A Day in the Life of Jean-Michel
Jean-Michel Starts His Day
It is 6:45 AM and the alarm bell rings.
Jean-Michel painfully emerges from sleep. Baffled, he looks at where his ex-wife was still sleeping 3 months ago. What a nightmare he’s just had.
He dreamt that he had been fired because his 20-year-old son Jordan had given up on his engineering studies.
This isn’t normal, he thought.
After a quick shower and a cup of coffee, Jean-Michel is about to depart for work.
He has neither the appetite nor the time to eat something consistent in the morning.
His boss is an early bird and hates it to see Jean-Michel arriving late.
He must arrive before 8:30 AM at the office and has at least one hour on the road.
There will probably be some traffic jams.
It is 8 AM. Jean-Michel is in his business car, stuck in a traffic jam.
His company has recently made available a financial bonus for employees that would leave their car home and take public transportation.
Taking the fast train would spare Jean-Michel at least 30 minutes and would pollute less.
But Jean-Michel enjoyed listening to the radio in his car in the morning.
He had been a long-time fan of this hilarious political show where a comedian makes fun of politicians.
Listening to the radio show was probably the best part of Jean-Michel’s day.
He didn’t mind wasting an hour per day driving in his car even if there were better alternatives.
Also, there are always some weird people in the train station which makes Jean-Michel feel uncomfortable.
It’s 8:35 AM. Jean-Michel is parking the car, hoping the boss won’t notice he is 5 minutes late.
He has a meeting with the COO of the company at 9:30 AM and he had been working the entire evening yesterday to be fully prepared.
His boss had told him he was up for a promotion if he did some good work. Jean-Michel saw that promotion as revenge on life and on his ex-neighbor that had moved to Spain with his (now) ex-wife.
He would get that promotion, he knew it!
It’s 10:30 AM.
Jean-Michel got yelled at for being late and the meeting didn’t go very well.
In all the troubles his son had caused him, Jean-Michel had forgotten to look at key indicators on a competitor’s sales during the last quarter.
These numbers were very important to the COO and Jean-Michel had now to fix his mistake.
It’s 12:30 PM. Jean-Michel is sitting with Thierry and Philippe, his favorite colleagues, at the cafeteria of the office.
Thierry is eating a sandwich while Philippe is eating pasta carbonara.
Jean-Michel looks at Thierry’s ham with envy.
He chose a salad.
After his wife had left him, Jean-Michel had decided to become vegetarian to “cleanse his body and soul”, as he had explained to his colleagues.
They had talked on the radio about these recent new studies saying that meat gave cancer.
Jean-Michel’s uncle had died of cancer a couple of years back, so Jean-Michel was afraid the disease was running in his genes.
He had read in a woman lifestyle magazine that a vegetarian diet significantly decreased chances to get cancer, improved energy, and made you lose weight.
He had hence decided to try.
That ham on Thierry’s sandwich looked damn good though.
It’s 2:30 PM. Jean-Michel is drinking coffee to not fall asleep.
Jérémy, the funny colleague that makes everybody laugh, is telling one of his famous jokes and all the colleagues are laughing.
Even Charlotte.
Charlotte has recently arrived in the company and works in Jean-Michel’s department.
She is young, kind, and beautiful.
Jean-Michel thinks she would be a perfect companion to replace his wife, and he might ask her out very soon, maybe at the office party next month.
Jean-Michel knows that dating colleagues is not authorized in the company, but he is probably not going to get that promotion anyway and had been thinking about changing job for a long time now.
It’s 5 PM. Jean-Michel is about to go home after a long day at work.
As he is waiting for the elevator, Anne-Marie, the head of the marketing department, asks Jean-Michel if he can’t quickly come with her to revise some numbers.
Jean-Michel looks at his watch.
He wants to go home and prepare for the game tonight.
His friends are coming to his place and he needs to get the living room ready.
Anne-Marie insists, so Jean-Michel caves in.
It’s 7:30 PM. Jean-Michel has finally arrived home.
The traffic jam was bigger than usual, a truck and motorbike had run into each other. Nicolas, Stéphanie, Victoire, Martin, and Thomas will arrive shortly to watch the game.
Jean-Michel puts the beers in the fridge and while cleaning the living room, stumbles onto a pack of cigarettes.
Jean-Michel hesitates.
It’s been 11 months since he last time smoked.
It’s true he had a rough day and deserves a bit of comfort.
The vegetarian diet has been tough lately even though he’s been feeling much better.
Meat is probably terrible for the human body.
It’s 8:00 PM. Jean-Michel’s friends have arrived.
Even though he won’t admit it, he is relieved deep down to hear that Thomas is also going through a divorce.
He was afraid he’d be the only one in this rough situation and to be made fun of.
Nicolas lost his job and Victoire cannot stand hers anymore.
But now is not the time to think about all that, the game has started and Jean-Michel feels a bit drunk already.
Victoire is really pretty.
It’s 11:30 PM and Jean-Michel is going to sleep.
He will clean the living room tomorrow.
He was happy to watch the game with his friends, it was a good night that compensated for the day.
He shouldn’t have smoked though.
Next month, he will ask Charlotte out and if everything works out, he will quit his job.
Life is not so bad after all.
Jean-Michel closes his eyes and falls asleep.
He doesn’t know that tomorrow, he’ll die in a car accident.
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Photo credit: Photo by Alexander Popov on Unsplash