War of the Roses was a walk in the park…

What a week, what a week. It’s been long and frustrating but there is light at the end of the tunnel and that light is in the form of 16 days (yes 16 – count them people) off of work!! Hurrah! Annual leave + bank holidays + Royal wedding = much time off for Nancy!

As from 5pm today I am officially outta here!

For not the first time I will be glad to see the back of this place, it’s not been the best week and the eejits here are driving me nuts. No one seems to have logged into any common sense this week and stupid questions are the theme of every day. Everything working arse about face and no one really knowing what’s going on.

Pretty normal then.

I’ve been trying to help out this poor new woman in one of the projects – Curly (it’s a play on her name and her hair…that sounds a little wrong…anyway…) as she hasn’t been given CrapBags access yet. She started 2 weeks ago and was told “you won’t get any training do the on-line stuff and then you’re on your own.” Brilliant. Welcome to our company we promise we do care about our staff but not enough to actually train you up properly or give you the tools to do this yourself.

So Curly has obediently done the on-line training and then called me. She needs help with doing some requisitions on the system. She’s nervous about it, 1^st time, CrapBags virgin and so needs some hand holding – fair do’s really. So me and the heavy breathing temp shadow head down to see her. Turns out she doesn’t even have access to the system yet. She’s been here 1 ½ weeks and nothing. It was requested last Tuesday. So now she has a pile of requisitions building up on her desk and her line manager is telling everyone with a problem or question on CrapBags to ask Curly for help. The poor woman is freaking out as she doesn’t know how to even log on yet.

You see if you want access to the holy grail of CB you need to go through a ‘system’. You apply in triplicate then they assess your application and 50 people have to tick a box, sign it, then its sent to pixies in Sherwood Forest to sprinkle magic dust on it, sent back here, shredded in case anyone might need it, started all over again and then stamped, sealed and signed. At this point access is given. Apparently this process can take a long time. It took us 3 weeks to get Shadow her access, Ms Rigsby took a month. I know for a fact it takes 2 minutes to set up. 2 minutes.

This place is a complete joke. Works in an arse about face way. Went round to bollock the CB layabouts and none of them were there. So sent an angry email. 2 days late they finally give Curly access and she is on flexi and as of 5pm today I am on holiday. Hurrah. Well done. Slow hand clap for you CB people.

What makes it even more infuriating is that in the week Gunner was processing an order to pay a certain company that shall remain nameless but lets just say you have heard of them and they are the geniuses who gave us CrapBags. It had all the consultants rates on it (i.e. the CB layabouts) we are paying a grand a day for some of those useless tossers!! One guy is £1,660 PER DAY!!! Per day! I know the consultants themselves don’t see the whole amount but I’d imagine it’s a fair chunk. Fucking hell– pay me £500 a day and I’ll do their job for you! They never do anything anyway, they just sit in meetings procrastinating all day – I can do that!!

Gunner is fuming, he just keeps muttering “a grand a day!” all the time.

As a complete role reversal I just found out that Ms Rigsby who works her arse off everyday and is here from 9am to 6.30pm most days is paid £7.50 an hour before tax.

What is the world coming to?

End of rant.

On a more positive note Andre made a cake yesterday in the shape of a castle. As one does. It’s for the War of the Roses apparently. She’s as nutty as a fruitcake but she makes a damn fine fruitcake. I missed the actual castle as I was in a flippin meeting and it had been cut up by the time I got out! Only one turret remaining. She says she has a photo so I am demanding to see it. Apparently it was very impressive. Impressive turrets. Fnar fnar.

I am drained, I am done, I am spent, I am all ranted out. Time for me to go sit in a Grecian bar and sip cocktails in the sunshine. I hope you survive a blog-free 16 days without me, I’m sure you will. You have 4 bank holidays and a Royal wedding to keep you occupied.

Until May…

Trapped

It’s all go here. Yesterday I had 4 meetings back to back between 1 and 5pm which in my opinion is pretty feckin’ ridiculous. I even had to write down on my meeting pad (yes I have actually started taking pen and paper to meetings now, this is how serious its getting) where each one was, what time, with who and what the hell it was about to stop me just wandering the corridors aimlessly looking for room MR4-2.99g or something. What also didn’t help was that at one point Kirstie, Ms Rigsby and I got stuck in a small corridor, well not a corridor really, that space you get between doors. You know? When you work in an office that deems it necessary to have a door from the main lifts foyer bit into another small space that then just leads you through more doors? Well we were stuck there. Some how we’d managed to get through the 1^st door but then none of the others would work and we couldn’t get back out the one we had just come through. Other people were trying to get to where we were with no luck as well.

