I've been working on a project for the last few months that will be implemented across the country over the next year or so. Currently the team is gearing up to implement in Bloemfontein and I've been spending a few days a week there.
On Friday night I flew home to Cape Town from Bloem on The Little Plane That Could. Really, the plane was little bigger than a 2 litre Coke bottle! Small plane from a small town. The whole of Bloem can probably fit into Boksburg North!
The small town lifestyle is growing on me though. Everything is ten minutes away. There is no traffic. The hotel only starts serving breakfast at 7am. 7am! When I'm in Joburg some of my meetings start at 7am. The Bloem team normally starts working at 9am. They've been opening early to accommodate training and project activities. Early = 8am. I am not kidding. Allegedly they work until 6pm, but for the first two weeks I was practically booted out at 4:30pm on the days I was there. It feels like an alternative universe compared with Joburg and Cape Town. Ok, more especially Joburg. For the first two days I didn't know what to do with myself when I had to leave work that early. The sun was still up!! It was the equivalent of high school being dismissed at 12pm in the middle of term on a Monday! It felt wrong, almost shameful, not to be working until 7pm or 8pm.
This was week 3 in Bloem and I think by now I have been detoxed from my previous workaholic ways. I keep thinking I'll work at the hotel after hours to make up for the fact that I'm leaving work before sunset, but I just don't. Everyone is so chilled and it's rubbing off on me like a disease. I have been detoxed to the point that my brain feels numb and I can't focus. To the point where I have to remind myself what my last name is. Remind myself what this project is about. Remind myself that I am a manager and a senior member of this team and need to set a hard-working example. Remind myself that there will be no obscene engineer-sells-out-to-banking-performance-bonus if this project doesn't deliver efficiencies!
Oh, but it's so hard to care in that sleepy little town. BFN. Brain Fully Numbed. *yawn*
Chick snap out of it you do not want a rude awakening when you back in Jozie. It sound so nice even I would now consider moving there. Yuck! Any whooo, enjoy it while it lasts, like everything in life it is temporary.
ReplyDeleteYes! Let's move to Bloem and have normal lives where we leave work at 4:30 and eat supper at 6:30 while channel-flipping between Isidingo and Sewende Laan.
ReplyDeleteJa, but I would get restless after a while. At least I hope so...