Page 12 of In the Same Boat

‘Best dad ever,’ I joke.

Do I want to attend an over-fifties dating night? No. But do I want to come back here? Also no. I do want to get my life back, though, and that’s not going to happen until Dad finds one of his own. The sooner I help him, the sooner I won’t have to do things like this.

I can handle being his wingman for just one more night. Right…?

3

SAMMIE

Ugh. My first ‘Happy Fri-yay’ email of the day. There’s nothing happy about waking up an hour before your alarm and then just lying there, making a mental to-do list of all the things you need to do before you can enjoy your weekend. Well, try to enjoy your weekend.

I have a million emails to send. Meetings to sit in on – most of them on Zoom, which makes me wonder why I have to take them here in the office, and not at home, only smartly dressed from the waist up, like normal people. A site visit to arrange, a report to tighten up, a health and safety video to watch – they always make us watch them again when someone does something stupid. It’s boring, and a waste of my time, but so long as it isn’t me who did the something stupid, I don’t mind.

I work as a water engineer and, why yes, I can make the job sound even less impressive. Dirty water is my area of expertise. It’s my job to make sure what goes into the sewers stays in the sewers. I promise you, on first dates, I don’t open with that. Mostly to avoid awkward conversations where people ask me, personally, when I’m going to clean up the Thames so they can swim in it.

‘Sammie, do you have that historic spill data?’ Tom asks, popping up from behind his screen. Our desks are back to back so we’ll often chat while we work.

‘I’m still downloading it,’ I reply, tempted to kick my super-slow work PC to see if it gives it a boost. ‘Historic data can wait, it’s not going to change now…’

Hopefully. I’m sure people have said that before, right before it floats off into the cloud, never to be seen again.

I do like my job. Well, no, I like problem-solving – when that bit actually comes around. It’s just that these days the problems that need solving are mostly clients wanting something for nothing. What I want to be doing is going out on site, envisioning great feats of engineering that are actually useful and help people. Instead I have to think of new and innovative ways to build the same thing over and over again, but just for less money each time.

The more I think about it… do I like my job? I’m starting to think it’s not so much that I like it, more that it just takes up the bulk of my time. I’m pretty much always working – and even when I’m ‘off’ my brain is still very much switched on to it. My annual leave is seriously stacking up – but the problem is, with the exception of a select few, I mostly work with clowns. I’m scared I’ll take a week off and when I come back someone will have changed all my designs, or not done anything in my absence. I’m not sure which is worse.

It’s not that I’m a control freak, I promise, but I know that it will be my job to fix things, if they go tits up. There are two kinds of people in this office – Friday people and Monday people. Friday people clock off early for the weekend. Monday people have to start their week by doing the work that the Friday people sacked off. I would love to be a Friday person. Sadly I’m a Monday person. Actually, no, I’m a Sunday person. I get ahead of the game, worrying about work, feeling like the weekend is over pretty much from the moment I wake up on Sunday morning. The Sundays, that’s what I call it. And it’s stupid really because it makes my weekend feel half as long.

‘Stressful day ahead?’ Tom asks, still peeking at me.

‘How did you guess?’ I ask sarcastically.

‘You’re staring at your screen like you’re about to punch a hole through it,’ he replies.

‘Oh, well, that’s because I am,’ I say casually. ‘You’re so observant.’

‘I try,’ he says with a laugh. ‘Although my wife would disagree.’

‘I’m sure she has her reasons,’ I tell him.

‘I have this theory that she’s messing with me,’ he explains. ‘She asks me to get things, knowing I won’t be able to find them, because she’s hidden them. Then she gets to chew me out, because I can’t find them. Then she finds them right away and I look like a dick. What do you think?’

‘Occam’s razor,’ I reply. ‘The simplest answer is the best place to start investigating.’

‘So you think she’s right?’ he checks.

‘Do I think it’s more likely that you’re terrible at finding things than it is that your wife is actively messing with you for sport?’ I say, as though the answer would be obvious. ‘Yes, I absolutely think that.’

‘Your problem-solving is too basic sometimes,’ he points out.

‘Problem-solving 101 is to always try the easiest, quickest, cheapest thing first,’ I remind him. ‘The equivalent of unplugging it and plugging it in again.’

‘Trust me, that’s not what Sara wants from me…’

I laugh. I’ve met Sara once, she seems really nice. She asked me if I was Tom’s ‘work wife’. I guess I am, if such a thing existed – I’m the one who makes sure he can find things in the office.

‘Site visit later?’ he asks.

‘Nah, I’m waiting until Jon is back – he’s out of the office today.’