I’m tired. I’m always tired. Last night I didn’t get home at 20:15 as predicted, I actually got home at 21:00. 3 hours and 45 minutes after leaving my office (too tired to bother claiming compensation from First Capital Connect). After the fun of changing at Stevenage and deciding to write about it, I completely missed my station stop at Downham Market and ended up in King’s Lynn.
To my defence there was no announcement at Downham Market (many unnecessary announcements and a lack of necessary announcements are a feature of First Capital Connect trains – more on that another time), the first I knew that I’d missed my stop was the announcement ‘this train terminates here - all change please’. I looked out at the unfamiliar surroundings, confused as to where I was. I was at King’s Lynn train station and the next train back wasn’t for another half an hour.
I’ve never been so tired as to miss my stop before; even on boozy nights out in the capital I’ve still managed to get on the last train and get off at the correct stop. I think it’s the long-term effect of lack of sleep for the last 11 months (incredibly I’ve been doing an effective 60 plus hour week for nearly a year). I’ve needed great determination, stamina and endurance to get through it all but I’ve started to wonder how long I can do it for.
There are of course those who regularly travel for 4 or even more hours a day, getting to and from work in the capital. They have done it for years and it’s easy to spot them on the train as they are usually asleep. The first time I did this commute I prepared myself as well as I could and bought a newspaper and a bottle of water to have on the train. Between sipping my water and reading my paper I looked around and saw dozens of my fellow commuters asleep. Why sleep on a train I thought at the time. Sleeping is of course a very private thing to do, so to share this moment with dozens of strangers is a bit odd. When I got up the next day for day 2 of London commuting I soon knew why – because you’re so tired.
I’ve since tried sleeping on a train – I managed it quite early on, perhaps into my second or third week of commuting. I got about 30 minutes I think and certainly felt the benefit of it when I got to work. I tried again another day soon after and dropped into a peaceful sleep when I was woken up by a fat businessman shouting into a mobile phone (there are quite a lot of those on First Capital Connect trains). ‘Jake! Jake! Can you hear me?!’ Shocked by the sudden and urgent tone of his voice I woke up, only to discover that sitting opposite me, it was a fat businessman shouting into a mobile phone.
I haven’t slept properly on a train since. I ‘chill’ by shutting my eyes, leaning the side of my head against the window and listening to a podcast or 2. But I haven’t managed to properly sleep since the fat businessman woke me up by shouting (literally) into his phone.
It’s a shame as I could certainly do with all the sleep I can get. Other than missing my stop I have also made a few sleep deprived errors lately. Recently McDonald’s ran a TV advert that depicted sleepy customers making sleep deprived errors and then going for a McDonald’s at 6 in the morning. It’s quite a good advert but it has one major flaw – if the customers are so tired then surely they’d rather spend an extra half an hour or so asleep in bed rather than go to McDonald’s? That’s what I’d do anyway. I minimise my time in the morning by doing as much as possible the night before (showering, ironing etc.), this gives me a precious few more minutes asleep. In the advert tired people are depicted putting milk into the washing machine, pushing on a pull door and wearing odd shoes – I’ve done most of these things recently.
This morning I neglected to do all the buttons up on my shirt, thankfully I soon noticed when I got on the train. I regularly put my belt on the wrong way round, and on a recent dress down Friday I had put my t-shirt on inside out. I’ve forgotten the keys to my desk drawer, have left my homemade sandwiches (I rarely make sandwiches at home now – it’s too time consuming) in the fridge and like the customer in the McDonald’s advert have pushed on the pull door that leads to my office. However, up until I missed my stop on the way home yesterday, my worst sleep deprived error was wearing odd shoes.
The McDonald’s advert finishes with a young woman wearing odd shoes – as if that’s the most ridiculous thing you could do when you’re tired. Well I managed it one morning recently and I didn’t notice until I was getting off the train. I looked down at my feet and noticed 2 black shoes – so far, so good – but then I noticed that each one had a different pattern on top. I had recently bought a new pair of black shoes, very similar to my last, and was wearing a new one on my right foot and an old one on my left foot. Hopefully nobody noticed as they did look similar. It didn’t stop me feeling rather stupid all day.
It’s quite funny really how lack of sleep causes you to make strange decisions. Thankfully I spend my day sitting on a train and at a desk in in an office, so I can’t do much harm, no matter how tired I may be. It makes me appreciate the skill and stamina of equally, if not more, sleep deprived people like surgeons and heavy machinery operators. For them if they make a sleep deprived mistake then it’s a matter of life and death, luckily for me it’s not.
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