Mission Control

There's been a strange tilting of the balance in the last couple of years or so, I've noticed. I'd spotted an inkling of it before the recession, so it's not just about that - although global economic grimness is exacerbating it. I expect someone has thought up a sexy name for the phenomenon and written about it in G2 or something, but I'm speaking from very personal experience.

It's about polarisation. The growing gulf between people who don't have anything to do (one of my team, a brainy and personable astrophysics masters, was unemployed for seven months and couldn't even get temping work before she came to us); and the people who can't get their heads up for long enough to whimper with exhaustion before the next wave hits them.

I and the people I want to spend time with all seem to be in the second category. Everyone seems to be crazy-busy - and I'm not talking about the kind of pretentious "I'm-soooo-busy" rushing about that we sometimes come across (mainly those Full Time Yummy Mummies). I'm talking about friends who haven't been been seen in weeks. Only the odd brief text to confirm they are alive (just barely). Plans that have to be changed to due to midnight working commitments (mine, theirs, everyone's). Meeting up with anyone at all is like a organising a full military campaign. Diaries, emails, PAs, other parties to be consulted, last minute changes.

I'm approaching my fourth 18-hour day on the trot. We can't carry on like this. Can we? My weeks seem to comprise being bored, tired and lonely in a variety of different venues. My weekends seem to comprise of doing a lot of laundry, cleaning up after people who could do a bit more for themselves, and therefore being in the utility room/supermarket/recycling centre/school uniform shop while the others are enjoying the hot-tub/trampoline/tv/Sunday papers.

This week, I have run workshops, facilitated sessions, held meetings, with probably 100 people, from one end of the country to the other, Bristol to Edinburgh. And yet............and yet.......