At first this is all fairly hilarious and then you remember you were actually on your way to the vending machine for a coke and off to sit in the sun and suddenly it’s eating into your lunch break and it’s not so funny any more. We managed to mouth through the glass doors to someone that we were stuck (no shit Sherlock) and they scurried off to security. A security dwarf arrived (seriously, I can’t see him taking down any burly intruders unless he’s a bit of an ankle biter) and said that they were testing the locks on the doors so the more we swiped would actually delay things.

“How long is this going to take?”

“Some time”

“Er that’s not an answer, how long?”

“I’m not sure, you’ll have to hang on”

“Why?”

“Well they are testing the locks so the swipe passes won’t work”

“Did you think to tell anyone this? Perhaps an email warning people not to venture out?”

“Er, well…”

“Wow, so you thought that 1pm on a Thursday, in the middle of the working day when people have to actually get to places, thorough these doors would be a good time to test this?”

No answer

“How about you stop the testing so that we can actually escape this corridor and start it up again at the end of the day when most people have gone home?”

“Well I’m not sure….”

“Listen Shorty I for one do not intend to spend my afternoon stood here and so unless you let us out I will hit this fire alarm button here and have everyone leaving the building at the same time and you can deal with that instead ok?”

At this point he mumbles something we can’t quite hear through the glass and wanders off. A couple of minutes later the doors reactivate.

I mean honestly.

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.

Meetings – the dangers

Things are starting to calm down somewhat in Strangeways and so hopefully I’ll be transmitting on a more regular basis over the next few weeks. What with the meetings, fighting to stay awake in the meetings and the general day to day there has been scant time for doing anything else including filling you in on my many japes and jollies in the glass tower of weird.

Last week was particularly heavy on the meetings; in fact on the Wednesday it was what I would call “meeting-tastic”. One after the other, having to leave one meeting early (well technically on time its just that as we all know meetings do tend to run over as a rule – because of course we all have nothing better to do…) to get to the next and dashing for a loo break in between if time allowed. I’m making it sound like I have suddenly become some high flying whizz PA who has to attend all these very important meetings and say very important things. When the truth of it really is that I get invited along because I am loosely involved/attached some how and then spend most of it wondering what the heck they are all talking about and doodling on my pad (if I bother to take one).

It also appeared that every time I walked into a meeting room last week I also had the overwhelming urge to fall asleep. Partly down to bad timing (that dreaded 2.30-4pm slot where I’m slumping) and partly just down to lack of sleep on my part. I had one meeting with CJ and Tiny on Tuesday at 2.30pm (da da daaaaa!) in the smallest, warmest meeting room known to mankind where we were sat about a foot apart from each other round a small circular table. As soon as I sat down I knew it was going to be hard work but I was also confident in the thought it would be a quick meeting. I couldn’t physically keep my eyes open half the time and kept on pinching my left arm with such ferocity I now have a small bruise. Didn’t work, at one point I nodded off and my head fell off the hand that was supporting it and almost hit the table….I jumped awake and no one said anything but I was definitely clocked doing it, there’s no way I could have gotten away with that!

So with a big 2 hour meeting looming on the Wednesday, which potentially could be the most boring meeting of my full career in fact, I was doing a lot in preparation. While CJ and Replacement were busy printing out the power point presentation and listing questions they would ask I was drinking bucket loads of coffee and stripping off the layers. Keep cold, plenty of caffeine, a pen and pad to distract me, took my mobile in in case I needed further distraction, bottles of water for rehydration and splashing cold water on my face before hand.

All to no avail.

This meeting took place in one of the new swanky meeting rooms on the ground floor – dark mahogany everywhere, blinds closed, and a large rectangular table so everyone can see each other. What are you trying to do to me people?! You might as well hand me a camp bed and sleeping bag. The 2 hours ticked by at an alarmingly slow rate:

10.30am: Meeting begins with Luthor holding court; I have managed to sit myself opposite Moon Monkey unintentionally…. Oh and look yes the head of IT is sitting next to him, hurrah. I’m flanked by CJ and Replacement, both with pen and pads poised and at the ready. CJ has the PPP printed out so I have a quick flick through….. I will probably understand what they are talking about on page…3 and that’s it. How many pages to this? 15? I’m sorry – 15 slides? JTFC.

10.35am: Some confusion over the slides and how to work the overhead projector – yes even with 5 members of the IT department in the room.

10.40am: And we’re off! Oh god, there’s an American in the room…marvellous.

10.50am: Luthor is in full swing but Moon Monkey is intent on questioning every remark he makes, this could get tedious.

