A typical day at the "office"

Retired technical service & training director & loved every minute, including the bad ones.

But if I might indulge my feeling sorry for myself & give you a 1 week "bad day" that I have just had

2 weeks ago I had my 2nd (other) half knee replacement

I left hospital after the expected 2.5 days (2 nights) with a knee that was moving better & easier & less painful than knee #1  - I was delighted.  

They issued the usual packets of pain relief of codeine & paracetamol & 2 weeks worth of self injecting Heparin (blood thinning) needles.

As before one of the pain relief pills is codeine & in case you don't know codeine will give you constipation - like reinforced portland cement grade - & so I started with the lactose.  

As before after 1 week I reduced the daily codeine intake to half over 2 days, then half again.  

Wooooh did that mash my head up, concentration level zero, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, can't breath, can't talk or if I did it was slurred or gobbledeegook. 

Called the Doc & needed to take 'erself along as translator & note taker

Diagnosis was I was doing cold turkey coming down off codeine (morphine) & the larium (anti malaria) course I was on was mixing it up & somehow giving me the real bad time. 

Well its now the end of the bad 1 week day from hell at the office

Now near normal & feeling like I am looking forward to a nights sleep  - whoopee 

Salutary warning - don't touch codeine unless you know what you are doing & you have a large bottle of lactose handy  

Retired 5 years ago at 60 as stated in my profile. TBH i find myself with less spare  time now than when i worked,dont know how i ever managed to fit work in. My pet hate while i still worked was London fraffic,its now got beyond a joke and one of the main reasons i decided to sell up and retire.

Now i play tennis 3 times a week,friday nite is reserved for squash,four of us have been doing this for donkies years with the od half of shandy afterwards and cab home. Other half gets taken out twice a week for a meal,and at the weekend its footie time either at home or on our travels up and down the country. Also use my sports club gym twice a week,got to know CdeBs minder quite well and working out with a group of people makes a drudge quite enjoyable.

Mista H

Sounds like you have life well sorted, and very much deserved, enjoy!

I believe that knee replacements are a major piece of work and extremely painful to recover from, so take it slowly and try not to come off the pain management too soon. Being a hero is no fun, and it's called pain management for a reason.

Slowly, slowly !

Blue chip and motivated conjure up a wide variety of solid, respectable images.

Does this involve getting up at the crack of dawn, standing 45 minutes in an expensive, overcrowded train commuting into central London or -

Is it a relaxed chauffered Bentley drive (complete with Naim in car player) to a modern office block in Milton Keynes.

Is lunch a cheese sandwich at the desk between phone calls or a light sirloin and glass of wine in the director's suite with a Stilton and port before the afternoon Bentley ride to the factory......

or ? (something completely different)

Cheers

Don

Wow Mike, I wish you well and a full recovery, followed in a short while by a (hopefully) more typical and enjoyable day.

Cheers

Don

+1, especially the twice a week dining out part !!

Cheers

Don

Leave my apartment at 6:30-6:45 AM, drive an hour, then work a 12 hour shift where the only time I sit is if (and that is an if) I get to use the loo, no meal or any other break, pretty much moving as fast as I can the entire time under high stress & pressure (knowing that my mistake could really hurt or even kill someone), stay a half hour to an hour past close, then drive home for an hour (arriving between 9:00 - 9:30 PM), read email while I wolf down some m-wave food, shower and get to bed...so I can do it again the next day.

I only work 8 of every 14 days, and 3 of those are shorter than 12 hours, but on the balance that is the "typical" day at the "office."

And if you ever doubted how absolutely stupid I am, I ran my arse into well over $180K student loan debt to do this to myself.  What a moron am I...

And yes, I am furiously looking for another job - even at a very substantial pay cut.  Life is too short in general, and at almost 55 it is really getting short to waste it like this!

Yikes DrMark,

Presumably after 30 odd years that student loan is but a faint memory and that new job you are seeking looks more like a well-earned retirement than another strain of the rat-race.

Or perhaps underneath, despite the daily stress, you really do recognise the valued member of society you undoubtable are (a pharmacist ?) and wouldn't really change your vocation for anything else, least of all, retirement ?

