Work is done as a team and the set-up is such that we dont have dedicated cubicles. Our team is holed up in this one large area perimeter bounded by office dividers made up of the same materials used to make individual cubicles. I've no qualms about this set-up since I think it best promotes the team environment where the physical boundaries are shed to the bare minimum. Only the boss has his own cubicle which is also within our group's premises.
So while it supports working as a team, there will be instances where the lack of boundaries won't shield you from the separate smaller scale activities, discussions, small talk, which you are not part of but which, if you cant zero in on what you are doing, your focus will be drawn into. They are like black hole patches whose gravity pulls me in.
That's why I mostly get things done at night and as such I also leave the office late. I've my own set of standards regarding working at late hours. If I feel that the work I rendered at the morning was compromised because of the distractions I don't file OT.
I leave office usually past 10pm. Often around the 11pm-12:30am period. At this time when there are few public transport options available I've no choice but to ride a taxi up to where I could drop off to ride a bus. Taxis aren't cheap and taxis aren't neccessarily the safest mode of transpo especially if you are a woman. There've been a fair share of taxi horror stories but at this ungodly hour, you're better off riding the taxi despite the cons I just mentioned. It's like choosing the lesser evil. Besides, I'm this huge chunk of a man with a deep bass voice delivering in a no nonsense tone that the few bad egg drivers would be wise enough to regard me as the last person they would try to mess around with. While I am not entirely pinning my safety hopes on this shock/intimidate factor it is actually one thing that I welcome I have thanks to genetics. Most of the time you win the war just by being there. Ask the US military. The war best won is the one where you wont have to use any weapons.
Taxi travel depends on where I decide to drop off. So long as i'm on this major avenue where the buses ply their route I am ok. But when it is this late, when there are very few buses, I try to cover the entire stretch of the avenue up to where I can find the last remaining buses which are concentrated usually at the last pick up point prior to going to the freeway.
When my spider sense tells me that the taxi driver aint really one of them few bad eggs(let me belabor the FEW part), I talk to them. Talking does two things really
1. It keeps the driver awake. 11pm, these drivers arent really the most alert person you will find.
2. I've still this sneaky feeling that some taxi meters are rigged and that the drivers go from rigged to unrigged at a push of a button. If they see you as the "to be rigged" kind, then prepare for some pocket burning. If you earn their good will, they may not push that button........kidding, it's a joke. There aint any buttons but there are tampered taxi meters.
I just talk to the driver to while away my time and to get a feel of how they are belonging to this segment of society. There are lessons you could learn from them that you won't hear from the academe. They got it from the school of hard knocks.
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