10.53am: I’m starting to feel sleepy – already?! Are you serious? Right, time to put plan A into action, commence with vigorous water drinking and arm pinching immediately.

10.58am: It doesn’t seem to be working, shit we’re only half an hour into the meeting, what am I going to do? Eyes closing…..must fight it…..fuck, I think someone just said my name? Oh god they did, they’re asking me a question, what was it?! Stay cool Nancy….

11.10am: Replacement seems to be scribbling notes on her pad at an alarming rate, perhaps she’s taking the minutes. Perhaps she’s just hoping that if she writes this all down it might have some semblance of meaning later?

11.14am: Still chugging down the water and pinching my arm, I find if I fidget every 30 seconds this helps but I think it is starting to irritate CJ and draw unwanted attention from MM….

11.18am: 1^st bottle of water has been drunk, moving on to the second.

11.25am: CJ is off on one so they are all looking in this direction, must look awake, must not look bored, lots of important people in the room…oh chirst she’s using the quotation marks with abundance again…I really want to break her fingers.

11.40am: MM has some interesting anecdotes for this meeting, I think he might just be trying to piss off Luthor (and I’m all for that). Apparently the NHS order in gloves from over 2,500 different companies and in America 2 million people have signed away their mortal souls to a company because they didn’t read the small print. A comment of “well they are American” from Harvey. Followed by a quick (half hearted) apology to the one sat in the room.

11.43am: 2^nd bottle of water is half way. Damn now I need the toilet, in my fight against the lethargy I have managed to add another nemesis in the shape of my bladder to the meeting battle zone! Curses.

11.45am: The American just actually used the phrase “Cowboy land” – I wonder if he was talking about his home town?

11.59am: Finally starting to wake up a bit now, the tiredness has lifted and I can stop focusing on keeping my eye lids open.

12:04pm: Now I can actually listen to some of what is being said….not that I really understand much of it. Apparently the IT spend over the next 3 years is close to $300m though – oh is that all?... What are you doing people? Buying diamond encrusted keyboards?!

12:15pm: My bladder is very full, I have a child’s bladder as it is and this is not going to last. A trip to the toilet will be needed shortly. Don’t want to look like a twat sneaking out though so will try and hold it.

12.25pm: Losing the will to live now, this meeting is beyond boring and none of these people will SHUT UP and let Luthor get on with his slides. We’re only on slide 7. Someone help me, set off the fire alarm, run in with some alarming news that breaks this cack up – maybe I could fake a heart attack?

12.27pm: The lights in the room just went out. Well at least that’s mildly interesting. Its one of those energy saving things where if it doesn’t detect movement it turns off. Everyone sits waving their arms about like some YMCA routine and eventually they come back on again.

12.32pm: OK so the meeting should have finished by now, why are people still talking? And only on slide 12 – ugh. Its no good my bladder is about to explode in some messy fashion all over this mahogany I need to make a run for it. I excuse myself and pelt it to the ladies.

12:33pm: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…..

12:36pm: I sneak back into the room. They’re still going and slide 12 is still up.

12:38pm: Uh oh, the 2^nd wave of sleepiness is upon me. Bam, there go the eye lids and I’m finding it hard to hold my pen and pretend to write…Water…no hang on we learnt our lesson last time with that – ok arm pinching it is then.

12:50pm: We have now been on slide 12 for 25 minutes, ok we get it, it’s a pretty slide with lots of words and colours and arrows and even some keys now move it on!

12:51pm: Lights have gone off again, more frantic waving. We must look like some bunch of crazies.

12:56pm: I have another meeting at 1pm, I am really going to have to go. Possibly via the toilet again (damn you child’s bladder!) and even around the pond once to try and wake up. Hurry up people.

12:59pm: Slide 12 is still on the board, feck this I’m off.

Luckily the 1pm meeting only lasts 20 minutes and it’s in a nice shiny bright, cold room with lots of non-important people saying lots of far more interesting and non-important things. When I get back to my desk they are only just returning from the 15 slide meeting and I bump into Replacement on the way.

“So how much longer did it go on for?”

“Oh about another 20 minutes? What did you think of it?”

“Possibly one of the most boring meetings I have attended in this company.”

OK so I didn’t say that….

“Yeah it was ok, a lot of it goes over my head but I suppose it’s good to get an overview…blah blah blah….You?”

“Yeah it was good, I especially thought….”

“ANYWAY I have to get going to er, another meeting……yeah”

With the toilet.

You still here?

Moody is back for one night only. Well 3 nights. Technically 3 days and perhaps less. I guess it depends on Luthor’s mood swings and how he sees it all going. I’m hedging my bets and giving him the wine and card tomorrow just in case.

