I slept through my alarm this morning, dragged myself out of bed (and off to work) eventually, and didn't wake up properly till the earthquake hit just after nine. I felt a small jolt followed by a much bigger one that lasted a few seconds. When my boss got under his desk I decided to follow suit. It seems kids are the best people at dealing with earthquakes: my cousin said her boys instinctively got under the table. The timing of the shake wasn't bad for me: when you're not performing, any distraction is welcome. It was a 5.7, tying for the biggest shake I've felt in Wellington, centred at the top of the South Island, at a depth of 16 km. I didn't feel any of the aftershocks.
At various points in the week I thought I was losing my mind. It goes without saying that I won't be attending tomorrow's function. At least at work I can maintain some illusion of normality.
Yesterday when I mentioned the mortgage situation to my doctor, he said I could just get a higher-paying job, like the one that landed me in so much poo in the first place. Is he incentivised for every milligram of Efexor I take, or what? He's trying to pull me back into the vortex of jobs that could kill me. I don't dislike the bloke but as I said last night, he doesn't know me.
The reality is that I'm earning the same (in raw dollars) as I was in 2005, and a dollar buys you about 20% less than it did then. Back then I was flatting in Milford, paying $140 a week in rent. Now I'm trying to pay off this sodding great mortgage on an earthquake-prone apartment. And unless my app takes off, my prospects of increasing my earnings are severely limited. I don't have many marketable skills. Not in this day and age anyway (100 years ago, being able to add and multiply figures would have got you a lot further than it does now).
I'm going on another tramp tomorrow.
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