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I work as a programmer at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, a small city surrounded by the country. I used to work at a kind of boutique software house called 'The Project Factory', where I wrote iPhone applications. That was until I was swiftly replaced by Kalgar (of course, I had expressed my intent to leave Sydney, and I thought it would be incredibly rude to dash off before I was replaced, so you know - huzzah for him, and all that.) At the university I pretty much make the applications that allow the admin staff to carry out their student crushing duties, as well as making sure that people have access to our online services and things like that. Interesting stuff!
I wake up in the morning sometime between 7am and 7:30am, depending on what time I got to bed the night before, and I usually start the day by cursing the fact that I stayed up so late playing D&D with my friends again. I then consider what I just thought, and berate myself for decrying the wonders that are out gaming nights. After this I shower, have breakfast, and generally get ready (a process which takes about half an hour) and by 8:00AM I am heading out the door to catch my public transport.
Public transportation in Bathurst is pretty sparse. If you wanted to get up to the university in time for work without enduring the 40 minute uphill walk then you are either limited to a taxi or a bus. The bus up to the uni costs $3.10 for a 10 journey that lasts roughly ten minutes - the prices are not proportional to the service offered, and the bus driver is often late leaving the stop. I would normally not complain about such a trivial matter, only the bus comes once per hour, at 25 minutes past 8. Catching a taxi is significantly more convenient, however a taxi up there would, in Bathurst, cost you $11 on average. I know this, because I have missed my bus on more than one occasion.
Pictured: unrelated, but much more awesome method of transport - Kalgar
Upon arriving at my destination (a full 25 minutes early for work...) I rock up to my cubicle and log into my machine. This is then followed by me banging my hands on they keyboard for three to four hours, in the hopes that the file I'm working on will magically become fixed if, mayhaps, I could just type the correct combination of characters. If I manage to get an easier job during this time, such as restoring someone's access to their uni homepage, or granting a manger request to a forum, then I am incredibly thankful - I am not a morning person. Cannot brain. Have the dumb.
At some time between midday and one in the afternoon, I start my hours lunch. This is, for me, the most glorious hour in the history of hours. Each day is a new culinary adventure based upon what I've prepared the night before. Today, for instance, I'm having leftover sushi that I prepared on the weekend. Sushi, miso soup, tuna, and some tea. That, my temporary readers, is the lunch of kings! Kings of bento!! I usually take my lunch downstairs to hang out in the gaming laboratory with the nerdlings, and watch them play something like HoN or TF2 or something. It's an awesome hour, and it really brings me to life as far as 'starting the day' goes.
After my affable hour of amazing awesomeness and alacrity, I return to work for the remainder of my day. This time, however, I spend until either 4:30 (if I only want to do 8 hours) or 5:00 (if I want to build up some flex time) churning out the most awesome SQR scripts that your being hath ever lain eyes upon. It is during this period that I have done things like stopped half the Distance Ed students from missing their exams because they couldn't change their exam centre - also I'm pretty sure I stopped all war and solved world hunger once.
When the work day is done I pack up my Bag of Holding (or backpack, depending on my mood when I got ready in the morning) and start the 30 minute, downhill walk home. Usually I will stop off at the shops on the way, in order to pick up some stuff that I'll need for my coming evening (including what I'll be using to prepare lunch for the following day) and then head off home to unwind by either watching copious amounts of television, or by playing some kind of tabletop RPG, before going to bed way too late for my own good.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
The moral of this story is that work should really consider letting me set my own hours. I mean, I'd still work 8 hours, but if I could maybe work some of them from home I might get a bit more done during the day. Alternatively, if I could work for a bit in the morning, and then return home for siesta or something, before coming back, that would also be quite cool of them. Actually, come to think of it, the uni should totally have rooms for staff members who need a bit of a nap during the day - it would let me try out polyphasic sleep, and finally perform that experiment on myself...
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The above post was written by my special guest, Tiger. Who is Tiger? The answer to that, and more of his words of wisdom are available on his blog. Read it, you know you want to.
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