Pearls of wisdom

Hello one and all, and how are we on this drab and dreary late March afternoon? Personally I’m feckin’ knackered which is a combination of some late nights and the amount of training and meetings I have had to attend over the past 3 days which only looks set to continue tomorrow with a further 5+ hours of Crapbags training on the horizon. Listening to people really takes it out of you doesn’t it? It’s hard work absorbing information, now I know why students sleep for 14 hours of the day.

It’s all this new role thing I have going on. In order to become super efficient/confident in Crapbags it is required I ingest a rather large amount of knowledge in a short space of time. I’m enjoying it so far and actually finding it quite interesting (oh lord can you hear yourself Nancy?! What have you become?!) in a geeky kind of way but yesterday by 4.30pm I had to stop one particular meeting as I could feel my brain bulging close to capacity. The guy talking at the flip chart could have happily gone on for hours but alas my little grey cells could not. Plus it was coming up to home time and as dedicated as I am to the cause, it shall not interfere with the social life.

I feel a bit sorry for my new shadow, she started Monday and so far has been bombarded with stuff she doesn’t have the first scoobies about. Luckily she also seems to have more than 1 brain cell to rub together and is catching on and she came back yesterday and today so that’s always a good sign. We like the ones who come back again. Seems quite nice, very posh as Gunner said and although she is 24 seems to dress like an 80’s power hungry woman in her late 30’s. I’m assuming they are left over outfits from her law degree days when she was required to mix with people who would look down on anyone not wearing a dress suit with shoulder pads and pearls but I think she might learn that for this place it’s not necessary. Or maybe I’m just jealous as the majority of my work wardrobe comes from Primark and H&M? They don’t do shoulder pads at Primark…..unless they form part of a retro jumper/dress zebra print number. Hmmmmm…….

Of the 5 hours of training tomorrow Shadow is only required to attend 2 and I made that choice for her so as not to create yet more confusion in that young impressionable mind. Plus the morning training is with the HR team who are a bunch of numpties and she need not cotton on to the fact this place is littered with freaks, retards and inept monkey people just yet. She did get a small taster this morning though when we popped along to a Crapbags drop in session. The mad bint who mothers poor Ms Rigsby at every opportunity was in there shouting at one of the poor Crapbags people. I had a sudden look into my near future with this role and almost got cold feet. Whilst waiting to be seen I ferreted Shadow away to the kitchen for a coffee and explained that mad bint was a bit er….mad. “Well you always get some crazy people working in your office don’t you?” “Er, we have slightly more than most here…..”

As no one seems to have addressed the fact that I am still to carry on with my old job along side this other stuff I think that I might be a tad busy over the next few months. Just a hunch. Therefore I feel I should forewarn you that blog communication might fall (yes, even more so than it has already…). What I might attempt to do is give you a weekly update as I think this will be a bit more realistic and achievable. I will try my best, tis all I can be asked to do. Anything beyond that, consider yourself lucky.

Ring Day the Trilogy

Hurrah it’s Ring Day!! That means….caaaaaaake!

Friday, Ring Day, the sun is shining, what more could an over worked and underpaid minion ask for?! Well a pay rise and less work I suppose.

I discovered yesterday, whilst seated around the breakfast bar on my lunch that today would be Ring Day. Andre had a cheeky little grin on her face when she infor

med us and I couldn’t help but blurt out “does that mean Ring Cakes?!” “Of course!” “Yaaay!” and so on and so forth. It was the first thing I mentioned when I walked in the door this morning as well.

By 11am I was served my cake, solid and sturdy enough to destroy said ring (forget the pits of Mordor, just one battering with this confectionary and it’s bye bye big eye in the sky) and with the standard marzipan ring on top for décor. It’s a heavy duty cup cake I tell you, I wasn’t hungry again before 2pm. I took a photo so you could see the cake in question but only though to do this half way through devouring it so you have half a cake instead….but you get the idea.

