Work in Progress – Jenny 10

[For back story see lower numbers in archive]

Work was aggravating, frustrating, busy and ultimately a complete waste of time. Weaving her way through the other cyclists attempting to keep two metres apart, but also wondering if it mattered given they were all in constant movement – but there again, maybe it was more dangerous as they were all breathing more heavily – Jenny made it back home by 5pm. She was happy with that time which was something as there was little else to be happy with.

The day had mainly been spent trying to find things. Firstly she had tried to find the part of the office she had been moved to along with a number – but not all – of her co-workers in the accounts and finance section. Some were still where they were before lockdown, others were working from home – how come they were able to and she wasn’t? – others had been squirrelled off to parts of the building previously unknown to her function as the business made the most of its space to deliver the promised social distancing between work stations. Three had been sent to work in the exterior pre-fab – a move which came as a particular shock to Jenny as she’d previous thought the temporary building was a toilet. Hell, she thought, maybe it was.

Second she had to find the paperwork she needed to cross reference. It wasn’t the case that it wasn’t in the filing cabinet it was the case that the filing cabinet wasn’t there anymore. Having found it – along with several other filing cabinets now stored in the fast moving supplies warehouse to permit social distancing while looking things up – she was informed she couldn’t actually take anything out of the cabinets unless she wore disposable gloves and stuffed each sheet into its own clear folder. On no account should anyone actually breathe directly on the paper.

With computer and paper in front of her she then discovered IT had taken advantage of the downtime to introduce an update to their office user’s interface – a project that had been a long time coming and for which Jenny had received appropriate training, only that training had come ten months ago when the switch-over had meant to take place but then was post-poned due to a number of important projects which may have been disrupted if it didn’t go well. Having refreshed her memory with the revision tutorial video it became clear to Jenny that the postponement was a good move since the switch-over had not gone well. 

After all this – and before several other things, including one of the most bizarre lunch times she thought she'd ever lived through – Jenny reckoned she'd completed precisely five minutes of actual work before she had to start reversing all the moves she had made when she first arrived in order to leave. Papers were taken back out of folders using gloves, computers were disinfected, over shoes disposed of and on and on until she found her bike and helmet, thankfully untouched because who the hell was going to steal someone else's bike at a time like this?

And so, standing in the porch of her own home, Jenny stripped off almost all her clothes, stuffed them in the pre-ordained black plastic bin bag and dashed upstairs to have a a shower for twice the usual time. The length of her shower wasn't actually a reflection on her worry about cleanliness but because having got into the shower she became tranced out by the luxury of being warm and comfortable for the first time that day.

Clad in the very best fluffy slippers and dressing gown she could find she headed downstairs in the hope that there would be some food ready for her. Helen offered her cheese on toast. Jenny refused at first but then rallied thinking firstly that this was actually a nice gesture from her daughter and secondly, realistically, she was way too tired to consider making anything herself.

She felt better having eaten and the conversation with Helen had been refreshingly sane in the context of the rest of her day. At least it was until the subject of Izzy came up.

"I saw her at lunchtime," said Helen. "She was in her pyjamas eating biscuits. Said you'd gone to work. I asked her if she was going to go but she just said no."

Jenny explained how chaotic work was at the moment and that the likelihood was that they'd keep Izzy off on furlough until things had settled down a bit more. 

"A bit like your school," noted Jenny.

"School?" questioned Helen, "Nah, I'm not going back there this term. Don't care. Pete's not going either. Izzy said we don't have to."

"Oh," said Jenny. "Does she..." This would provide the subject of their next fraught discussion, she thought. Might as well be that.

"Is there... Something happening between you?" asked Helen.

"No, no," said Jenny, "Nothing. Has Izzy said there is?"

"No," said Helen, pointedly, "She said there was nothing happening either."

And with that she walked purposefully out the door.