I remember walking quickly as I usually do, my watch tracking my pace. It was 2.4 kilometres from my parking spot on Norfolk Road to Carnival House. On a good day it took 23 minutes, 3000 or so steps, 170 calories. Everything measured and recorded. I loved the metrics, the daily routine: found myself calmed and centred by the time I arrived at work.
There was a ripple in the routine that day, though: a rawness in my chest, a sense of struggling, a little, to draw breath. I remember thinking, with a flash of annoyance, that I was coming down with a cold. Nothing major, just another skirmish in the seasonal battle to stay healthy.
That was the last normal day.
Monday 16 March, 9am. I didn't park in Norfolk Road that day. I parked across the street from the office, paid the exorbitant fee, walked the hundred metres or so to the main entrance. Reached the first floor with the breath rattling in my chest, my hands shaking as if I'd run a marathon rather than (foolishly) climbed a flight of stairs.
It was 19 days since I had last seen my desk, and they had not passed pleasantly. Nobody wants to read about it any more than I want to write (or think) about it. But the gist is this: my 'cold' turned into something nasty with some - though not all - of the hallmarks of you-know-what. By 16 March I was barely functioning, just beginning to rejoin the world as it started to fall apart.
Carnival House in Southampton is home to P&O Cruises and Cunard, two of Britain's oldest and best-loved cruise lines. For the past nine months, I had been applying my meagre skills to the Herculean task of turning Cunard's attractive but disjointed website into something befitting one of the world's most famous luxury brands. Our small but well-formed digital team was part of a high performing, 60-strong sales and marketing division. They are some of the most talented and dedicated people I have ever worked with, and I was privileged to be among them.
The work was challenging and exciting, the travel industry - new to me - endlessly fascinating. The environment was creative and supportive and flexible. For the first time in years, I felt valued. I belonged. And the coffee was free.
Over the weekend of 14-15 March, after battling on for two months in the face of a deepening global health crisis, the Powers That Be made the difficult - and unavoidable - decision to call a halt. Despite stringent - and successful - pre-departure screening and on board hygiene procedures, ports across the world were beginning to close; cruise itineraries had been altered and re-altered, but we could only go so far. The ships remained Covid free, but we were approaching the point at which we could no longer guarantee the safety of our guests and crew. There was no option but to pause operations. Every forthcoming cruise would be cancelled and our ships - scattered across the globe from St Kitts to Sydney - would be turned around.
I remember the entire Cunard team being called together to relay the news, remember standing with knees knocking, battling to take it in as my body threatened to dump me into an embarrassing heap on the floor. Shocked at my frailty, I left the office a couple of hours early. It was to be my last day there: later that evening we were asked to work from home the following day if possible. By midweek that had been upgraded to 'do not visit the office unless there is a critical need to do so'.
Two days after that - on Friday 20 March - the UK entered lockdown. Along with many businesses, schools and childcare settings would be shut indefinitely. Our daughter was a month short of her fourth birthday and due to start Big School later this year; since the age of eleven months, she'd attended a local nursery whose wonderful staff and facilities had played a huge role in her life. Suddenly we faced the real possibility that she would not return, that this era would end prematurely. The finality of it proved too much for my normally pragmatic wife; at collection time that awful Friday, she burst into tears and took half the room with her.
During the following days, the company's focus turned to repatriating thousands of guests and crew, cancelling tens of thousands of bookings and dealing with the fallout, and bringing the ships home. And like millions of others, we adapted to working remotely, living on Zoom as our world contracted to the four walls of our home, as the roads emptied and the skies above fell silent. We coped, somehow, with the challenges of two full time jobs and full time childcare. To their great credit, our employers were understanding and flexible, adapting their ways of working to our needs.
And still I battled to recover. Four weeks since I had first fallen ill, I was still coughing, still sleeping in fits and starts. I had lost five kilograms in weight and although my appetite was slowly returning, I still struggled to concentrate for more than a few minutes and felt exhausted after a short walk. Embarrassed at my continued weakness after so much time off work, I did my best to hide it from my colleagues. But my performance, I knew, was suffering.
The media did their usual worst as the pandemic approached its peak, twisting the knife and deepening the fear and anxiety. But we had made a conscious decision to withdraw, to focus on our bubble. We settled into a routine of sorts, our daughter happy, for now, to be at home with us. By the second week of April - Easter week - I felt almost well: focused and productive at work, taking the first steps towards my usual fitness regime. After seven brutal weeks, our tide was slowly beginning to turn.
And then everything changed again.
On Wednesday 8 April we learned that Carnival UK was to take advantage of the government's furlough scheme; within the hour, I was informed that I would be among the 300 or so furloughed staff. I accepted with mixed feelings; happy to do whatever was necessary to help the business, a little relieved at the reduction in the household's overall workload... but mostly, bitterly disappointed. It had been a hard road back to full health and productivity. I wanted to make up for lost time, support my beloved team through the challenges that lay ahead. And I felt a simmering unease at the prospect of being out of the loop in such turbulent times.
