The kitchen is crowded. The thing about Geographers, the Academic in front of me is saying, is that they always know where the coffee is! There is polite laughter, murmurs of assent. Presumably builders, architects, surveyors and admin and all the other plebs don't know where the coffee is? Some sort of catch-all small talk that is, as usual, utterly meaningless and merely serves to cover up his embarrassment at being the one holding everybody up?
People ask me how sick people who are sick are. What do they have, is it a cold or flu? Are they okay? When are they coming back? I walk away, mumbling platitudes. I DON'T ask those sorts of questions. I tell myself it is out of respect for other's privacy and it is - sort of - but mostly I just don't care.
It is not a good day. The back wheel of my bike splits, I ride into the back of a car on the way to work and some little pikey on a scooter hurls abuse at me after veering into me on the road. I pray that he gets crushed by a lorry and I can get the GF to not bother anaesthetising him before surgery.
Worst of all, my new colleague who seemed to be doing so well quits out of the blue and doesn't seem to want to talk to us. I'm sure it's nothing I've said - I thought we were getting on quite well. She seems to want to conduct her resignation over email, which seems well dodgy - but you just can't tell, can you? Regardless, this little bombshell means that I am organising the graduation ceremony on my own - at least for a little while - I have to decide whether to have one of the Terrible Temps back for a bit until they find me a suitable replacement.
I get my bike back, I have to endure a little lecture on keeping my brake blocks clean and looking after the front dérailleur and such. It rains and rains and rains.
