It's over, swanky health club
Breaking up is hard to do...
I’m un-joining the health club. It’s not my kind of place. We signed up in a burst of post-pandemic enthusiasm - and you know what that period in history did to our brains.
We had ‘zoom drinks’. We gave houseroom to sourdough starters that turned against us, bubbling disgustingly and turning black with mould. We lost our minds, wearing the same pair of knickers three days in a row and grabbing bizarre tinned goods from the supermarket.
You hear of people hoarding staples - flour, pasta, that kind of thing. We panic-bought Del Monte Fruit Cocktail.
Don’t ask me why. Perhaps we craved the comfort of sweet, uncomplicated nostalgia - like gathering conkers or watching The Wombles. Ah, nice furry Uncle Bulgaria and a bowl of soft fruit cocktail that you don’t even have to chew - you could gum it - drowned in evaporated milk. Yum!
Needless to say, the fruit cocktail remains in our cupboard untouched. An impulse purchase - but at least it was cheap. Not so with the ruinously expensive club that we joined once lockdown was over.
We reckoned we deserved a treat. The club had an outdoor pool, a hot tub and a co-working room - called the ‘hub’ - where I planned to sip coffee and write as an alternative to working at home.
There would be no distractions at the hub. Books would pour out of me, and instead of writing one a year I’d easily knock out three or four. But pretty soon I discovered that the hub is filled with people conducting extremely loud zoom calls and it’s impossible to write in there. It’s impossible to do anything - apart from gnashing your teeth in deep annoyance.
Now, I love a bit of background hubbub when I’m working. It’s why I enjoy writing on trains and in cafes. I feel more relaxed; more ‘I can do this!’ rather than sitting all hunched in tense silence, thinking This is it. Finally you’re going to be found out as an imposter you fool you’ll never be able to pull this book out of your stupid brain!!!
In cafes, I don’t feel like that. The coffee aromas and background chatter help to relax me. I thought the ‘hub’ would be like that. What I hadn’t bargained for was the place being populated by braying people showing off that they have important jobs, and conducting all their work calls in there.
‘HI TONY YEAH WE JUST NEED THE NUMBERS ON THAT CAN YOU SEND OVER CHARLIE’S REPORT YEAH BRILLIANT LET’S TEE IT UP!’
Is this how workplace life is these days? I have no idea. I haven’t worked in an office since 1996 - when computers were enormous beige carbuncles, the size of a John Lewis branch and whirring ominously and reeking of burning dust. They were also prone to suddenly turning themselves off, and losing all your important work unless you’d ‘saved’ it - and no one bothered with that.
My last proper workplace was the more! magazine office. There was none of that showy ranting that goes on in the hub. It was all chatter and laughter and lunchtime boozing, and acting out positions of the fortnight on the office carpet to see if they ‘worked’ (full clothed, I should add).
That’s how I think of office life: loud cackling and carpet burns. Not LET’S RECONFIGURE THE PROJECTIONS FOR SIMON’S PRESENTATION ARE WE ALL ON THE SAME PAGE JAKE?
It infuriates me, this ostentatious babbling while I’m trying to figure out what should happen in chapter six. I’m not a complainer normally. I have gratefully accepted a coffee that was stone cold, and apologised when a cab driver took me to totally the wrong destination. But recently, in the hub, I sort of cracked and emailed the club’s manager.
Sorry, came the reply, but that’s what the hub is for.
For being a loud, shouty wanker?
When I email the club to cancel our membership - three months’ notice is required - they try to lure us back with two months for free. Don’t break up with us! they’re basically saying. But no. It’s done.
The other thing is proving harder to break up with - but I can’t make myself throw it out.
Del Monte Fruit Cocktail, anyone?
Love,
Fiona xx
PS PHEW it’s a scorcher this week! Perfect for relaxing in the sunshine with my latest - The Man I Met on Holiday. It’s a heartwarming midlife holiday romance - you can order here!
Is it weird that I like fruit from a can? I was raised on it - and naturally, my own children have never experienced it's preservative filled syrupy goodness. My favorite after school snack in elementary was canned pear halves - mmmmmmmm.
This is precisely why they will prise WFH out of my cold dead hands. Office full of people who raise their voice louder every time they think someone’s not listening to them, eat with their mouths open, and comment constantly on people’s weight, appearance, and competence. Urgh.