Monday, April 25, 2016

A Day in the Life (sorry it's not more interesting)

I was (way) behind on my feedly and I saw a bunch of people had done a A Day In The Life thing where they recorded a day in the life. If that wasn't clear from the title. And I figured even though I missed the even this sounded like a fun thing so why not give it a try. I didn't pick out a particularly exciting day, so already I have not thought this through. Here's what my day was like last Thursday (when I started writing this)

6:20AM
Alarm goes off.
It says it's 6:28 because I have to trick myself that it's ever so slightly later. I don't know why. This is stupid. My just awake me thinks she got 8 additional minutes of sleep, so whatever.
I don't use the snooze in part cos I found I just end up more tired and also the alarm is currently on the other side of the room. We just bought a new mattress but don't yet have a frame for it, so it's sitting on the ground and the alarm is on a bookshelf far away.
We have dimmer switches in the bathroom. Actually on most of our light switches. Our house is kind of weird. But anyway, I cannot recommend dimmer switches in the bathroom enough cos while everything is dark instead of blinding myself by turning ALL THE LIGHTS ON, or showering in the dark, I can just turn the lights on slowly.

6:40 AM ish
I turn off the alarm clock (which Tom has continued to sleep through) and turn on Netflix since I watch one episode of some 30 min sitcom while getting ready. Right now it's How I Met Your Mother which I keep saying I'm going to stop because OMG I HATE TED but I keep going cos I can't decide what to watch instead.*
I try to pick out clothes the night before so it's one less thing I have to think of in the morning.
But I usually end up deciding that what I picked out was TERRIBLE and try to figure out something new before I have to catch the train. I pretty much wear (nice) jeans and a (slightly fancy) t-shirt to work**, so you'd think this wouldn't be hard. You'd be wrong.
I ended up wearing a new outfit Stitch Fix sent me that I'm pretty sure I wore less than a week earlier but not in front of the same people so WHATEVER, it's clean and it works. Plus the sweater is so soft and bright yellow, so that's fun.

7:00 AM
After my show ends and I change Netflix to something that might help Tom get up (recently Archer or Parks & Rec. Something we've seen a million times that I don't care if I miss.) Around this time his alarm starts going off. He's still asleep but will somewhat answer me when I say I'm leaving. It's nice I don't have to worry even a little about being quiet.
I head downstairs and gather all my stuff

7:09 AM
Head out to catch the train. I usually read a NYTimes "Morning Brief" email, so I can pretend I know what's going on in the world that day, and then I'll do a few Duolingo lessons and then read or sometimes listen to music for the rest of the trip.

8:15 AM
Train makes it into Penn. Now I get to battle the crowds and why can't they put in wider staircases? There are roughly 2 million people trying to go up this staircase  and it's wide enough for 2 people. Now it's time to rush over to the subway.
Make it over to subway platform, in what should probably only take 1 minute to do, but there are so many people, that is never the case. Also I miss the first train because I always miss the first train because the platform is always stupid crowded.

8:35 ish AM
Make it to the office.
Sometimes I'll get iced coffee on the way but trying to NOT spend so much money when there is literally a free coffee bar at the office. Also it's nice to get in before most people (typical time in is somewhere between 9-10) cos it means I can go through email and make sure there are no emergencies before everyone else gets in with their emergencies.
I'm a research analyst at a PR firm and PR is essentially a series of fires that need to be put out, or I guess sometimes fires you really want to fan. Apparently in studies done about "most stressful jobs" behind the ones that I feel like should actually be stressful (Police Officer, Military) ranks PR and while I think it's silly to compare them, I also don't think it's wrong. Luckily I'm not quite in the position they're focused on but yeah. Lots of emergencies, so that morning time can be nice. Even if I only use it to eat cereal.

9-5:20
I realize this is the whole day but do you really want to hear what I did? How about this, out of an 8 hour day, I had something like 5 hours of meetings or calls or something. I missed lunch but a co-worker wanted a snack so around 4:15 I ran out to get a sandwich that I INHALED before running to another meeting.
One nice thing about living pretty far from work is I'm tied to the train schedule, which means my day (at least at the office) ends by like 5:30 so I can run to catch the train.

5:45-7 PM
Commute home. Earlier this week NYTransit managed to first run over a guy who wandered onto the tracks (Monday) and then set the tracks on fire (Tuesday). Which caused something in the realm of 60-90 minute delays and OH MAN, THAT MAKES FOR A FUN EVENING.
Me to NJT
I apologize to anyone who follows me on Twitter cos those days were nothing but cursing at the trains. But luckily this day things actually ran on time. I do more reading on the train ride home

7-10 PM
Tom had to work late so I was going to do my own thing for dinner. But since I had just eaten at like 4:30 wasn't super hungry so I did really productive things, like dick around on the computer and watch TV. I did some light cleaning in the kitchen (unloading dishwasher, putting away things on the drying rack, wiping down counters) but that's about it. Tom was originally thinking he'd get home around 9:30 so I was going to make salad for dinner but it ended up closer to 10. Though he brought leftover pizza with him so win.

11 PM
Go upstairs, fall asleep to Bob's Burgers. I'd say repeat except I worked from home the next day so yeah. Similar but not really the same. Will we make it to the gym in the morning before work? (Spoiler, we will not. But we do go after so it's fine.)

If anyone else wants to do one of these day-in-the-life things, I find them super fascinating to read. Even if your day is super mundane (see my entire post), I am still TOTALLY THERE FOR IT

*Past shows include: Scrubs, 30 Rock, Parks & Rec, My Name Is Early, Malcolm in the Middle. If you have recommendations for other 30 min shows that are on Netflix and don't require me to pay a lot of attention, I'm looking for recommendations.
**I had a meeting at a (new to me) client's office and got a note from some members on the account team making SURE I would not dress up for the meeting and that jeans are preferable (4 out of the 5 people in the meeting were in jeans). It was the one day I was thinking maybe I would dress slightly nicer, but not too upset they shot that down before hearing my idea. Thank you, some-what-creative-field, for your lax dress code.