Ok. Great. I’m still okay. There was a period this summer just before I crashed off the booze where I began to worry that my stamina was fucked for good. But I’m home now and still feel great and today has been classic double-jobbing.
Up long before dawn, Maddy with me. I threw my frock coat into the car. Picked up John. Drove to Belvedere. And we went through that warehouse like a brace of shakes.
Fucking great big pile of stuff needing fork extensions at the end of the day, and the guys at the warehouse let us borrow some. It’s done, largely. Lots of the wood found new life. The rest of it is going into power. Canice and I will go back tomorrow for the last of it, but I could have finished today to be honest. I had his tipper booked another day, I had to be at The Globe this evening, I didn’t have the headspace or the need to finish today so I didn’t. Past Al had thought about things and made it nicer for Today Al. Today Al was happy about it.
All my tools are still in the warehouse, with some metal that needs cutting and some wood that needs cutting. I left the long things until last. Not much of it to be honest. I’m relying on the guys in the warehouse agreeing with me that I’ve done what was in my remit. If they’re happy, I’ll be happy, my client will be happy, job’s a good’un.
“It must be interesting work,” says one of the lads from the big business next door. “You have to be responsive.”
“Yeah, I love it.” And I do. It’s a happy warehouse. Today Siwan was cutting and shifting – and I got her driving too even with just a provisional. Canice was Caniceing which involves being a handy gobshite jack of all trades. John was the monkey, taking safe risks and tooling what needed it, Mark was my precision driver – chaos everything else, best driver I’ve ever met, and Maddy was my floater. She took some hilarious posed photos in a quiet moment, when I went and got my frock coat out of the car.
The key to building a good team is to try and make yourself redundant. Sure I was there and working as hard as everyone else but by the end of this job, I’ve got a few lads and lasses more confident on forks and tools than they were a week ago. Upskilling is always invaluable. I’ve got a team I know could do a job this scale without me if I was in America, etc. And I’ve got a team I know I could expand on and be confident with a pitch should a job much bigger than this one come up where I have to build hubs and have someone independently run each hub. When I’m doing this shit I internally thank Kester for first trusting me and then John for going with his recommendation. The pair of them have made my life uncommonly richer.
And then as soon as I was off site I washed my hands, changed my filthy warehouse clothes, and showed up outside The Globe dressed as White Rabbit to find out what was required of me tonight. Turns out what it needed tonight was largely me at the head of a cold queue of guests being processed in, literally machine gun audience conversation in character for a full hour, back and forth. Maybe that’s why I’m enervated. I’m having one on those “I’m enjoying this random life I’ve carved” type moments. I have no idea what transpired but it was working out how best to get a moment of joy from a constantly shifting range of people in a queue. Not what I’ve always dreamed of at The Globe, but a continuation of a strong long relationship that has only lasted this long because Ffion and I are good at it.
The same tomorrow but slightly shorter hours. Still, I’m off to bed.
AlBarclay 