A Matter of Time, Money, and Mind-Melt

 

Someone on duty asked me a routine question about their payslip, so I dutifully scampered off to check my own. There it was, sitting proudly in my inbox. Excellent. Must be pay day.

Naturally, I executed the sacred monthly ritual: opening the banking app with the quiet expectation of sudden, lavish wealth.

The balance was entirely unchanged.

Naturally, I blamed technology. Clearly, the app was having a moment. I logged on via the computer, expecting hard-wired truth to prevail. Still nothing. Queue the mild panic.

I consulted the voice of reason, the wife.

"Don't panic," she advised, with the patience of a saint married to a confused man. "It’s probably just a system mix-up. Ask your work colleagues if any of them haven't been paid."

It felt like sound advice. I popped onto the workplace WhatsApp group and fired off a tentative query.

The responses arrived in rapid, brutal succession:

 * Response 1: "No, I didn't get paid today." (A glimmer of solidarity!)

 * Response 2: 🤣

 * Response 3: 😱

 * Response 4: "You plonker, pay day is next week."

I navigated the transition from blind panic to existential embarrassment in roughly four seconds. Glorious.

I am, of course, fully blaming nocturnal shift work for utterly scrambling my brain. Classic Underground move, really.