A DAD'S LIFE:It can be tough going, but I wouldn't have it any other way, writes ADAM BROPHY
NOT THE nicest of starts this morning. The younger child, clutching at a sick stomach, vomits into her own bed, then moves to mine and proceeds to repeat the exercise. I roll up the heaving sheets and make way to the washing machine, which happens to be located alongside the nine-week-old pups’ pen.
While stuffing sheets into the Hotpoint’s maw I assess the next task – clearing out the pen. This task is one the missus and I skirt like Evander Holyfield dancing around a hungry Mike Tyson. How they produce so much from such small bodies defies science. Why they think it’s okay to roll in their produce defies nature.
When the day kicks off with a two-pronged effluent assault, I think it’s fair to expect it to get better. The elder makes her way to school, grumbling that the younger is faking. The younger settles under a duvet on the couch, her pale face at peace because she knows that she has the TV to herself for at least six hours. She’ll put up with any amount of gastric discomfort for that, especially with the promise of flat 7-Up lurking in the background.
Work beckons. I fire up the laptop and look forward to some adult problems, the sort you can resolve through logical discussion and do not involve getting your hands dirty.
Half an hour later I’m back in the kitchen, storming around, kicking bins and cursing, quietly so as not to arouse the patient on the couch in the next room. The reason? E-mail. And its poxy, immediate delivery of a message without intonation or nuance.
More and more companies rely now on e-mail for the majority of their communication. I have heard senior corporate managers insist that they be contacted only in writing, online. I have heard them snidely deride people who waste their time with phone calls and other “attention-seeking” behaviours.
E-mail is brilliant in its immediacy and its ability to share information. It is also torturous and dangerous. It allows people to respond in ways they would never dream of when faced with another person. I’m guilty of this too, having often clawed at the air in a bid to halt a message’s passage moments after realising it should be censored before delivery. On this particular morning, I am dealing with a correspondence about something relatively minor. The problem is I know the issue is something I am responsible for. Hands up, mea culpa, fair cop, no plea bargaining, I did it.
One phone call and it could have been cleared up, the misunderstanding resolved. I could have apologised, laughed it off and gone about rectifying the matter without any damage to the relationship.
Instead, I’m seething. I’ve been made to feel small. Previous correspondence has been thrown at me as proof of my incompetence, as if to say, “There, I told you so. I’m right and you’re wrong.” It used to be that everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Now it appears that carries over to work.
Freelancing offers you great freedom, for the most part. It also means sometimes you have to smile and say, “Yes, sir”, bite down and bear it. You must accept you’re the smallest cog in the wheel, the lowest in most food chains you belong to and if anything above you gets riled, you’ll probably be eaten.
This I’m not good at. But for the sake of being able to work at home within earshot of a sick kid on the days she can’t get to school I’ve learned to smile and take it. Instead, I walk away from the computer without pressing “send” on the furious response I’ve just composed. I make some toast and sit spreading crumbs all over the floor while enjoying an episode of Peppa Pig with my giggling, suddenly not-so-sick daughter. For that privilege, I’ll allow someone else vent a little at me.
What you’ve got in that scenario is something that’s necessary, the job, and something else that’s important, the kid. Until the hand of lottery strikes, work will always be required. Work governs large chunks of how we live, it informs our identities, that’s undeniable, annoying and unavoidable. In the past, I’ve let work have a disproportionate influence on how I feel. Not any more.
Now my bosses are small and loud. They get sick in my bed and inflict questionable TV programming on me. They never make me feel bad, and I try to return the favour.