There was also the standard get up Andre was wearing, the hand decorated trousers, flouncy white shirt with ruffles and frills and gold waistcoat. When she served the cakes she also wore her cape, as of course you would to mark such an occasion.

This is now my 3^rd year of Ring celebrations. That scares me slightly. Where has the year gone? It only seems like yesterday I was having to explain the concept of Ring Day to a baffled and slightly concerned Moon Monkey. This part of Ring Day I don’t like so much, the reminder that I am probably wasting away my youth in this glass mad house, eating cake and going madder every day….

But hey, it’s Friday, the sun is shining…. Ahem.

I also forgot just how many people we have had join the department this year and therefore how many baffled and confused looks Andre would be greeted with as she went round with plates and napkins. Most seem to have taken it in their stride, even the new Aussie girl whose response was “Cool! Well I’ll celebrate anything for an excuse to eat cake!” That’s the kind of attitude we like to see in this department, embrace the freaks and just go along for the ride. No point in fighting it is there? We all end up baking cakes to celebrate fictional events in the end.

Tonight Matthew I will be…

Its all change yet again for young Nancy. I wonder if my job now bears any relation to the original job description I was given when I went permy here? I doubt it very much as back then one of my key responsibilities was the database and look how often I check that nowadays (500 unread emails and counting…) and the other was filing.

Pulled into another meeting by Gunner who was being very evasive about what it was for and why they needed me. This would normally mean that he has a) inadvertently volunteered me for something or b) needs some back up on something. In this case it was answer ‘a’ although I’m not sure about it being an accident this time round… Seems that I am to be the chief helper and teacher of requisitions across this and the Dublin office in order to try and reduce the number of queries and shouting we get from the numpties who can’t do / won’t do. It’s a temporary thing, spanning 3 to 4 months or so they think but I guess that depends if the numpties want to play ball.

So I get to deal with all the old farts who didn’t want the Crapbags training because they fear change and would rather spend an hour standing there bitching and moaning about the system rather than ten minutes actually doing the requisition and therefore ending all their reason to moan. Gunner has angled it as me being a Florence Nightingale of the department and that people will be ‘pleased’ to see me, well that remains to be seen.

I also have a shadow following me about in the form of a 24 year old temp who seems to mainly have journalism and TV experience. Should be interesting. I’ve checked and she’s not Australian and isn’t obsessed with snow or ball gowns so that’s a start. The idea being this shadow will eventually take on this Florence role full time and let me get back to my old job.

Nothing has been mentioned about what will happen to my current workload seeing as this is going to take up roughly 50% of my time, I’m sure they’ll expect me just to carry on regardless but they might be slightly disappointed on that front. Ah well at least it will be some slightly different shat to deal with and it’ll mix things up a bit for me. Might even get to see more of this office and meet some shiny new people. Or crumbly old people who are new to me. Probably more of the latter.

I think this pushes me up to Super User status. I hope I get a cape and a utility belt. The belt could come in handy when I’m having to sedate the old men who are bursting a vein through their right temple ranting about crapbags. Perhaps a fazer gun or some mace? I could give them the option…

Requisition or mace? It’s your choice Granddad.

Wankers, wankers, wankers

1 ½ pints of Addlestones cider make Nancy a very sleepy worker…..

Worked out it’s the first Friday pub trip we have had since Christmas – that’s shocking! I put my foot down last week and demanded that if Friday was now out of the question (too many people taking flexi now they have all come over to the dark side) then it should be substituted with Thursday. Then yesterday after I had screamed “FOR FECKS SAKE!” at my computer for the 17^th time Gunner suggested we go today. I think everyone deserves a well earned drink at the moment.

We were trying to figure out why we had so sadly neglected this Friday institution and Kirstie pointed out the reason being we’ve all been too “frickin busy”. You know times are bad when work is stopping you getting to the boozer.

