but she's not there...

My closest colleague is away for the next two weeks.

We sit next to each other at work and seem to spend nearly our entire working lives as a double-act…. At that big works dinner the other week, we even got presented with an award to share. We’re professionally very closely entwined, defined by the work that we’re doing together, but more than that, we also get on very well: we have similar personalities and we pass the working day quite happily by laughing at the slings and arrows of office politics.

I’ve been back in the office now for almost exactly a year, and by far and away the most rewarding part of my job since my return has been helping this colleague to come out of her shell and to spread her wings a little further and a little wider.

Not that I’m taking all the credit for this, you understand…. She’s more than capable in her own right, in many ways the organ grinder to my monkey, and she’s more than able to look after herself…. but I do like to think that she’s been enjoying her work more since I got back. Hell, even if she’s gained nothing from me, it’s been great fun for me working with her: she’s pushed and challenged me to think about the way that I work. If I’ve achieved anything in the last year, and I think that I have, then a lot of it has been down to her influence over me and the way that we bounce ideas off each other to the greater good.

And now she’s away for a fortnight and I’ve got one of our offshore team desk-sitting at her desk for the next couple of weeks. I arrived in the office a little before 08:30 this morning, and have basically spent all day since then with my headphones on and not exchanging acerbic put-downs across the desk as we nail down the finer details of a new way of working for the department.

It’s been a much more monochrome working day without her.

…or maybe, after downloading a 40-odd track compilation of “Classics and Collectibles” this morning, I’ve just been listening to too much Scott Walker today and his grandiose melancholy is rubbing off on me.

Yeah. On reflection, it’s probably that.

I’ll maybe listen to Abba tomorrow instead*

* I won’t.