I was amused to read a post on LinkedIn (not a phrase one reads very often) from Ash Jones, a Manchester-based entrepreneur, boasting about the success of his company’s “life admin half-day”. Once a month, his staff get paid leave to attend to life’s most onerous chores.
Lest anyone be in doubt about what constitutes “life admin”, Jones lists some examples. Top is “going to the dentist” – great if you see a private dentist and can get an appointment, less great if you live near any of the 91% of dental practices that aren’t taking new NHS patients.
Another item on the agenda is “sending a parcel”. I would say leaving only four hours is optimistic. By the time you have found the tape, scissors and packaging, relearned how to use a pen, then survived the seventh circle of hell (AKA the post office queue), it could well be into the next morning.
Jones is half right when he says: “The last thing anyone wants to do on the weekend is life admin.” But the time is never right for this tedium. The writer Anne Helen Petersen called the syndrome “errand paralysis”, which I can definitely relate to. The other day, I decided finally to replace the lightbulb in my hallway. But what sort of bulb did I need? Peering at rows of options in the shop, my brain began to melt. Halogen, CFL or LED? How many lumens per watt? How many kelvins does it take to change a lightbulb? My hall remains dark.
But at least none of this has an emotional charge – unlike “sadmin”, the endless paperwork that comes as a result of losing a loved one.
Bitter experience causes me to intervene when someone confides in me about a bereavement. The first words out of my mouth are not: “I’m so sorry for your loss,” but: “Make sure you get six copies of the death certificate!” And they have thanked me for it later. At least now, if youare lucky, your boss might pay you to do it.
• Anita Chaudhuri is a freelance journalist and photographer
