It’s been a hectic few days with a trip to London, Christmas shopping and some house re-decoration thrown into the mix. Christmas lunch with MacUser was too short and then the trip back to Leeds too long. It’s really strange going back to Dennis HQ as so much has changed. People have moved on, floors have been re-arranged and the little things that change that you don’t really notice when you work there because they’re organic step by step changes jump out at you.
I miss working in an office the noise the people the personalities. It’s quite fun working for yourself in that you can get up whenever you want and work whatever hours you choose but there’s a stark loneliness that you can’t account for. The relationships you form when you work somewhere for a while can be strong. Lets face it you spend a massive chunk of your life with the people you work with. If you’re lucky you like them and in that respect I was very lucky. When you go back though, as an outsider, you’re no longer part of their lives. They’ve moved on while your memories and frames of reference stop at the day you left. You can’t blame them it’s inevitable. It’s a strange feeling though as they chart new goings on and events while you have only yourself and jokes about too much internet porn (yay for Fleshbot!) and free time to discuss.
At a large company things happen everyday that you can gossip about or discuss I could think of three things that had happened to me in the time I’d been away and one of those was hardly an entertaining topic of conversation. ‘Well we bought a house, work is a little thin on the ground and oh yeah my granddad died’.
I sat on the train feeling sorry for myself brooding all the way back to Leeds and contemplating how I missed it all and how I wish those relationships and the lifestyle that came with them were not affected by 200 miles of motorway. That I could somehow have a window on to that world and the people there, giving me a view of all that was happening. Alas, it was my decision to move and I’ll have to deal with that best I can.
If it’s any consolation, we all miss you too.
And to help recreate the experience: “No, Chris, HD is much more impressive than standard definition…”