ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
There was a time, two years ago, when Miles Tannerman would have to get dressed and feed himself in the morning. After suffering that indignity, the 35-year-old would have to wait at a trolley stop for the electric bus to wind around the corner and down to the Betoota Heights shops where he’d alight.
It was more than often already full of other city workers in plastic dress shirts and pleather shoes.
Despite the air conditioning being on and working well, they’d always be someone in a seat ahead of him that insisted on letting the burning, dry desert heat in through an open window.
Arriving in the Old City, he’d be so hungry and thirsty from the trip that he’d let the bottom floor cafe owner steal $15 from him to stop the discomfort.
Once at his desk, Miles told this masthead that he’d open the laptop he brought from home and start working while the gullet with eyes that moonlighted as his 68-year-old boss made sure he was on task.
“Before lockdown, the only thing that would keep me sane was lunchtime darts in the park with Bernard Purdie in my ears,” he said.
“Then I’d go back to the office and perform my tasks, which was essentially looking after half-senile Baby Boomers in some sort of crude Boomer daycare. In other words, I work in the public service,”
“But now, I don’t have to interact with them face to face. I used to dread going to work because I’d have to waste so much time doing these odd side jobs to help some senior public servant cover their arse after their latest age-related fuck up,”
“Now, I just do my work and shut the laptop when I’m finished. It’s great. Mondays are great now. Say what you want about lockdowns, they’ve cured my Mondayitis.”
More to come.
