It’s the little things that make jobs worth doing! Like when I worked 13 straight hours covering a computer lab in college and was surprised with a delicious bagged lunch for a conference that was going on in the building.

Some nice lady took the time to bring me a lunch since I had helped her find her way to the proper room in the morning.

It really is the small things.

Christ, it’s alright for some, isn’t it?

Where I work (super-rich NHS, remember) we just barely scraped a met deadline. A very important one if you value your healthcare. Doing so involved at least an hour of overtime every day that week, and 7 hours on a Saturday.

They gave us a box of chocolates for our troubles. Just the one, to be shared between 6 of us. Thanks, guys.

I should stress, this wasn’t a direct work-related perk. It was one of those random confluences of events that on paper just seem so unlikely. Random confluences of events seem to happen a fair bit in our office. I think the manic atmosphere breeds them or something…

Anyway, the story goes:

A happened to go to this one meeting at the last minute, she got talking to B, who introduced her to C, who had friends D and E who were setting up a business, but who wanted to do a trial run, and A spoke to D & E, and then introduced them to F, who invited them to our office building today, and G didn’t turn up for work today so there was a spare space which I managed to get by looking so insanely stressed that everyone took pity on me.

Put like that, not that great a story really, but it meant I had half an hour of pampering and felt all wonderful and invigorated. For about ten minutes till the boss got back off lunch and handed over more work. But hey-ho. It’s all fun

And was I jealous?

Yes I was!

Ha…ha…

Mwhahahaa

Clearly you’re in the wrong job Rich
Though I totally understand about the lack of appreciation side of things. In my last-job-but-two we had insane targets that we were NEVER going to meet for a myriad of reasons. So when we DID manage to meet targets because we kicked serious senior citizen bootie and pulled 40+ hour weeks for three months straight, it was more than a little galling to be told “OK, project’s over, here’s your one week notice. And thanks, have a bottle of fake champagne between the team of ten as a thank you”.

Yes, there’s still some bitterness even a year later!

Oh I agree about the job. But I’m too lazy to do stand up. I like to, er, sit down at work. That wasn’t just a bad pun, I honestly am really lazy!

we don’t work in the public sector for the perks, we do it for the satisfaction of helping others

So how was the acupressure session? I have been thinking about doing it as a thesis writing break

It was blissful. Partly this was the sheer decadence of taking half an hour in the middle of a frantic work day to NOT think about work and to be pampered, but it also worked out some major kinks I had in my neck and back.

I would very much recommend it, or something like it - massage, aromatherapy, indian head massage - some little bit of pampering is just what you need in the middle of thesis writing time. Go on, treat yourself. You’re worth it