jackhammers and paint fumes – it’s just another day at the office

After a weekend of heavy reading for the new course, I thought work might offer some light relief today.
Which it has – of sorts. Light-headed relief really. We’ve got the painters in doing touch up work and the whole building consequently is awash with paint fumes. (Awash is probably wrong for fumes, but my brain is not currently providing me with any alternatives so it will have to do for now. If I think of something better I’ll let you know.)
But not only do we have paint fumes to contend with within, there is a jackhammer next door providing a noisy, staccato accompaniment to the fumiferous(?) working day. The combination of fumes and insidious, bone-rattling, nerve jangling vibration has some really seriously weird dental overtones.
Which reminds me that I really should make an appointment to see my own dentist – it’s been a while.
Being a dentist would be a pretty horrible job. Steering a jackhammer would also be pretty rank if you had to do it all day too. Although when I asked the jackhammer guy if he wouldn’t prefer an office job he said, “No way mate. It’d be bad for me mental health”. Actually jackhammers are a bit tame for him, apparently he told one of my colleagues that he’s looking forward to getting a ‘powder monkey’ licence so that he can blow things up. I think he feels he’s wasted on the jackhammer!
Given what I’ve seen (and heard) today though I’ll give both painting and jackhammering a miss in terms of future employment opportunites. Sometimes a little old desk job like mine is not such a bad thing.