It’s Tuesday, not quite the weekend and not yet really midweek. It’s that waste of a day, that-not really time to finish yet but too late to start-day. Wednesday I can cope with. It’s the middle, hump day, as far from one weekend as it is close to the next. Then it’s all downhill from Thursday onwards. Monday is just easing into the week, a slow start day,remembering the weekend and still feeling the glow but Tuesday just has no place in the working week really.
Anyway, it’s over and done with now and Wednesday beckons so I can forgive Tuesday its invasion and enjoy the remainder of the week. It’s a good thing too because today was another road kill of a day. Rain, drizzly penetrating depressing rain and wind. Howling wind that whistles through the cracks in the doors and windows and just makes a chill shiver through your bones. Even on a warm, almost humid September day it made me feel cold. By contrast I was sweltering in my suit. The weather this time of year confronts us and defies our clothing choice. It rains when the temperatures are still summery, it blows hard but doesn’t chill. No one knows what to wear and as the season is so short, barely lasting one month, we don’t buy specific clothes for it. So we don our warm raincoats, our winter outfits, and sweat as swelter as we fight against the gales and end up looking like we have been fighting our way through thick undergrowth in the Amazon, all bedraggled and red faced, flushed and frazzled.
The summer may have left but the heat it brought still hangs in the air until the sun drops behind the horizon. Only then do we really sense the coming winter, as temperatures plummet with the sun itself. There is, for maybe the first time since early spring that we have a real requirement for evening wear. Day wear to cope with the residual heat, possibly waterproof outer garments, then, in the evening as darkness falls,evening wear. Longer trousers,thicker tops, maybe something thrown over the shoulders. In summer it stays light and warm until bedtime so we don’t really need evening wear and winter means warm clothes followed by bed clothes but there is a period of cool dark evening that we only get now. Too early for bed clothes and too cool for shorts and shirts, it’s the perfect chance to show off a different style.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t help me in my suit!
It didn’t help with my daily staff confrontations either. Busy days with lots of activity and lots of customer interaction can be a good deterrent but when we are between sale periods and pre Christmas, the going is tough and the floor has prolonged periods of awkward silences. I’ve been trying to bring in a new order but I am meeting with opposition at almost every turn with staff older than me seemingly determined to dismiss me as inexperienced and younger staff fighting to to establish themselves at my cost, defying my wishes in order to prove themselves better in my role.
As I said, it’s only Tuesday but Friday looks so far away right now.
Stumblingupwards's Blog 