Temple Run

I went into the office to meet with my career counselor today, where I found out that I had been rated as "Above" for the past year. It was almost disappointing after being rated "Significantly Above" for the past two years, but I need to remind myself that I'm a level up and started a new job that I know nothing about with a boss on maternity leave for most of the year. Most people would have struggled to hang onto their jobs in such a situation, and here I'm still getting top ratings without really doing any work. Although even my career counselor was apologising for my "low" rating, saying that it had been due to my small comparison group more than anything else, I'd been caught up in a technical glitch. Apparently I'd been rated the top person in my group, and they'd given me the highest rating they could. Which perversely made me glad I hadn't worked any harder over the course of the year, given that my top rating was capped anyway. I sometimes wonder if my company recognises the way they incentivise people.

The real reason for coming into the office was a community meeting, and then after that they cleared out all of the chairs and had a Zumba class in the conference room. It was a bit awkward, as we would be dancing and suddenly the music would cut out. But no more awkward than a bunch of middle-aged executives dancing around a conference room to a Zumba class.

I dashed out about 15 minutes early because the endless pauses were becoming annoying, and to get to the hash. I had over-estimated how long it would take me to get there, as once I arrived I found that only one other person was there. However before long others started arriving, and B turned out to be there!

I hadn't seen B since watching the England vs Scotland game, before he and his girlfriend went to Australia. So it was good to see him and catch up with him again (even if he did make fun of my slow pace on the run).

We ran by the "Occupy London Stock Exchange" protesters out in front of St. Paul's, which was kind of neat to see something we had heard so much about on the news. The second half of the run became suddenly miserable however, when out of nowhere the skies absolutely opened up into a torrential downpour with not even a few seconds warning.

I ran until I found an overhand to huddle for shelter under, figuring I would stay there until the rain passed. (With a shower like that, you were sure it couldn't last long). As I huddled under my little shelter, I spotted two other hashers huddled across the street, and they were pointing over at me and gesturing. I couldn't quite figure out what they were on about, until they suddenly dashed across the street and into the doorway next to me. I'd been standing next to a pub!

So I dashed in as well, and it turned out that one of the chaps had been smart enough to go running with a tenner on him. So he bought us all half-pints, and we spent some time in the pub, drinking up and waiting out the rain.

Finally we decided to head back to the pub, where along the way I got a text from B that he'd lost the group and so decided to go home. I ran into a few guys on their way back as well, and we took a shortcut through Somerset House, but other than that, it was just a straight shot back to the pub.

At that point, there was nobody really there that I knew or felt like chatting to, so after the circle, when Lucia said she was leaving, I decided to head home with her. Early departure from the hash, but one can't stay late every night!