Stop being ungrateful, I told myself. Benched on full pay (the company topping up the government allowance) with a garden and easy access to green space... there were many in far worse situations. And so we adapted again. While my wife toiled at her laptop, my daughter and I found endless new ways of entertaining each other. We were joined by an ever-evolving cast of fluffy toys and imaginary characters; as the days lengthened and the weather warmed, we ventured a little further afield for our alotted hour of exercise.
Despite the best of intentions, my contact with my work colleagues diminished as we faced a very different set of challenges each day. Very quickly, my ten months at Carnival began to feel like another lifetime, a golden era. As the days and weeks of lockdown ran together like spilled paint, I reverted to my default role of Daddy - but without the safety net of nursery and childminder.
I'm blessed with a wonderful little girl, a person of keen wit and impish humour, of kindness and strength and beauty, of occasionally terrifying athleticism. I could burst with pride, and I love her more than mere words can encompass. But she is demanding of time, energy and patience as only a four year old can be. For hours at a time, days at a time, it was just the two of us: the responsibility lay heavy, the mental and physical strain relentless.
There were tears and tantrums and moments of pure, teeth-grinding frustration. But they were balanced by laughter and sunshine and simple fun. Although the world had ground to a halt, some wheels continued to turn: September and school drew steadily closer. We were hugely relieved when our daughter landed a place at the local primary, where she would join most of her closest nursery friends. Her fourth birthday passed without the raucous party it deserved, but there were balloons and banners, a Shawn the Sheep cake, and a new trampoline.
The cake (baking and decorating of) and trampoline (purchase and assembly of) were the work of my long-suffering wife, who learned to switch seamlessly from work to Mummy mode at the end of an exhausting day and somehow found the energy to lift the mood of the household. I got us through the week, but it was she who provided the highlights: a first tentative walk in nearby woods after weeks of housebound isolation, socially distanced visits to the gardens of friends and relatives, an unexpectedly wonderful afternoon on a deserted Bournemouth beach.
We needed those moments of wonder, those happy memories, because the reality outside our bubble grew bleaker by the day. It had become clear that the economy, and the travel industry in particular, faced its deepest crisis for a generation. Not even a company as profitable as Carnival would escape unscathed. The news was shocking when it came, but not surprising: we would be entering a period of consultation, starting in early May and ending on 30 June, when a large number of staff would be made redundant.
Now our daily games and rituals took on a new role: of diversion for me as well as my daughter. The minutes dragged; at quieter moments I fancied I could hear the clock ticking in my head. Having tentatively restarted my running regime in mid April, by mid June I was pushing my body as hard as I could, finding release in exhaustion from the piano-wire tension of waiting for news.
Again, it was a sledgehammer blow when it came. And again, there were no surprises. For a variety of reasons beyond my control I had fully expected to face the axe. But the reality was almost impossible to bear: my last working day had passed without my knowledge. I would not enter Carnival House as an employee again. I would never again contribute to the Cunard website which I so loved, warts and all. I would be cast out of the dream team. I have never in my life felt so crushed.
I bore no ill will toward my employers. From the top down, they had been transparent and honest and supportive and honourable. Ultimately, they had been devastated at the measures they had been forced to take, to ensure the company's survival. I had heard from all sides, over and over, that we were victims of circumstance, nothing more. But the tendrils of self-doubt are insidious: had I somehow ensured my own downfall? Was there more that I could have done?
The fact that more than 400 of my colleagues and friends were going through the same agony was of little consolation.
That was a month ago, and the pain has dulled. I've dragged myself back onto the merry-go-round of job-hunting, kept up my running, tried to be nice Daddy instead of distracted, grumpy Daddy. Tried, also, to put my energies into appreciating what I have, rather than mourning what I've lost. I have a life, a wonderful, supportive family. I can feel the sun on my face. And there's always wine.
My daughter's nursery was able to reopen. It isn't quite the way it was - nothing is - but she's back amongst her friends, watched over by the staff whose superhuman qualities I now appreciate more than ever. She's in safe hands during these last crucial weeks before the most seismic shift of her life.
My former team haven't faded into the woodwork and nor have I: we've stayed in regular contact and a picnic is planned for the coming weeks. And I've revised my earlier mindset: being part of the Cunard family was my dream job. I'm not letting it go forever. So:
I might have worked my last day.
I might not enter Carnival House as an employee again.
I might not get another chance to contribute to the Cunard website.
But there will be an end to this. And when it comes, I look forward to the Cunard and P&O ships - my ships - lifting anchor and moving away from their various mooring points along the south coast. I look forward to seeing them in port, welcoming guests and sailing the world again. And if there's the merest hint of a glimmer of a chance, I'll do everything I can to return to Carnival House.
Because it's where I belong. And the coffee is free.
No comments:
Post a Comment