Cheers

Don

Home based Network Specialist. Some days I go upstairs to my office. Most days I drive an hour or two to sort out a Cisco/Nortel network problem. No two days are ever the same - and that's what I enjoy about the job. Lately I've been going to a few RAF sites, watching the Typhoons take off or the Red Arrows practice. Perks of the job, and makes me realise I'm lucky to not be stuck with the same 9 - 5 routine.

No Don - I only recently changed careers and graduated in 2011 (I was, as the politically correct term goes, a "non-traditional student"; translation; middle aged fart who is stupid enough to go back to school) - so I am still at this moment $182K in debt!  But a different position with more reasonable hours, commute, & stress level (and, dare I say it, a chance to occasionally sit and a lunch?!?!?!) with lower pay is OK by me; for me quality of life trumps pay any day. 

The 5-10% of my job that is actually helping people is fine, even enjoyable, except that it is literally only about 5-10%, and doing it invariably puts you behind on your assembly line duties.

Pharmacy is not what I thought it would be; you are only judged by how much product you can pump out; I never dreamed it was be so non-clinical as it is, and that is across the board in retail; CVS, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, K-Mart, etc., and I am willing to bet that Boot's the Chemist is the same schtick as well.

Korporate Amerika at its finest, with MBAs who know nothing about pharmacy trying to run one off a bloody spreadsheet.

Oh well, live & learn...and do the best you can! 

I worked for Nortel & then MCI from 2000-2004.  I was the SME on all the Nortel Long-Haul litewave transmission equipment at MCI; best job I ever had.  (OC-192, OC-48, DWDM, etc...all SONET stuff.)  Worked with great people, had an excellent boss, and minimal OT with decent pay.   Too bad the whole thing went t*ts up in 2004/2004.  At least Bernard Ebbers is still in jail - one of the few things GWB got right was not pardoning him as he left office.

I work 4 days a week. Without the day off I think it would be unsustainable.

I live less than 20mins from work. A typical working day is 6.30-6.30 and more or less continous. I get lunch at my desk, or occasionally in the car if out visiting patients. I work until 8.30pm one evening every 3-4 weeks but not at weekends although I probably do an average of 3-4 hours work or study per week at home at weekends or on my day 'off'.

My wife works similarly, also 4 long days but again not at weekends. She has plans to retire in a year, and good for her!

I love my job and cannot imagine doing anything else but it is stressful and tiring and I'll retire before 60 if I can manage it.

Bruce

Depending on the day, Mon, Wed and Fri I get up at 5.30am, in the pool for 6.30 do a good mile or so then off to work. Tues and Thurs up at 5am, in work for 6am.

Spend the day in front of a CAD screen, maybe the odd meeting and a half hour walk at lunchtime.

Aim to leave about 4pm Mon-Thurs, 12pm on Friday (the joys of flex-time)….

Or at least that’s what it was like as I’m about to start a new job in a couple of weeks, so it’ll be all change for commute and working hours. Time for a new challenge.

Get well soon Mike!

Isn't the Larium the likely cause of at least some of the symptoms? It's so known for causing panic attacks and anxiety that I was well warned off it (Malarone is the preferred alternative I believe). Codeine is an opiate so no wonder you felt a bit of a come down.

Anyway, hope the knee is better now...

Rod

LOL (at the middle aged fart bit). Sorry for the rest !

Guys,

    some really interesting stories already. Keep them coming.

It appears there may be a theme emerging of lots of high stress jobs. maybe thats one of the pre requisites for Naim ownership?

Surely somone has a "happy" working life?

Paul

I have a great working life, and I feel guilty about posting about it in the light of some of the above.

I sell very high quality wine to the mega-rich super-yacht owners and charterers in the South of France.

The wine market in the UK (which I left) is now so devoid of margin (courtesy of the supermarkets) that one bottle in three is sold by Tesco, and half of that is sugary globo-crap sold on a fake promotion. (Folks, if it says 'buy one get one free', then you are getting two for whatever you are paying, and each is worth half that. At best.). A wine distribution company seems to go to the wall every week at the moment.

My current customers care only about quality and service. They are the least price sensitive people in the world. They want the best, and they are prepared to pay. 

I work long hours in the summer (from the Cannes Film Festival til the end of September) including one weekend day every other week. A working day might be 7am -6pm, although I work half an hours' drive from home. It can be frenetic and stressy, but from my desk I can see the Alps in one direction, and the Med in the other. Outside the season, we revert to 9-5, five days a week, with loads of time for holidays and time off.

