Slow burn

You'd think my flatmates, at least, the primary victims of my recent moodiness, would have learnt not to annoy me by now. You'd also think that they'd have learned to leave work before 7 on a Friday night for their own sanity, as well. But no, it turns out that Flatmate L has taken her workaholism to a whole new level, and managed to set a match to my fuse into the bargain.

I'm not that into work. We have established this. That said, I felt at least a little better about the fact that I didn't hit today's deadline, knowing that I had put in a solid couple of hours overtime in the attempt. I'd worked as many hours in the week as I would have before our hours (and pay) were cut. I didn't feel good about myself, but I didn't feel like I was in imminent danger of being fired for being slack, either. Sure, I procrastinated, but I had a fair crack. If they want more than that, they've got to pay me for it. But Flatmate has a whole other approach to her work. She lives it, breathes it, lives for it, and will one day die for it, I don't doubt for a second. Working in a financial role, she has manic periods at the end of every financial year, and then six months later when they test all their budgets and forecasting. But in other years, the bits in between have been semi-normal. Until now. Because it's not end of financial year, or half year. In fact, it's a long weekend. And she's not home from work yet.

There are no deadlines that aren't self-imposed. She's brought this on herself. And we're about to head off to Norway tomorrow. She has no clean clothes. She informed me last night that she doesn't even have enough clean underwear, as far as she knows. I'm a little wary about sharing a room, after that announcement. But beyond that, she hasn't even gotten her bag out of the closet to think about packing. She is notorious for last minute packing, but this is almost as extreme as when we went to say goodbye to her before she moved to the UK, leaving it until about 5 hours before the flight, to find her sitting on the floor beside an empty suitcase. But at least then she was doing the work herself.

Because the bit that has me all fired up was the fact that I got a call at around 10 o'clock, having just virtuously finished my healthy dinner and cleaned up after myself - dishes and all - and starting to contemplate what I was going to be throwing into the backpack that never got put away after Scotland last month. The phone call wasn't the usual, "I'm just leaving now," call. It was a "Can you pack for me" call. Call me nuts - OK, so right now my anger management issues are probably suggesting that I am a little batty - but asking someone to do your packing for you so you can stay at work, when it's 10 o'clock on a Friday night before a long weekend, before you're going to another country, is not entirely appropriate. So I ask you, how much should you expect of the person who booked the flights, booked the hotels, presented you with an itinerary, and opened the web pages for you to book the few things she couldn't afford because she'd already maxed out her cards on the other things for both of you without seeing a penny in return? Is it OK to put work ahead of everything else in your life - health, friendships, hygiene, sanity? Because right now, I'm thinking this is the question that L needs to be asked. And I'm thinking I'm not the right person to be doing the asking. Because to say my temper is a slow burn is like saying the Chernobyl nuclear plant had a small leak.