I drive to work. Every single day. I have to. And I hate driving to work. I would much rather sit on a train and control my motion sickness, than drive. Alas, I drive and as a result, I'm often dodging an accident - caused by someone else, or watching someone who swerves from left to right, incapable of staying in their lane.
I arrive at work and regale my team with the miracle of my safe arrival. They all nod and smile, knowingly, and say, "Yeah, the road is full of idiots. No-one can drive anymore." We share, round robin style, driving tales of woe about how they too, saw an idiot driver this morning on the way to work.
I never questioned the validity of these arguments, until one day a few years ago; I drove behind a colleague, who drove like a lunatic. She was all over the road, checking her phone, not indicating, not merging until the last minute, changing lanes for no reason, driving in the right hand lane at a slow speed etc. Unbelievably, she arrived at the meeting safe and sound.
At the following week's Friday drinks I said "since there are 30 of us around this table, and because of the undisputable facts relating to the law of averages, one of us must be a bad driver," I pause for dramatic effect, looking coquettishly underneath my eyelashes at the disastrous driving colleague. " I mean, think about it - we can't all be great drivers, at least one of us has to be crap, right, it only stands to reason. There's a bell curve to driving like there is to everything else." Of course, no-one thinks they're a bad driver. If they do, they won't admit it in a public setting.
But it got me thinking.
Now, I've realised that the tone of this blog is lowering faster than a pair of porn star's panties, but I started to question how many people I have worked with and what they might get up to in their nocturnal activities - in a completely not weird way.
I used to know a dominatrix, when I was younger. She was very insane, but also, in light of her career choice, more normal than one would expect. If she walked passed you in the street, you'd never think she tied men, and some women, up. Or walked over them in stilettos, whipped them and sometimes even burnt them, just for fun.
She told me that the boring looking Clark Kent types have the odd insatiable and sometimes embarrassing cravings for the perverse. Living in my little bubble, I found this all very fascinating. We're not talking about the colleague that told me about the intricacies of her vibrator purchase, or about the woman who once professed she desperately needed a holiday so she could get some action with her husband. We're talking about the ones who have an S&M closet, the ones who visit the prostitutes, or the ones who advertise for a third sexual partner, so their husband can watch the action from the closet. Oh wait, I know of one of those. It's the life of a friend of a friend of mine.
But, again, as the law of averages suggests - one of these folk must walk among us at work. And while I honestly couldn't care less about what people do in their own time, it makes me laugh a little that we all go to work, looking respectable and then at night and on the weekends there are some who are completely different. I used to work with a woman who wore bad fitting shift dresses to work and ugly court shoes. I was told she was a Goth on the weekend. I can't say I was altogether surprised. I'm not sure why she felt she couldn't be herself, nothing that outrageous about being a Goth.
There must be loads of people like this. Those that are totally different at home to who they are at work. The ones that have two lives, and are never going to be able to be true to who they really are because of fear of being ridiculed. Or perhaps, these folk believe they have to stifle their true selves because perhaps who they are will shock and appal. There's the argument that without laws, we'd live in a state of anomie - a crazy sociological term that means without laws, rules and social pressures, we would all be running around naked, shagging everything that moved, killing people, overthrowing the government etc. Still, we should be able to deviate a little from the norm, surely, to at least wear what we want and be who we really are, at work?
Anyway, aside from the dark realms of humanity, I sometimes wonder, who, in the office, am I taking instruction from, giving instruction to, collaborating and negotiating with or influencing, is the one who goes home pops a dog collar around their neck, chains themselves up and has someone whip them, for pleasure?
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