Whitewashed

I feel like an old granny today, aching in places where I didn't even know I had muscles. The reason? I painted my kitchen yesterday (holiday in Austria). My kitchen is tiny, as in less-than-10 m²-tiny, which was the reason for my very wrong reasoning that I'd be done in no time. Hah, farking hah!. Due to the fact that there is almost no floor space I had to more or less move the ladder after every brush-stroke and shove the fridge around every ten minutes. Plus I obviously didn't take the kitchen cupboards off the wall, hence had to reach over them, standing on tip-toe on the last rungs of my ladder. Which sort of explains why the muscles in my calves are sore. Oh, and my ceilings are 3,20 m high.

Can you please remind me to NEVER AGAIN paint a room? Back in January, a friend painted my spare bedroom and all I did back then was clean after him. It was when I posed for the photo above. Yesterday it was a good 20° warmer outside and yours truly was clad in a ribbed vest and very unflattering (=cellulite bumps on full display) pair of shorts which would not have been fit for a photo had there been any paparazzi on site. I had several chivalric offers to assist me which I (stupidly!) declined, saying that there was no space to swing a cat in my kitchen and two would be one painter to many. I should have seized the opportunity to try and negotiate "help" into "doing the job single-handedly". Duh!

Today I took the day off and visited my ex-colleagues in Coma HQ who were all eager to hear about my new job. They won't get a replacement for me so there seems to be work all of a sudden which obviously is quite a novel sensation. M. jokingly asked if they could have me back. I laughed. For a moment, I thought back to the predictable office-hours when everyone would leave at 5:30 on the dot, the unthreatening atmosphere with no need to prove yourself and your abilities every day (or ever) and most of all, the daily chat with the girls.

Much as I like the daily challenges in my new job, I often feel like an impostor among people who seem to have sucked up business-speak in their mother's milk. I haven't quite decided if I want to imitate them out of sincere interest or just in order to blend in with a crowd. I'm afraid, it's the latter.