Monday, November 1, 2021

The New Routine

      Like everyone who had one, I was happy to have a job.  Even though I hadn’t spoken to Derich in a while I decided to give the new office gig a chance.  This required a new routine.

     The quick jump on and off the highway to the old job was replaced with a grueling, traffic fighting, drive halfway across the state.  Luckily it was one of the smaller New England states.

     If you left early enough you could avoid most of the traffic getting to work and if you left late enough you could also avoid it coming home.  Reminded me of The Grid.

     The new routine was as solid as a rock.  Wake up at 5:30.  Clean up, get dressed while listening to the overnight news.  Leave the house at 6.  Get to the parking lot at 7.  Walk to the office.  Arrive at 7:15.  Eat breakfast (instant oatmeal and coffee with hot chocolate) continue reading the news of the world markets.  Wash the dishes I used.  Start work at 8 am (paperwork, phone calls, fights with home office about compliance, meetings with clients - if the clients showed).  4:50 pm Walk to the parking lot.  5:05 pm Leave the parking lot.  6:30 pm Arrive home to make and eat dinner, watch YouTube/the News or listen to a podcast or an audiobook.  7:15 Wash dishes.  7:30 Play music/write/workout/meditate some how get rid of the stress.  8:30 Prepare clothes for the next day.  8:45 Shower.  9:15 Fall asleep listening to the latest world news update.  Rinse and repeat. 

    This wonderful schedule was held together by my phone.  Somehow this little piece of technology had everything I wanted when I was a kid except the fun and the adventure.

     There were alerts here and alarms there.  There were reminders of bills to be paid and money to be made.  There were directions and suggestions.  There were apps for dating and apps for hating.

     There was just one problem lately.  After a full night of recharging and getting ramped up for the day I would unplug the phone to check the news and it would immediately shut off.  When I turned it back on it would read 50% then 5% then nothing.

     The only remedy was to immediately hard reset it for 2 cycles.  Only then would it hold a charge.  Only then would it do what it was supposed to do the way it was supposed to do it.  This was one of the most popular phones in the world.  There were a lot of apps on the phone but this thing was supposed to be up for the challenge.  I looked forward to buying this thing.  The day I bought it I felt like it I had the world at my finger tips.

     It was like that with a lot of things in life at the time.  I had looked forward to this job.  Theoretically it was wonderful but practically it was just another job driving halfway across the state.  As a man of a certain age I wasn’t sure how many hard resets I had in me even with the rock solid new routine.

No comments:

Post a Comment