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Peopled out
13 Feb 2024 10:39 pmToday was my monthly work meeting in Turku. Usually I get up early, arrive there around 9:30 after a long bus ride and a walk, and have a bit of time to have a snack and cup of tea, which allows me to not eat a full breakfast at home, and then the meeting goes from ten until around one, when we finish and have lunch, leaving me a few hours to work in the afternoon there, or to take the next bus back and have a very short visit to my own office.
Except they forgot to warn me they were having an important zoom meeting with the national office until ten thirty, so I had to sit attentively in the background and couldn't eat my snack. Then a colleague was driving back to Pargas to give an award at one, and he offered me a ride and asked if I was free to take a photo of the recipient for him so the intern wouldn't have to go. I agreed, so we went to buy a bouquet and then had coffee and donuts with the recipient, one of our local volunteers whom I knew already, but not well. The coffee and the photo thing was really nice; the guy is charming and fascinating and really sweet; and that lasted about an hour before my colleague gave me a ride back to my office.
There were two work hours left, and some more volunteers were there setting up for the public free coffee event tomorrow for Valentine's. (Valentine's is called Friends Day in Finland, and is almost exclusively dedicated to appreciation of one's platonic friends, so our volunteer friend group always holds events for it.) I helped them some and then got a little more work done, but my office door was open and I could hear and see them the whole time so I didn't have total concentration.
It was a nice day and I had fun! Buuuuuut I unexpectedly didn't get to finish my breakfast or eat lunch, although I got two pastries and some milky coffee at lunchtime, and I also was (also unexpectedly) social basically the entire time. Came home drained to the point of limpness and had a nap as soon as I ate the second half of my breakfast.
But we still had to walk to the store this evening because we forgot to buy toilet paper last weekend and the transport workers are striking the rest of the week. It snowed on us and we were also treated to biting cold wind, -3 but feels like -11.
Except they forgot to warn me they were having an important zoom meeting with the national office until ten thirty, so I had to sit attentively in the background and couldn't eat my snack. Then a colleague was driving back to Pargas to give an award at one, and he offered me a ride and asked if I was free to take a photo of the recipient for him so the intern wouldn't have to go. I agreed, so we went to buy a bouquet and then had coffee and donuts with the recipient, one of our local volunteers whom I knew already, but not well. The coffee and the photo thing was really nice; the guy is charming and fascinating and really sweet; and that lasted about an hour before my colleague gave me a ride back to my office.
There were two work hours left, and some more volunteers were there setting up for the public free coffee event tomorrow for Valentine's. (Valentine's is called Friends Day in Finland, and is almost exclusively dedicated to appreciation of one's platonic friends, so our volunteer friend group always holds events for it.) I helped them some and then got a little more work done, but my office door was open and I could hear and see them the whole time so I didn't have total concentration.
It was a nice day and I had fun! Buuuuuut I unexpectedly didn't get to finish my breakfast or eat lunch, although I got two pastries and some milky coffee at lunchtime, and I also was (also unexpectedly) social basically the entire time. Came home drained to the point of limpness and had a nap as soon as I ate the second half of my breakfast.
But we still had to walk to the store this evening because we forgot to buy toilet paper last weekend and the transport workers are striking the rest of the week. It snowed on us and we were also treated to biting cold wind, -3 but feels like -11.
