It’s true. Because there’s not that whole “look at me I’m working working working until 7pm at night” thing going on here, I feel able to come in early and leave early. Consequently in the mornings I’m straight out of bed, feed the cats, nip under the shower, focus purely on the important bits, get dressed, pat Jasper, wake Caro up and then I’m on the bus.
  
I try to remember to do things in that order.

Our working day here is 7.5 hours a day. This means I could be away just after 4pm if it were not for the fact I am meeting you for lunch. Meeting you means I will have to stay at work to the ungodly hour of 5.30pm. Tch. You are SUCH a pest.

I’m using my bus-time to read The 100 Year Old Man. He’s just put the young man in the container to Addis Ababa.

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Thank you for your early morning itinerary. You missed out going to the loo (unless you combine that with your shower).

I will still be wandering out of here at 4pm. I will probably be seen as staying late and people will look confused as I have normally legged it more than an hour earlier!

Bring on lunch. I am trying not to look at the menu in case it makes me hungry as it is still about 3 hours to go.

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For the record, I save loo visits for work. I get some sort of thrill out of being paid for taking a waz.

If you must work late, promise me that you will act like a surly teenager between 2.30 and 4pm. Roll your eyes, sigh a lot and claim that “no-one understands me or my generation.” You could even leave your coat on the floor and groan dramatically when someone asks you to hang it up.

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I threw my first email strop today. That didn’t take long.

Let us just say that you are lucky with TSP. The system I’m having to work with here sends you error messages every time you try to enter anything. And then you get snooty notes from Finance asking why your time isn’t logged correctly. So I got on my high horse and used words like “serious issues” and “escalate.” It felt good, like I was fighting the machine. I’m like Robin Hood combined with Esther Rantzen.

I hope nothing bad is going to happen to Sonja the Elephant. If it does, I shall HATE this book and hold you personally accountable.