After trawling through a euphemisms site and other ways to describe death, I think the one above is my favourite so far.
Exhausting week. If you couldn't tell already, since I'm posting after finishing stuff at 4 am. Ideally I shouldn't sleep, but realistically I have to.
Someone asked me, wah Jess, why you always stay at work till so late?
Slight misconception there, that long hours = hardworking. To me, long hours = slow and stupid.
But oh well, we do what we can!
Tongkat Ali coffee has been a very good friend.
Exhausting week also, because I have been doing research on single fathers and spoken to a few of them. There is something very very very draining about these interviews, and I think maybe its because I am just not used to hearing men say things like this:
"I have just grown to love them more and more. They need to be loved so much and to be safe and secure, it breaks my heart that they wouldn’t have an intact family and that they have to carry those scars and wounds for the rest of their lives. Sometimes I look into their eyes and I see their vulnerability, and it physically hurts me to think they will have to one day face this themselves."
Its one thing to read this in an email interview, and another to have the emotion and the pauses and the deep breaths when hear it spoken to you.
1 comment:
"Slight misconception there, that long hours = hardworking. To me, long hours = slow and stupid."
Yeah, that's more or less the attitude in Europe-- they respect people who finish up their work efficiently and leave to go home at a reasonable hour, whereas people who work very long hours (respected in the US e.g.) are seen as inefficient and not having their priorities straight. I was born and work in the USA, and it's become a good deal tougher here.
All in all, in my experience the working conditions are much more humane in Europe than in the US. My friends in software engineering these days are putting in increasingly long hours at work-- 80 hours or more a week-- for diminishing pay every year. In Europe, especially as the Euro has gotten more valuable, you can get a similar job as a software engineer in a place like Dortmund in Germany or Strasbourg in France-- working respectable but not crazy hours-- and make a better salary, for fewer hours, with more vacation time *and* get more done.
It's interesting that a lot of my old amigos in various professions, especially the technical arts, have been emigrating from the USA and moving to Europe in recent years, in part b/c of the better working conditions. The only drawback is having to get fluent in something like German or French, which really isn't that hard. For professionals who've been working incredible hours just to get trained, the more respectful and manageable working conditions in the European Union are a big draw.
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