Three alarms. Two hairdryers.
One narrow corridor. I am not asking for a convent. I am asking not to start work already fully irritated today.
That is not a personality. That is a Tuesday.
I do lates and earlies depending on the rota. When it is an early, I need the morning to be boring. Kettle. Face. Boots. Out. What I get instead is a house that sounds like it is being assembled from scratch every day at twenty past six.
The alarm that is not for me still wakes me
Nobody thinks their alarm is the problem. That is the whole joke. You set three because you do not trust the first one. You snooze because you are tired. You sleep through the noise that is now living in someone else’s wall.
I have lain there counting them. First one. Snooze. Second one, slightly more aggressive, like the phone has taken it personally. Third one that goes on long enough for me to invent a whole speech I will never give because I have to be civil in the kitchen ten minutes later.
I am not a light sleeper in a poetic way. I am a person who has work and a face to put on and a limited amount of patience before I get on the bus looking like I want to fight the ticket machine.
People on their phones talk about this like it is a moral failing. It is not. It is a shared wall and a cheap door and a phone speaker that thinks it is a fire drill. I have done the same thing on a day off. I know. That is why I am allowed to be annoyed. I have been the problem. I just do not want to be the problem at 6.12 when I have a warehouse to get to.
The corridor is doing too much
Our hallway is not a hallway. It is a suggestion of space between three bedrooms and a bathroom that already has opinions. You cannot walk down it without announcing yourself. Floorboards. A shoulder on the wall. The particular thud of someone who is late and pretending they are not.
Add two hairdryers and it becomes a small industrial estate.
I need the mirror. I have said that before. I will say it again. I cannot leave the flat looking half finished. That is my thing. It is also their thing. Fine. We all want to look like we slept. We cannot all roar hot air at our heads in a box the size of a polite argument at the same time.
One of them dries in the bathroom. One of them dries with the bedroom door open like sound does not travel. I am in the middle with wet hair, a mascara wand, and the kind of smile you use when you are about to be late and still have to be liked.
I am 5’3″. I should not have to side step a person, a towel, and a plug socket before I have had tea. And yet.
I am not anti hair. I am anti timing.
Dry your hair. Be pretty. Be the main character. I do it too. I will stand in that bathroom longer than I should, talking to the glass, deciding if I look smug enough to get through the day.
Do it at a time that does not turn the whole flat into a salon attached to a fire alarm.
If you are up at six because you have to be, I get it. I am up at six because I have to be. That is the overlap. That is where a system would help. Not a laminated rota like we are in a hostel. Just an agreement that two dryers do not need to have a duel while someone is still trying to find socks.
I have stood in the corridor with my bag and felt my jaw go tight. That is the bit I hate. Not the noise itself. The fact I am already bracing before I have left the building. I want to be cocky on the floor. I do not want to use up the cocky on a hairdryer.
What I said, because leaving it breeds rot
I used to do the British thing. Hint. Sigh. Make a joke that is not a joke. Hope they clock it.
They do not clock it. They are half asleep and late, same as me.
So I said it in the kitchen, which is where we dump every feeling that would sound too official in the living room. I said I am not asking anyone to get ready in the dark. I said one alarm is a wake up. Three alarms is a concert. I said if you need the snooze, put the phone under the pillow or get one of those watch things that buzzes so the rest of us are not in the audience.
I said hair is fine after the first person out has actually left, or we take turns on the bathroom like adults who pay rent rather than siblings fighting over a charger.
One of them said yeah no worries. The other one laughed and said I was being extra. I am extra. That is not new information. Extra still needs to clock in on time without a headache.
The system, if anyone is taking notes
One proper alarm. Not a breadcrumb trail of them. If you miss it, that is a you problem, not a hallway problem.
Doors shut when the dryer is on. Not because I am precious. Because this place is built like cardboard with paint on it.
Bathroom is ten minutes if two of us are on earlies. I can do a face in ten. I have done a face in a night bus window. I can be quick when the alternative is mutual resentment over a plug.
No full volume music through the wall at dawn. I like music. I use it when my head is loud. Morning is not the moment for a playlist that slaps. Morning is the moment for existing as quietly as a person with wet hair can manage.
If you have a guest who also has an alarm, that guest lives under the same rules. I do not care how fit they are. I do not care how good the night was. I still have a shift.
That last one I will say nicely and I will mean it less nicely the second time.
Why this winds me up more than it should
Because I can take a messy kitchen. I can take a thin wall on a Saturday. I can take a night that runs too long and a morning that feels hollow. What I cannot take is starting a workday already in a mood I did not earn.
I want the promotion. I want to walk onto that floor looking like I slept and I decide things. If I arrive already biting the inside of my cheek because of a snooze button, I am not the version of me I am trying to be. I am just tired and a bit mean, which is a waste of a decent blazer.
People say get earplugs. I have tried. They make me feel like I am underwater and late. People say you chose a shared flat. Yes. I also chose friends. Friends can move a phone off a shared wall. Friends can wait five minutes for a dryer. Friends can understand that quiet is not a personality transplant. It is a courtesy before coffee.
I will give as good as I get
If I am the one off shift, I will not crash around like the corridor owes me money. If I come in late, I will take my shoes off before I do the whole performance. If my own alarm is a menace, tell me. I would rather be told than become the person everyone writes about in the group chat with the little silent rage.
I am not trying to run a silent retreat. I like this house when it is loud at the right time. Evenings. Weekends. Someone making toast and talking shit. That noise is company.
6am noise is just theft. It steals the last bit of sleep and the first bit of patience and then expects you to be fun at the kettle.
So yes. We need a system for quiet mornings. Not a manifesto. Not a sulk that lasts three days and comes out sideways over the milk. A system. One alarm. One dryer at a time. A corridor that is a corridor, not a stage.
I will even write it on a note if we have to. I would rather a note on the fridge than another day where I leave the flat already done in, before the job has had a chance to do it for me.
