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What’s Harder? Thinking or Moving?
Day 41, Friday 27th April 2018
Thinking is utterly exhausting.
Most of my working life has involved highly physical work. Employment life began in a hotel, working anywhere from reception, to the kitchen, via housekeeping and the gym. I was the dogsbody, do-it-all trainee, running around the hotel cleaning pans, checking-in guests, fixing beds or refilling the water coolers in the gym. For 18 months this work filled my life from 7am to 3pm, or 3pm to 11pm, five days a week.
The very first week, I worked in the cafe/restaurant, serving food. School was only a few months behind me, hence working an 8 hour shift, let alone 8 hours with barely a moment’s break to sit on a chair was a whole new experience to me, and an exhausting one at that.
Welcome to the world of work, Gavin.
From that point onwards, not one of my jobs has been 100% desk based. For two years I designed music awards, whilst simultaneously being in charge of production, which required full days in a workshop building awards. As a graphic designer and fine art printer, some days would be desk based, sporadically running to a machine to check colour matches or load media. This work also involved days or weeks of production and installing for customers, running, lifting, sticking, climbing. For one…
