Friday
30Mar2007
Working away from home
Friday, March 30, 2007 at 1:15PM
Written last night. No intenet access.
I used to be away on business a lot. I used to be seconded all over the country, but recently, since I had children, this has been less frequent. Last week I was drafted in to help get through a backlog of customer disputes. This means 2-3 days a week away from home, staying in generic hotel chains.
Don’t get me wrong; the breakfasts here at the Holiday Inn are great, but I have stayed in a couple of rooms now and they’re pretty indistinguishable. Rather like Big Macs. Of course these hotel chains are all the same, and to be honest, they’re not terrible value for money (even if Holiday Inn are at the top end of the generics).
Of course what I really miss is my family. Just a few days from the brood can seem like weeks. I phoned home earlier, but my little boy was too busy eating raisins to say much to me. I was devastated. Doesn’t he miss me? Of course he’s not two yet, and was probably pretty cheesed off I wasn’t around, or maybe he was wondering who this moron was on the end of the phone? Either way, the raisins were much more interesting.
The food is good. I just had some seafood pasta that was very tasty. But eating alone in a restaurant with only a laptop and a newspaper for company can be a very disheartening, especially when the newspaper is The Indi – which is, presumably because of yet another round of redundancies, becoming more and more like a home for cannibalised pieces from other news sources and commissioned articles from freelancers (i.e. hardly punctual). It doesn’t feel like a newspaper anymore. It doesn’t seem to hold together like The Guardian or The Telegraph, which have identity and a sort of cohesion that The Independent lost some time ago.
I used to like The Indi. It had a great international section that was an excellent brief for world affairs. But now if I want to read news from Asia I’ll go online and read The Asian Times, South China Morning Post, or Kommersant. Why would I read stale stories in the Indi, even if they were still there?
The Guardian, The NY Times, Monocle, The Atlantic, and The New York Review of Books have all the best comment, so what is the point of The Independent? Don’t-get-me-wrong, I don’t want to see the paper’s demise, but certainly a bit of vigour needs to be injected. Anyway, that’s enough about newspapers.
Tonight, no doubt, I’ll be alone in my hotel room watching Question Time and drinking tea, when I could be at home doing something useful. Like what I don’t know, but I’m sure there are exciting opportunities at home that I’m missing out on. A cuddle and a DVD would be heaven.
I shouldn’t complain of course. I’ll be honest, I have it pretty good. But a whinge once in a while is ok, isn’t it?
I used to be away on business a lot. I used to be seconded all over the country, but recently, since I had children, this has been less frequent. Last week I was drafted in to help get through a backlog of customer disputes. This means 2-3 days a week away from home, staying in generic hotel chains.
Don’t get me wrong; the breakfasts here at the Holiday Inn are great, but I have stayed in a couple of rooms now and they’re pretty indistinguishable. Rather like Big Macs. Of course these hotel chains are all the same, and to be honest, they’re not terrible value for money (even if Holiday Inn are at the top end of the generics).
Of course what I really miss is my family. Just a few days from the brood can seem like weeks. I phoned home earlier, but my little boy was too busy eating raisins to say much to me. I was devastated. Doesn’t he miss me? Of course he’s not two yet, and was probably pretty cheesed off I wasn’t around, or maybe he was wondering who this moron was on the end of the phone? Either way, the raisins were much more interesting.
The food is good. I just had some seafood pasta that was very tasty. But eating alone in a restaurant with only a laptop and a newspaper for company can be a very disheartening, especially when the newspaper is The Indi – which is, presumably because of yet another round of redundancies, becoming more and more like a home for cannibalised pieces from other news sources and commissioned articles from freelancers (i.e. hardly punctual). It doesn’t feel like a newspaper anymore. It doesn’t seem to hold together like The Guardian or The Telegraph, which have identity and a sort of cohesion that The Independent lost some time ago.
I used to like The Indi. It had a great international section that was an excellent brief for world affairs. But now if I want to read news from Asia I’ll go online and read The Asian Times, South China Morning Post, or Kommersant. Why would I read stale stories in the Indi, even if they were still there?
The Guardian, The NY Times, Monocle, The Atlantic, and The New York Review of Books have all the best comment, so what is the point of The Independent? Don’t-get-me-wrong, I don’t want to see the paper’s demise, but certainly a bit of vigour needs to be injected. Anyway, that’s enough about newspapers.
Tonight, no doubt, I’ll be alone in my hotel room watching Question Time and drinking tea, when I could be at home doing something useful. Like what I don’t know, but I’m sure there are exciting opportunities at home that I’m missing out on. A cuddle and a DVD would be heaven.
I shouldn’t complain of course. I’ll be honest, I have it pretty good. But a whinge once in a while is ok, isn’t it?
Reader Comments (2)
We always love our children more than we love our parents - our children do too. Sad, but if it gets you down, phone your mum.
Nice advice Mr. Z.
I bet my mum would love to chat.