We made up for it though with a good hour and fifteen, nothing compared to the golden days of course but for us it was a small victory. I had planned to get some lunch afterwards but we had a bowl of chips and then I spent all my money on cider and well, it never happened. Since returning to my desk I have visited the ladies 4 times to pee and searched my draws and the office for things to line my stomach but it’s too little too late. I’m toying with the idea of going down to raid the vending machine but I’m also toying with the idea of leaving early which would be in 21 minutes so there has to be a choice made.

Well there’s no competition really, early home time wins every time. Plus I have sausage casserole lined up for later….along with more cider.

Sitting here in my fermented apple dazed state I have realised how tired I am at the moment of this place. Its wearing me down, and this week has only been a 3 day working week! I’m just fed up of stupid, lazy numpties who seem to spend their days planning on how to get me to waste my time running about doing pointless tasks for them. Plus mind reading. This is a skill I have yet to accomplish but still seems to be a pre-requisite for working with some of the wankers here.

“Have you not uploaded those contracts yet?”

“No because you never asked me to or sent me any information on them”

“So why aren’t they done yet?”

“Because you are a wanker and even when you do send me the list they will now go straight to the bottom of my priority list just to piss you off”

Petty? Maybe. Necessary? Yes.

And now to add to my annoyance someone in HR has just done a ‘reply all’ to a message sent round to the whole company about parking at the weekend. AND its grammatically poor.

Hi

I am to come in on Sunday 20Mar11. I will follow due process on arrival and as a heads up I will be driving in too.

Yours Sincerely

Twat from HR

Why do people do that? I don’t care if you’re coming, and neither do the 500 other people in this building! T hat’s one more email I have to delete now.

Oh hang on he’s tried to recall it. Too late loser.

Breathe Nancy, breathe.

Time to go me thinks. Sausage ahoy.

Interview skills fail

Note to self: when a senior member of staff springs an impromptu meeting to talk about your role in the company the answer to the question “where do you see yourself in 5 years time?” should not be “5 years?! Blimey that’s a long way off!”

In my defence it’s a stupid bloody question really. Who the hell nowadays knows what they will be doing in 5 years? I could still be here, I could be running the Hobbit department, I could have moved on to bigger and better things, or smaller and worse things, I might have won the lottery, I may have moved to Puerto Rico, I may be farming llamas in Italy, the world may have ended and I’ll be spinning out in space somewhere as a trillion tiny atoms, I maybe have joined a LoTR sect and sold all my personal possessions to fund the quest for the ring.

The most I’ve managed to stick it out in one job is about 3 years so if I was to go with the trend of my employment pattern then my answer would be “working somewhere else”. But that’s not what they want to hear is it? They want goals and aims and aspirations and enthusiasm and swashbuckle and get up and go! This is not something you will get from me in a meeting at 4.45pm on a Thursday during a week I have Friday off. Plus don’t spring it on me like that! Give me time to think up some appropriate bull shit so I can say what you want to hear and we can then part ways and forget about the whole thing an carry on as normal.

In the end I managed to talk myself into a butt load of work. And I’ve got to write a feckin’ proposal now – a proposal! Lord. Potentially it could be quite interesting, but equally it could result in me going slightly (more) insane and raising my stress levels. I don’t do work and stress, I don’t think the two should ever be combined and I avoid that kind of collision at all costs. Perhaps if the interesting and stress balance out I’ll be able to live with it, I guess we’ll see.

This of course is all pending on whether my proposal ever gets past Harley’s desk and anything is done about it. I did point out that I mentioned all of this in my annual review in December and what I was interested in doing. What objectives I would like if they ever get round to setting them…. Shant hold my breath. I’m sure this time next month I’ll be sitting here doing the same old stuff while they faff about with it all. God forbid anyone should make a decision on anything.

You know me, I’ll moan if I’m too busy and I’ll moan if they do nothing about it. I’ll moan regardless and you’ll love it.

