Coming and going

Back at work today, just in time to say goodbye to Chloe.

It’s funny when you only go to work once a week (not considering the fact that I missed so many days this year because of the extension). People arrive, start work and become part of the office then, seemingly suddenly, they vanish again.

I think the museum has a lot of people on contracts which don’t get renewed. Not because of bad work, I should stress. More because the budget doesn’t allow them to renew them. It’s very sad but means the people get to work in different institutions as they hop from contract to contract.

Chloe, for instance, is off to the Royal Academy and, while she was sad to say goodbye, she’s really looking forward to it. I have no idea what she’ll be doing with them or, in fact, what she did with us.

Eventually, of course, her position will be filled and the whole thing will start again. It reminds me of Telewest and all the contractors who skipped through our lives. You’d meet them one day, have a drink with them on a Friday, maybe discuss various improvements in technology with them and then, as quickly as they appeared, they’d be gone. You’d ask around and be told they’d gone to pastures new. It’s odd and a bit disconcerting for permanent staff members.

To ‘celebrate’ Chloe’s leaving, we had the usual tea and stickies, as Nick at Work calls it (it’s a quote from The Goodies which he’s always eager to tell the ‘youngsters’ who invariably say “What?”) and, because it’s near Christmas, this included a small stollen.

Now, thanks to Ina, I LOVE stollen. Even given my failed attempts to make one myself, I still love stollen. When I was asked if I’d like a piece of cake, I surprised them all by saying “Yes please…is that stollen?” You see, I don’t usually have cakes at work. It’s nothing to do with being good (I love cake…did I say how much I like stollen?) but I feel it’s a bit of an intrusion when I’m only there once a week and I am only a volunteer.

Anyway, I was told it was, in fact stollen (like I didn’t know!) so I said I’d like a piece. Howard (the other Friday volunteer) followed saying how he’d love a bit as well and then Nick. As we partook, everyone then recounted how much they disliked either marzipan or fruit cake or, in one sad case, both.

Having eaten our pieces of German delight, we waited the proper amount of socially acceptable time to elapse before Howard and I reached over and grabbed the rest of it. Given no-one else liked it, it seemed the only thing to do.

As for work, nothing truly momentous happened and I didn’t uncover an amazing story about a forgotten person of maritime history. I did find one model maker but, other than his address in 1893, I couldn’t find anything else. (His name was Thomas Green, in case I do find anything at some later date.)

And that was my day.