Although - get this - we do move the whole operation to the Caribbean in the winter, so I get to go there for a few weeks in January (longer if I wanted, although frankly working on a Caribbean island is not quite as much fun as it sounds). 

I came here six years ago, ostensibly for a few months. But I stayed. My French is now just about fluent, and I have bought a flat and a car, and got a rescue dog, so I am here for the duration I think.  There are seasons here. It is cold and it snows in the Winter. It is hot and sunny and you can swim in the sea in the summer. When it rains, the sky clears to reveal blue shortly after.

I don't get paid as much as I used to in London, but giving up the Victoria Line, Haringay, Vauxhall, grey skies, and wearing a tie every day, has been the best thing I've ever done. It's not all about money.

Rod,

   Sounds nice, but i am sure there is still work involved. I assume that you have to travel the world and sample the wines, to be able to recommend them, or is it all based on your past experience and all your buying is done from the desk?

paul

My job is night-shift with the white star line, my duties starts in early evening waking up with cold salt water in my cabin, seems to get higher everyday and now it takes spending a few hours bailing it out the port hole with a bucket.

Then, after breakfast, i carry out my skilled job as deck chair re-arranger, they look much better after I’ve finished. Later in the night I get my turn to go up to the crows nest, but it's too misty to see far, especially far out on the horizon where our only life boat is being rowed further and further away with the captain and his brave board member officers club together with a load of gold bullion which they say they need as ballast. They also said they have gone to get help for the collision we had with a large floatation, but they should have been back by now.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to get a job towards the stern which is the dryer end. The waves are lapping over the bow which has started to dip below the waterline.

But we always have great music while we work, the band plays on...

LOL. I needed that.

I get up at 5.15 am, have brekkies then an hour drive to work for 7 am, spend all day in a plastic injection mouldshop and leave at 3 pm for a one and a half hour journey home. My job is stressful as I am the senior engineer responsible for about 20 people over 3 shifts. There are deadlines to meet, efficiency calculations, new tool trials, new plastic trials, liasing with tool makers, troubleshooting and a regular staff turn over which adds staff training on a regular basis. Just recently I had an accident where molten plastic in the temperature range of 350 degrees celcius exploded over my left hand, it was caused by poor maintenance/ repair. I had two weeks off and a chance to re-evaluate my life. I am now going to college in the evenings studying woodworking (which I have always enjoyed) with the aim of seeking work in a University as part of the maintenance team, it will be less pay but better working conditions. I then want to study music production and may end up doing voluntary work for a small radio station to gain experience( this is a dream at the moment) but first things first to get out of plastics for ever.

Swine...

I was about to describe my typical working day, but then I suddenly remembered - I've been retired for seven years!

Admittedly, at the behest of my old company I stayed on for a bit as a consultant (lend me your watch & I'll tell you the time) working from home but as few folk wanted to tap into my accumulated knowledge I quietly faded away from the post.

I occasionally catch up with old colleagues and recently attended a professional conference in Sheffield to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Nothing had changed much; lots of folk came up to me and asked, given the nature of my fairly high-powered job beforehand, what I now did for amusement. Tongue-in-cheek I explained my day was filled with pottering about and listening to music and how boring it all was. They all agreed, it must be terrible for me and why don't I come back into the profession? Err, no thanks...

Thanks Rod,  Don & Cbr600

Today is the 1st day in 1.5 weeks I have got up & felt OK, but still did not get 8 hours of joined up sleep. 

Rod,  I have used larium quite a number of times without any side effects.

I needed to take it for 9 weeks to cover 4 weeks in East Africa & had no problems until I started reducing the codeine after the op. Keep in mind I had done this before with the other knee & had received instruction/training again on the reduction process from the hospital 

The doc said my symptoms where classic opiate withdrawal & maybe the larium might be adding to the problem.   But your tip on Malarone is duly noted & is on the list for the next trip.  

Cbr,  the uni-compartmental (half) knee is a cake walk compared to a full knee or (worse) hip.  

OK at 2.5 weeks out it's stiff, its at (f###) ouch level painful to move quickly, but its now almost slowly  locking out straight & past 90 degree bend (target is 120 degree at 6 weeks)

Slowly slowly is not the way,  this needs exercise & push the pain but not over do it.