Bin-gate

While I’m enjoying my new surroundings here in the office there are a couple of things that have begun to grate. Well you’re never happy are you? They could present us with gold plated desks and nubile virgins that serve coffee to you 24/7 and we’d still complain the desk wasn’t the right shade of gold or the coffee hot enough – you get used to a certain level of luxury and after a while you’re too acclimatised.

I overheard someone bitching about the new bike racks and lockers. They have created a room within the building for people to secure their bikes. Access only to employees with a bike, camera’s everywhere, state of the art bike racks and a free locker each. Plus company showers with hair dryers, a drying room for all your rain soaked kit and places to hang towels etc. This woman was moaning that the showers didn’t stay on long enough and the lockers were too small. Er excuse me, one month ago you parked your bike outside with all the other pikeys, had no locker at all and had to stick your head under the hand dryer to sort your hair out! Count yourself lucky, most people get changed in a mank toilet cubicle at work and fight to sort their hair in the one cracked mirror over the sink…tsk.

I myself am very happy with the bike rack arrangements, especially after purchasing a new expensive bike which I can now park at work in the knowledge that no thieving gypsy will be trying to hack saw their way through my D lock. I’m also fine with the showers and the drying room and my work colleagues are very happy now my stinky bike coat lives in a locker in the undercroft and not off the back of my chair.

However there are some changes I could do without. Everyone fears change (we learnt that lesson with Crapbags) but sometimes it’s the little things that can be the most annoying. Take bins for example. We now live in a bin-less office, well not completely of course that would be pretty disgusting, but we are not allowed bins at our desks. Instead we have 4 in the kitchen area: 1 for food waste, 2 for recyclables and 1 for non- recyclables. So the idea is when you have a piece of rubbish you walk to the kitchen and put it in the correct bin. Simples.

There is only so long one can go for with a pile of rubbish on their desk. While I’m not a lazy a-hole who can’t be bothered to walk to the kitchen, having to do so every ½ an hour can become fairly time consuming so it tends to build up. By the end of the morning the pile can be quite big and frankly looks feckin’ rank sat there amongst my post-it notes and files and when you pick it all up to take it to the kitchen of course you’re bound to lose a stray piece of orange peel or scrap of paper or old staple on the way….

We have started to combat this in Team Weird by fashioning our own mini bins out of every day office paraphernalia. I found a small cardboard box, as did Gunner, Kirstie was using a small bowl from the kitchen and some other people had been even more creative. The idea was to use this in the interim and then empty the contents at the end of the day. However this plan was thwarted when the cleaners started ‘cleaning away’ our makeshift bins. My box went missing (easy), then Kirstie lost her bowl and soon we were binless once again. I guess you can forgive the cleaners for thinking I might not want an old cardboard box any more so fair do’s, they didn’t know I’ll find something else.

Then we moved up a notch and people have started bringing in ‘designer bins’! Poundland jobbies, tuppaware, small swing bins, tin flower pots, the lot. I personally have a small, plastic basket sitting on top of my computer under my desk that does the job nicely. Tidy desk, rubbish recycled, everyone happy. But now the cleaners seem to be taking a stand and removing the designer bins and this is a step too far… Kirstie came in on Tuesday morning to discover her very pretty tiny multicoloured bucket bin had gone missing over night and unless we have some kind of bucket thief we think the cleaners have got to it. I think that might be taking the whole bin-nazi element a little too far but I suppose they are just trying to make a point. A complaint has been made but now we have taken to hiding our mini-bins in our cupboards at night. It’s getting to be a bit ridiculous now.

Harvey has gone one step further and managed to nab some contraband (or should that be contra-binned? Thank you, I’m here all week…) – an old bin from the other office! He keeps it in his desk cupboard at night in case he’s hauled up on charges of illegal dustbin smuggling.

So far my plastic basket is still safe and sound but I’m considering getting some kind of CTTV system set up just in case, perhaps an ink bomb I anyone tries to remove it or some mace spray disguised as a hole punch?

This is war.