Sleep

I once had a boss who told us he was reading on a book on how to reduce the hours of sleep you need. I remember thinking "Why in the world would you want to achieve that?!" I love sleeping even if I unfortunately am not somebody who can have a power nap (unless it's a plane or train that somehow are like anesthesia for me) as I can't sleep during the day unless I am severely jet-lagged and even then I try to avoid doing so as it is really much better to make yourself stay up until it's night in the respective time-zone.

This past weekend, I realised I would have to set my alarm both on Saturday morning for skiing and on Sunday morning for a concert that was actually a church service with the Vienna Boys Choir and part os the Vienna Philharmonic performing. Even though I managed to get almost 8 hours of sleep (my usual ideal) the mere THOUGHT of potentially not getting enough sleep made me uneasy.

Mon-Fri is for feeling like a zombie who cannot function without a steady supply of coffee. Weekends are for recharging your batteries and not having to set your alarm. 

Often when I'm not feeling too well for whatever reason, a good night's sleep erases all problems and I wake up refreshed and as if my "reset" button had been pressed. I really pity people who have trouble falling asleep or wake up frequently. Personally, I am one of those people who can switch off immediately when in bed and, once up, are switched on again. It can be somewhat concerning or annoying for people who share a room, or even more so, a bed, with me to expect me to reply and find me fast asleep. It's equally, if not more annoying for people who don't jump into gear easily in the morning and who really don't want to talk to anyone, at least not before their first coffee, to have me babbling away as soon as they open their eyes. Sorry, not sorry. 

Too School for Cool

Recently, I have had one too many reminder that some people really REALLY take care not to ever mix their profession lives with their private ones to the point that they are two separate people really. It bugs me on a variety of levels. For once, I simply feel that it is sad and must be exhausting to feel that you have to play a certain role every (work) day that might be completely different from what you would otherwise behave like. What is infuriating is that it is only natural that people who get to know you in your professional role to base their evaluation of you as a person on that version they get to see. It can lead to friendships based on wrong assumptions or prevent them from happening in the first place. Why is it an excuse for arrogant or bossy behaviour that somebody is "actually super nice in real life". Why are they not super nice (while still professional and compliant) 9 to 5 Monday to Friday as well? Why do they feel that it is socially acceptable to deny being friends with certain people just because they happen to work with them as well. I am not talking about workplace affairs or scenarios where one person reports to another, but just a general paranoia of feeling you need to put on a metaphorical armour in order to be taken seriously and not risk being accidentally considered a (vulnerable, empathic) human being rather than a robot. It definitely has not always worked in my favour, but I could not be a different person at work if I tried. And I'm okay with that.

Blue & Green Or: A Smart Investment

Sometimes we find things eccentric or exaggerated that other people do and we ourselves don't. I do as well. Sometimes I just don't care what the story behind is, others I might be curious enough to want to find out more. Well, I'm not assuming all the people who are following me on Instagram and who have paid enough attention to realise that I always wear a blue, or rather turquoise, ski outfit when in Carinthia, and a green/navy and pink one when in Vienna, have had sleepless nights wondering why that may be the case. I'm going to tell you why anyway: because I have 2 sets of ski gear (outfit, helmet, boots, gloves, skis, ski poles, helmet, goggles...) one each in Vienna and Klagenfurt. Best investment ever as after years of carting my gear back and forth I am flexible to the point where I can spontaneously hop onto a train/bus/plane to Klagenfurt. It has added so much quality to my life since skiing is one of the few sports I seriously enjoy. My perfect day would be working only half a day, then being picked up by a shuttle bus that takes me to a ski resort about 30 mins away from my office where I can ski (on perfect snow, in sunshine) for 2-3 hours. Anyone would like to join me (in my pipe dream)?

Time-Thieves

We all make mistakes. We are all absent-minded and scatter-brained at times. Myself as much as the next person. However, we don't all work in fields where our mistakes or inattentiveness result in stealing other people's time and causing them a lot of anger and annoyance.

My entirely non-scientific and highly subjective research in the field of parcel delivery services has revealed that the number of (likely grossly underpaid and hence not really motivated to do a good job) people who do a messy job is particularly high in this line of work. I remember an incident a few years back when I had to hunt after a parcel that apparently had already been delivered and signed for only to find that it had been delivered not to me (or my office address, rather) but to a random brick and mortrar store of the brand I had bought it from online...for reasons only known to the delivery person. I had to go to that shop, be questionned by the store manager and then generously handed an already openend parcel. Great. Last week I spent a lot of time on the phone talking to UPS callcenter agents, most of which had such thick foreign accents that we could barely communicate...which resulted in the tracking status update not reflecting where the parcel was actually delivered to. I trekked to a "service point" (aka mobile phone repair shop not anywhere near either my home, nor my workplace) only to find out the parcel was not there. It took more quality time in the hotline to find out that I could actually retrieve it at my local post office, after waiting in line for 15 minutes. 

Arguably, just a sign that I should not order anything online any more, but annoying all the same.