You Snooze You lose- Or maybe you win

You Snooze -You Lose or maybe You Win.

There he goes again. The big boss man out to a “business lunch”.

Yeah, right buddy! you have one every day so you can expense your steak lunches and booze up, all on the company dollar. You are a pro at what you do, I will give you that. Client schmoozing is right up your alley, with that charismatic look of yours and that slick tongue. But you would be nothing without me. ME! The one that sits here and does the early mornings and the late nights. All the extra reports and research I do which is assigned to you. All with a dim glimmer of hope that you will give me the pay rise or the bonus I rightfully deserve. But that will not happen. You need me to stay here as your lackey. Argh... just Promote me you big jerk!! You are the face and I am the brains, the grunt work, the real deal. I just don’t look like you and cannot talk like you. So, I’m left back here being the whole reason we are successful without any accolades or reward. You go off in your Porsche and I go home on the train. You go home to a mansion complete with a wife and children who love you. I go home to my studio apartment that sits above a Mexican restaurant that has tequila drunk spewers at the doorstep inevitably every Friday night... yeah thanks $5 Fajitas Friday’s!

Yes so ...Off you go... big boss man... let me stay here eating my canned tuna and crackers. I love my job... I love my job... I love my job... pfft... Do I...

Let me flashback to the start of high school...

“What do you want to be when you grow up Saskia Rose?”

“A Doctor miss. Coz I want to help people.”

“That’s a lovely plan Miss Rose. Now, In order to accomplish this, you will need to focus on your maths and your sciences.”

Well thanks Mrs Grover. Sound advice. And I really did listen to you, but the fact that I couldn’t stomach all that other humany bits stuff and sick people didn’t really allow that to pan out. So here I am instead, putting my maths brain into number crunching in big pharma. Managing margins on products that may or may not make people better, hating my

boss. Oh, you know what? stuff it- I’m packing up for the day... I need a break from this all... Argh.... now I have to face the long journey home...

Seriously City rail ... must we all be shuttled around like sardines! Get some extra carriages. This summer heat has sweat levels soaring and BO stenches wafting. Suits, school kids and professions of all walks of life standing ankle to ankle & toe to toe.

Gradually as the stops keep coming and the doors open /shut/open, we get some fresh air, and the numbers of sardines dissipate. At least I’m at the end of the line... so I’m guaranteed to get a seat eventually.

I slide into the seat now just three stops till home. Just one old man snoring away and me. I hate it when people fall asleep on the train. Not because I really care about the snoring (that’s what headphones are for) but my anxiety peaks for them. Like, are you going to miss your stop... what’s going to happen to you?!!!

So, in aid of alleviating some of my own anxiety I tap old man snoring on the arm. He startled awake and I say excuse me you have fallen asleep and I don’t want you to miss your stop... He shakes his head and says thank you thank you...stands up walks to the map looks out the

window at where we are, and there it is. He panics! Grabbing his head, saying I’ve been asleep for ages oh no no no.

I calm him down telling him he can change at the next stop as it is a major junction, and he thanks me and pops out the doors as soon as they open.

I unpause my music and breathe as it’s just two more stops and no more looming anxiety for a stranger. Sia sings her heart out and my mind relaxes. As my foot tap tap taps on the floor, I’m looking around the empty carriage... feeling free to sing a little louder cos no ones there. Ohhh nooooo ... old man snoring has left his satchel on the chair... anxiety levels raise once more. Damn it! Now I’m responsible for a stranger’s satchel!! Arghhh

I grab the satchel and look for a wallet or anything with a name / number on it...

the satchel has nothing really in it... a newspaper folded to the sports pages, a little black moleskin book and some receipts and tickets. Argh. I take the satchel home with me and throw it on my couch. I’m way too tired to deal with this right now. Glass of wine , a bite to eat, a long hot shower and then I’ll look at this problem again.

Ok mr satchel what clues have you got for me as to who old man snoring is. I open up the little black book... pages and pages of numbers and percentages, lists and lists of names and dates and odds. So old man snoring occupies his days with gambling. Huh...well educated gambling it seems, I can tell by the formulas he has written in the margins. Very interesting. Well, good on him- nice way to pass the time in your retirement. But no owners name is listed in this book. As I flip through the book there are more and more receipts and tickets sitting within the pages. Looking over them brings success. Great detective work Saskia! These tickets are all stamped at the same TAB - Angel place. Great! that’s in the city not far from my work. I’ll go back there and hand the satchel in, they must know old man snoring with all this gambling evidence it looks like he is there daily.

Phew... anxiety alleviated I can go to sleep!

Walking into this TAB was so weird. I was expecting a totally sticky floored, smoky dive of a place; with sad old punting hopefuls sitting around. This was nothing of the sort. It was well lit, large and opulently furnished actually and had a curved room of screens and computers for clientele to work on; even a private concierge. Well nice to know the gambling losses of the patrons have gone in to making this place a chic establishment. I am confident that a place like this knows their regulars, they will know who to give the satchel to.

The concierge girl is professionally attired and asks how she can help. I explain the satchel incident and her face immediately changes. She tells me to wait here. Anxiety levels begin to climb... ummmm what has she got me waiting for? I hope she doesn’t think I stole this... I’m just handing in a lost and found.

Concierge girl returns with a tall well-dressed man. Who I can only assume, is this fancy TABs manager.

“Hello my name is Carter Cleveland, I am the Manager here and I want to thank you for bringing this back. We have an old man who has been fretting all night and morning over this”.

“Yes no worries, sorry.. he left it on the train and I didn’t steal anything I promise...but I had to go through it to find who to return this too.. his little black book and the tickets inside it led me here... I figured this was important and hoped you would know who owned it.”

“Ah well yes we do know who owns it. That belongs to Kristian & Yes it is important. That little black book is very important to him... it’s a book that he considers his whole livelihood. When you looked through it you must have noticed the crazy amount of information it holds.”

“Well yes I did actually... but I didn’t really understand it all, guess he is really familiar with all these sports and players and things. Great for an old man to have such a great pass time”

“ A pass time ( he laughs a little) more like his life. Kristian is my father and a booky here...and he works out the odds ... he is an old man that doesn’t like technology, so he insists on using that little black book for everything! It has client lists /odds ...everything. You have no idea how valuable that is. So sincerely I thank you miss, and I want to give you a reward for bringing this back. With that he pulled out a ticket from the little black book...

“Here go claim this ticket it’s a winner. Thank you, Miss Rose.” And with a big smile he walked away with the book and the satchel.

I stood there for a moment ... feeling strange ... How funny...

Looking at my watch I realise I need to get back to work. I’ll go claim this ticket quickly, after all it may mean a nice steak dinner for me tonight :)

I take the ticket to the cashier and she advises me I’ll need to log in to the app to have this amount of money go as a bank transfer. I smile big as I type in my details to the computer and excitedly say “ Wow, it must be more than $100 that’s soo awesome”. The cashier looked at me with a raised eyebrow... “Yeah, it’s more than $100” and then smiled and wished me well as I left.

I get back to work and log on to my banking... as I look at the screen, I gasped... like actually gasped... in shock... $20000 credited to my account... O.M.G was this guy serious... that book must have meant a hell of a lot!! Thank you, old snoring man, from the train. I can now afford a car to get around and never have to put up with being a train sardine again!