There in no time

With everything else I have to keep myself busy with right now, I've given entirely too little thought to how I'm going to cope working by myself at home in the new year. The only remotely comparable experience I have is from a good many years ago, when I first came down to London. I found myself working alone in a cube in an office for few a few months, not knowing anyone around me, and not speaking to anyone about anything save work. For obvious reasons I found it a wholly miserable experience. There were other factors involved which added to the experience, the most significant being the crippling homesickness I was feeling, not helped by my being holed up inside a hotel for much of the time outside work. The idea of being put up in a hotel for a few months seemed quite exciting at first (someone else is paying for all this? Wow!), until I realised just what lonely places hotels can be. I feel immense pity, whether deserved or not, for anyone who has to eat alone day after day in a hotel restaurant. I found it absolutely soul-sapping and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Believe it or not, I've never been entirely at ease in hotels since.

Bodes well, doesn't it?

Still, I'm sure things will be different this time (isn't that one of signs of madness? Repeating the same actions over and over, each time expecting a different outcome? But I digress...) Having my family nearby and some sort of support system at hand will make all the difference, and the prospect of working from home is not totally unappealing (note that I reserve the right to reverse that judgement). The commute, for instance, or more to the point, the inherent lack thereof. My daily traversal into work is hardly the most torturous affair, especially compared with those I've worked with in the past., but I'll be more than happy to see the back of it. London and it's inhabitants exude stress, and other people's tribulations are easily sensed from a distance, let alone when you find your face too close to comfort to someone else armpit (at which point you discover what else Londoners exude).

In my experience there seems to be an unwritten rule that states someone's level of ambition is directly proportional to their commuting distance. Certainly the most driven people I recall working with spent the greatest amount of time travelling. One in particular drove for three hours each way each day. Of course, it could simply be charitable of me to call him driven. Mad may be a more fitting description, although I believe he's managing a sucessful company in California now, so I can only assume he did something right. I am not one of those people. One of the reasons why I chose my flat was for the location. It's 7 minutes walk away from the heart of the Edinburgh. Close to major bus routes that will get me around the city, and perhaps 15 minutes walk away from the train station that will get me out of the city. I'm a creature of convenience, and if I'm not proud of that fact, I can at least accept it. Others can race about in their planes, trains and automobiles. I'll be quite content to roll out of bed into my workplace. I know, I know, it will wear thin sooner or later. So I may as well make the best of it while it lasts. Perhaps I'll even stay in bed :)