It’s the third time in a row I’m forgetting to eat lunch this week. Those who know me in person understand just why this is a cause for alarm. Nothing, and I mean nothing, well other than soaring levels of stress, ever comes between me and my food. And so when the receptionist called today at 5pm to remind me, yet again, to eat my lunch, the realization hit me. Of late, I have been sinking into some vicious cycle of the life I promised myself I would never live.
I wake up daily at around 5am to finish up on some work; suddenly it’s 6:20 and I rush to prepare for “work” (it’s an internship really) . This takes me about 20 minutes and by 6:50 I leave for the place. 7:30am always finds me at my desk. Some work or the other is already piled on my desk. Only the few seconds’ dash to fetch water at the dispenser or trips to the ladies manage to arouse me from my desk. Well, that and going to receive work briefs from the senior QS’ or directors. Before you know it, it’s already 5pm. The receptionist is already packing her bag ready to leave (she always switches off her computer at 4:45pm). But there’s still something pending. So you stick around, hoping to finish it. 6pm reaches, it’s not yet done. So you throw all you coituses (fucks) to the wind and decide to leave it at that. Tomorrow is another day.
Site visits come as relief. You feel the world come to life around you. The air, albeit pregnant with the smell of wet concrete and sweat, feels better. You feel your insides slowly resurrect. Your mind is no longer groggy, you can think clearly again. It’s sort of as if a large warm blanket of wellness and goodness wraps itself around you.
I don’t know how to put this. I have always been confused…maybe I always will be; I learnt to accept that fact. What I know is that a part of me dies every morning when I enter that office. It’s like removing your shoes at the door for fear of dirtying the carpet; well, that’s what I do with my soul, and all other accessories associated with it; heart and happiness inclusive. I have really become some zombie prototype I don’t even like (and god knows just how much I loathe these vile creatures).
Today has been one of those days, well, maybe a tad bit worse than the usual. Days like this you wish you had one of those nozzles (the pressure cooker ones) that let out steam. The heat was too much, worse than that of those unregulated electric cooking coils (only people who lived in public university hostels can relate to this), I tend to think. There’s one thing you have to learn to keep up with when you’re in the construction business, and that’s working on tight schedules. You have to learn how to deliver. Grow some extra arms if you wish, heck, turn yourself into Krishna (that’s the one that had many arms, right?). No one wants to know how you will manage to produce a whole document in one night so long as you have it ready in the morning. Summon the inner Flash if you have to; that’s your problem not theirs.
And so you learn to sacrifice your sleep. Burning the midnight oil and waking up even before the sun kisses the bum of the hills in the east. And you stomach that, assuring yourself that you are an intern, things will change when you graduate. But then you look around the office and the guys working there are going through the same cycle. And to think they have families to go back to; children and spouses that only get to spend quality time with them on Sundays. Growing up sucks donkey’s balls. I most certainly did not sign up for this. Being a Q.S was supposed to be fun and all.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life seated on some uncomfortable chair in a really cold, staring at excel sheets, a calculator, bunch of neon highlighters, pencils and a cohort of drawings and documents littering my desk. Why do some offices have to be so cold though? I tend to think it’s coz they are storage places for dead souls, and morgues are supposed to be cold….you get the drift? I panic every time I imagine that I might turn out to be doing just that; unhappy and without an ounce of life left inside me…. For the rest of my life.
Well, I am still seated in the cold room; listening to Epica, finishing off this blog. My mind is on overdrive thinking about the possibilities of the future. Some days I wake up with so much psyche, I feel as if I might conquer the world with my dreams of becoming a QS. Other days I dread the thought of waking up and heading to the office. The thought of it makes me want to slash my wrists and watch the crimson fluid flow out of my veins.
It might or might not work. I have nothing to lose. I will let Lady Fate work her magic. Whatever the gods have planned out for me then let it be. Who am I but a mere mortal at their disposal…..a mere pawn…
Canduh 
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