back in the game...

i stepped out into the cold light of morning this morning dressed rather unusually... for me, anyway. dress shoes hit the pavement as i walked to the Tube station, pinstriped trousers brushing my legs, tie hanging over one of my nicer shirts while my coat fluttered in the breeze, keeping the cold at bay. it was 8AM and i was on my way to work - my second First Day in two days. yesterday i was headed off to a freelance assignment to spend a day working for Moet Hennesey Louis Vuitton - something of a prestige client. by the time i got home i was exhausted - it was fairly simple desktop-support work, moving and installing equipment around one of their London design studios. today i was on my way to a bank.

this seems to be one of those things you do in London - the financial district (situated around Bank Tube station which is named for the Bank of England located opposite) is huge. the big names operate out of this area - HSBC, NatWest and so on, and so do many of the other global financial powerhouses. when Lehman Bros shed its staff, it's the east-end that was awash with unemployed Hedge Fund Managers trying to offload their Aston Martins, handing out business cards in the streets in the desperate hope of finding a new source of income before their Margin Calls came in.

the offices are... impressive. an enormous foyer greets you when you walk up the steps and in the door - all marble, pillars and hardwoods, open and empty and austere. the offices, on the other hand are modern, if quiet. my job here is to Keep An Eye On Things while the two local staff are away. this means running the daily checklist, then sitting and Being Available should anything fall over. bearing in mind the lack of activity going on i'm expecting this to be somewhat unlikely. still, it's a job and it's paying good money for the 6 half-days i've been employed to cover between now and the end of the year.

if you're wondering where this came from, and why there was no excited "i've got me a job" posting, it's because i only got these two little roles on Wednesday. the consulting company i've been operating from got the call and pretty much asked me when i walked in the door whether i could cover, the answer to which was, of course, "hells yes!" it's not like i've got anything better to do, and they cash that'll come in from 7 days of work will keep me fed and the rent paid for 2 months at my current rate of expenditure. of course, i'll probably go and spend a bit of it on some new work-clothes, and maybe some retail therapy, but hey: it's keeping occupied, and my skills current.

one thing i've noticed in the last month or so is how much my brain's been shutting down. i don't need to use most of it for day-to-day life. keeping my laptops running doesn't exactly cause a lot of mental stress, and the rest of the time i've been chilling out, reading, watching movies, playing games. forcing myself to think and act professionally again is like powering up the mainframe after a shutdown. lights flash, drives hum, systems that have lain dormant come back to life and run their self-checks. i've been feeling my skills atrophying and it's great to give them a bit of a workout. also of the good is that now i've got some UK work on my CV it's going to find the next role easier to get. having a bank at the top of the list will open the doors i'd expected to stay closed to me, and having the afternoons off will mean that i don't have to curtail my job-search at all, and tonight i'll be sitting around a pub in Leicester Square sinking beers with an air of self-satisfaction, enjoying the fact that i do look rather presentable.

the only downside i can see at the moment is that i need to be here at 8:30AM. i shouldn't complain too much - it's a really quick tube ride in to work, then i can catch the bus home in the afternoon to conserve a little cash. i needed to get in this habit anyway and it's always been a hard one to maintain. i'm not, by nature, a morning person. most of my friends over the years have had to forgive me for my inability to be anywhere before 10. i'm fortunate in that Lou's far better at mornings than i am, and entirely willing to kick me if i'm not up and moving, thus preventing me from rolling over and hitting the snooze button. i now have 4 different alarms at my disposal too - my phone, a vibrating watch which i've strapped to my bed frame and makes the entire thing buzz, and my laptops which i've set to start playing music. when i set these off in a cascade it's pretty difficult to turn them all off and not wake up, although i know from experience that i've done so a few times in the last few weeks.

regardless of all that, i'm in work. i'm earning (quite good) cash, and the world is looking brighter... even as the days grow shorter and colder. no matter - i have this nice warm coat to wear : )