Saturday 3 August 2013

Whatever happened to the Intertoto Cup anyway?

Well, it's that time of year again, the football season has officially kicked off but...has it really though?!

   I mean, sure, Jeff Stelling and his merry band of screaming ninnies is back on our screens (every Saturday between now and for the next 58 weeks, it seems) so we can look forward to some 'quality' name-based puns and even more mysterious shouts in the background as a ball is kicked towards a rectangular piece of apparatus (obviously, this being football, that happens so rarely that it often deserves such hyperbolic behaviour).

  But this still seems rather weird and a wee-bitty alien, given that the third ashes test has barely begun, the Open has just recently been completed and - most peculiar of all - the sun is cracking the flags outside!  

  The football season feels like something of an intruder, sticking its nose into things it has no business to, indeed, as a fan of a Premier League (tm) team, I am only just getting my head around the parade of mercenaries currently pulling on the  correctly-coloured jersies ('Jersies'?? How old am I again?!).  This season is in fact SO young that Sheffield United are top of League One, unless you are viewing some 'In-Play' league table (always good at this time of year) and Liverpool are above both of the Manchester clubs (I love the alphabet).

   Of course these 'strange' feelings trickle down to my job (bear with me), it is of course the annual 'Shutdown Season' a similarly strange and confusing time of the year when people who seem almost allergic to work are forced to endure that blight of the offshore worker, the 'Three Weeker' (Shudder!) and perhaps even more unusually you get to see Platform Operators outside of their natural habitat (The Tea-Shack)  This is not the time to be going on your first trip offshore either, given that at this time of year more people than ever will get to see the lovely fluorescent nappy you have to wear on your hat...

  There are so many upheavals during this time that it is something of a relief that the presence of 'Drilling Crew' is almost totally removed (a strange breed of creature that cannot possibly sleep in a bed that is not the same one they have 'enjoyed' since they were a wee-un and are completely banjaxed if they cannot have the same seat in the Galley, Locker, seat in the TV lounge, bed, bedding, pillows, seat in the CCR...you get the idea!)

  As  Ad-Hoc crew members and working for a service company my colleagues and I, of course, get the worst of all possible deals and am very thankful that I managed to grab some of the last available holiday time during the 'months of daylight'.  But that time has passed and I am now fully expecting the phone to ring at about half past eight on Monday morning.  '7 to 10 days' is the advice I'm given down the phone, 'Don't expect to be home anytime soon' is what I actually tend to hear...Yes, this is a time of 3 day jobs lasting 3 weeks, of promised 'Standby Pay' that manages to get lost somewhere between Client and payslip, of lots of work for very little thanks basically (Pity poor me eh?!)

  I don't want to sound like a moaner (too late) because I actually enjoy this period in some perverse (50 Shades) kinda way! Plus it is the time of year when most of my bonus can be accrued so that I can afford to go on holiday next year...

  Shutdown Season and the football season have a lot in common in the end, they are both seeming to creep up on you earlier and earlier and they both seem to last almost all year...but only one actually makes me money.


Neil Hannon rocks!!

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