Who do you think you are?

I think I am a hummingbird.

I base this on the talk we had Friday 7th March from Selina Byrne. I have been monitoring my sleep patterns and my preferred way of being. She stated that there are 3 types of people. Larks – who love the morning and are bright and chirpy through the early hours but fall in a heap about 9 or 10 at night. Night owls – love the night and find the early hours of the morning difficult to deal with. Often they are snarly people in the early hours but are just hitting their happiest at 11pm.

As I stated I think I am a hummingbird as I would prefer a sleep in but am ok with getting up early most mornings (as long as I get a sleep in somewhere in the week), and I can get into the groove at night time as well. I don’t like staying up too late on a work night as it makes the next day a little hard to deal with but I just hum along with whatever I have to. (Sometimes I can be a little snaky though and I don’t remember that being an option.)

I also have come to realise that I have a work groove and a holiday groove when it comes to sleep patterns. Work groove is something along the lines of bed by 10pm and awake at 6am following day. Holiday groove can become 1am or beyond for going to bed and anything after 8am to get up. The first week back at work after a few weeks of this is a killer getting back into a work groove but after that I am fine.

It’s in the first week back at work that I can have some of the more inane discussions with students, fellow teachers, parents and my own friends and family. These discussions often lead to peculiar glances at me to make sure that I am ok – which I generally am but often have stated something that is physically or intellectually impossible. Reactions are great. I feed of them.

What I do find interesting – besides my own state of being, are those around me. I believe I work with obvious larks, night owls and humming birds BUT I do think there are many categories that haven’t been considered. Vultures – who pick up anything they can from the carnage around them; Lions – who really love the sound of their own roar but often are pussy cats underneath; Hyenas – who laugh manically at the issues others face; Sloths – who will do anything to avoid work but often try to take the credit for the work of others; Bower birds – who collect anything and everything around them (have you seen their desks); and Magpies – who steal from others quite easily but are extremely territorial.

I know some of the categories are not birds but they are animals. I have only really looked at the negative, as it seems that they are jumping out at me the whole time. There are those who could be like Beavers – constantly working for the greater good and Elephants – who work together as a herd to help all around them, but I find that it is hard to find animals to make positive analogies with.

So how would you describe your workplace?