Up the Back Passage

It was a long but enjoyable day at the office, involving many cups of tea, a number of ginger biscuits, a visit to my favourite client, and some heads and chickens that were in varying degrees of proximity to each other later on in the afternoon.

I nearly didn’t get into the office today. This was because my special pass, which allows me to go up the back passage (no jokes please) and saves a couple of minutes walking time stopped working. Over the weekend all the passes had to be re-registered for some reason or another and despite a number of beeps on the thing by the door, the computer was most definitely saying “No”.

Luckily the front door was open and Dave sorted me out, and my back passage credentials were restored. Good job it was this weekend as we are working late next Friday and all day Saturday and the back passage is the only our only out of hours point of entry.

In the morning we had a meeting over the other side of Liverpool Street with my favourite client about a new project. They are a decent bunch, and a real “old school” city type firm. Work hard, but play even harder. Their owners know they have a real diamond of a company on their hands, and hopefully they’ll continue to let them do what they do best which is managing money better than their competitors. And of course, spending money with us.

Being out of the office for a couple of hours meant I had some serious catching up to do. It was just before noon and I had only drunk one cup of tea, so it was straight to the kitchen to get back on track.

The afternoon was spent doing some analysis for another client based round the corner and by around 4.00pm I’d worked out most of I was planning to recommend to them. Not the most interesting piece of work I’ve ever done to be honest, but cherry-picking the good projects isn’t an option and as I was sitting next to their account manager and I mistakenly mentioned that I knew (sort of) how to help them I was in the frame to do the work.

Just as we were approaching golden hour the ginger biscuits made a guest appearance (32p a packet at Tescos), and we all perked up and another cuppa saw us through to after 5.00pm.

Golden Hour Flies by

For some Friday is normally a slow day in the office. In late, bacon rolls and coffee, some chat about Thursday night out, some more chat about the weekend, and even fitting in some work. And then off to the pub for lunch (which I don’t do) and back for a leisurely afternoon, and then away at 4.30pm, via the pub of course, just to make sure it’s still there.

This of course was not a description of yesterday, and is never a description of my day in the office, which normally starts between 7.15am and 7.30am, and has been know to kick off at 6.45am.

Rocky coined phrase “Golden Hour”. Yes we do have someone in the office called Rocky, but any similarity to Mr Balboa starts and ends with his christian name. He is a gentle, grey haired religious man of around fifty years of age who has a dry and wicked sense of humour. He arrives each day before 7.00am so he can leave at 4.15am to catch his train home and have dinner with his family. Golden Hour starts just after 3.00pm pm each Friday when the slow down for his weekend begins.

I tend to go into Golden Hour mode with him as we go to get a cup of tea, have a chat in the kitchen, then wander back to one of our desks to talk through “work”. But for whatever reasons yesterday our clock watching didn’t even get out of first gear as we fielded questions and mails from all and sundry about nothing much really. It seemed important at the time though.

The unofficial factory whistle is the toll of the bells at the Dutch church, but I didn’t even notice them ringing at 5.00pm and left forty minutes later.