that plant for about a year. It was May (I think) and annual wage negotiations between management and the union had begun. (Insert announcer voice: "Let's get ready to rrrrrumble".) 

 

Apparently negotiations are always a bit of a dance -  a few steps forward, a few steps back, give a little, take a little - but this time the dancers on either side were not even agreeing on the song. And then there was a strike. A long strike. 

Engineers, managers, accountants, planners, secretaries... we got our hands dirty to run the plant. To keep South Africa's laundry clean (ok it would still have been cleaned but with competitors' products).  

 Most people had to be begged and cajoled into signing up for night shift to keep the plant going 24/7 but a similarly nocturnally inclined friend and I rushed to put our names down for indefinite night shifts.  This was one time in my life that my working hours were truly aligned with my inner clock. It was easily one of the most blissful two weeks of my life (until it suddenly wasn’t, but that’s a post for another day).  

I would leave home just before sunset. I felt so focused, so mentally sharp at work - which sadly hardly happens while the sun is out, seriously. For some reason working at night didn't feel that much like work. I would get home after each shift at 7am, take off my safety boots and dusty jeans, eat Cinnamon and Apple Oat-So-Easy and collapse on my couch. I can still remember it clearly… The Autumn sun shining through the blinds, the sound of people leaving for work, and then eventually the silence of the day. I found it easier to sleep during the day than I normally did at night (I still do); fading into blissful sleep thinking of all the normal people slogging away at work.

 Unfortunately most jobs that I could do at night are either dodgy or dead-ends. *sigh*

MB-Eish Part 3: This is the blogging equivalent of drunk-dialling

**"Eish" is a South African slang term expressing surprise, dismay, anger or frustration.**

As I mentioned last year, I have joined the droves of engineers who have sold out to the dark side: Banking. To make myself more comfortable in my new, murky surrounds I have decided to do an MBA part-time. This is the third in a series of posts about my MBA experience.  


I am less than 36 hours away from my MBA first exam (if you don’t count major assignments). I am a PROcrastinator. This is a little known fact because I am also an over-achiever. This is a tragic combination. Anyway, in true PROcrastinator style, I have recently become very dedicated to my day job again choosing to spend my evenings reading email and being a diligent employee instead of studying. Tonight I decided that it was very important to cook dinner for my boyfriend even though I haven’t switched on a stove in six months. I have vowed to spend the night studying and yet here I am writing a post. I suspect I am underestimating the work involved because the course is Human Resources. I am probably in denial of just how much sewerage I am in.

I am really high on Red Bull right now and thought it might be interesting to blog about my all-nighter. (To be a blogger you have to believe that the mundane details of your life are actually interesting to others, even though subconsciously you know they are not).  It might be a short post if I decide to just avoid this ugliness and find a way to sleep through the Red Bull effect. I won’t hold it against you if you decide not to read this whole post.

 23:34 Just downloaded all the lecture notes and decided that I deserve a study break. Watching The Late Show with David Letterman. Need to get through five sessions’ worth of material before tomorrow if I am to have a hope in hell. Crap. I am going to bed at 5am.

23:58 Got a bit distracted by some Latino lady on Letterman dressing pet rats up in tuxedos! Read the exam requirements and am now freaked out. I should’ve started prepping for this thing ages ago like I planned to. Time for another break.

00:05 How much studying can I cram in before the 00:50 Oprah re-run of a re-run of a re-run?

00:54 Have read one set of lecture notes. The notes do not say much. I am so screwed. Re-run of Oprah Finale Part 1. Haven’t seen it before but am so over these sobs stories. *switches to Ellen* Time for Lecture 2.

01:10 Freecell. I am an addict.

01:29 Chowed Lecture 2’s notes. I have not read any case studies yet. *sigh* I did win my Freecell game though. One cannot have genius in all areas. Break!

01:37 Does your company have a high performance culture? One of the symptoms is that you have no personal life. Favourite Devil Wears Prada lines:

Andrea: My personal life is falling apart.

Nigel: That's what happens when you start doing well at work. Let me know when your entire life goes up in smoke: then it's time for a promotion.

Do you think I can quote that in my exam as a side effect of high performance culture? How would one reference that?

02:00 Why did I let my beau take the last two Red Bulls to work with him? Time for ice-cream perhaps? I am fading but third session’s notes done and dusted. Perhaps I should go to sleep. How hard can it be to waffle through an HR exam? *Inner Slacker vs Inner Over-Achiever arm-wrestle* Break!   

02:30 Inner Over-Achiever won. She started chirping about "fear of failure" and Inner Slacker just buckled. Session 4 notes klaar. Unfortunately I have purely scratched the surface so far. Going to have to spend some quality time with some literature. Can’t I write Stats on Saturday instead? Oh flip, not “Saturday”... “tomorrow”! *fighting off the panic*

02:34 Wow, some of these Idols contestants are so deluded! ROFL...

03:12 Have just sped through half the course notes and still have a pile of articles. I guess I won’t be having a rocking Friday night. Tomorrow will definitely be all about the coffee. *sigh*

Why do I have a feeling I will regret posting this when I am less sleep-deprived?






Images: 

Red bull

Devil Wear Prada

Arm wrestling

Coffee