We bumped into each other in the mini kitchen this morning, I had no idea he was back today and so was somewhat surprised to see him there struggling with the recycling bins. It was a nice surprise as CJ and I were none too sure if we would in fact see him again but it seems that Luthor finally gave into our demands. But now he is back he’s also back to really irritating the number two’s out of me again. I’d forgotten how used to and laid back I’d gotten to his lengthy rants and whinges as he perches on the side of your desk. He’s also managed to catch me twice while I’ve been eating today and interrupting Nancy and her food stuffs is always a bad move in anyones book. The first time my muesli got fairly soggy and the second time my jacket potato went cold.

Not just the timing but also the waffling. I’d forgotten how much he waffles. How could I forget in such a short period of time?! He’s only been gone about 3 weeks but yet so quickly these gripes about Crapbags and life in general are wiped from my mind. I suppose I needed room in there for far more interesting and useful information?

So there he is sat on my files and post-its asking questions about everything and anything and nothing at all and I realise that I haven’t really actually missed him at all. That sounds terrible doesn’t it? I mean I like the guy and his weird, quirky ways but when it comes to working he is actually a massive pain in the arse. It may also be that since he hasn’t been here it’s been more obvious how much he hasn’t done and I’ve even found myself feeling sorry for CJ on occasions.

What’s going on?!

Still, Moody keeps pressing the point that he doesn’t want to get involved in anything, that he’s not here long so there’s no point. This is a true and valid point so please keep away from me with any work matters thanking you please.

We have also had his replacement start and she has been here a week. Replacement is currently nameless as I haven’t spent enough time with her to form a full and rounded opinion or ideas for a nick name. There have been a couple of occasions where Ms Rigsby and I have sat with her at lunch and frankly struggled to make conversation. She does from initial impressions seem amazingly dull. Even her voice is quite dull. You know people who don’t really use a lot of emphasis in anything they say, not a lot of variation? Monotone. Eventually I gave up and Ms R heroically continued with the banter. When Replacement walked away we gave each other a look that said “that was flippin’ hard work” and have since avoided the mini kitchen when we see her reach for her tupperware.

The thing is with new people you have to bear in mind they are, well, new. So perhaps they are seeing how the land lies, judging what they can and can’t do/say in the work place, deciding how much of themselves they want to bring into the work place. I mean even I was very quiet when I started here (I know, hard to believe) and eventually started getting a bit more lively when I realised what a bunch of extroverts and weirdo’s I was working with. But then there is always a hint of what could possibly be and at the moment Replacement is giving me nothing. I’m not sure she’ll be joining in with any vagina jokes or looking at shoes on line with Kirstie and Ms R. Ah well, we can’t win them all.

So out with the moaner and in with the monotone. One freak replaces another. It’s the way things should be.

Lord of the kitchen

Today I spent my lunch break with Andre which is always an interesting and odd experience. I was late into the kitchen so by the time I was warming up my spaghetti hoops (in your face Facilities!!) there was only me and the Hobbit lover left. Ms Rigsby hung around for a while and left me with a copy of Grazia magazine which I tried in vein to be engrossed in but lets be honest I’m not a Grazia kind of girl so it was never going to happen. Some how we got talking about walk-in wardrobes which lead on to a discussion about the many outfits and costumes she owns and then there was the talk about Warwick Castle and trying to get her 10 year old nephew interested in working for a king in a reconstruction workshop (and failing) and the time she went to a convention and how odd it is heading back to your hotel room in the lift with Jar Jar Binks and Roj Blake.

You know the usual lunch time banter you have with people at work.

Part of me wants to inhale my hoops, burning my mouth, throat and all corresponding internal organs, throw my empty bowl at the sink and run back to my desk but the other part of me is always very fascinated by Andre and what makes her tick. She’s odd but she’s interesting. She’s got a bit of a strange set of priorities and outlook on life but she’s also very intelligent and can tell a funny story.

So I stayed and I listened and we talked about how she got drunk on some guys perfume in the other office because it was so strong. Literally, I’m not talking about the phrase I mean she says there was so much alcohol content in it she inhaled that and got tipsy. I really had no idea that was possible. She also told me about her friend who watched some historic film with her and they had children working on a ship and her friend asked why so Andre told her back then kids just worked so her mate asked “what about the heath and safety issues?” Andre had to then go on and point out that they didn’t exist in the 1500’s but flogging and scurvy did.

One day I would like to go to Andre’s house for tea and sit with her and her dear old Mum having an Earl Grey out of some bone china, sat on a sofa from the 60’s watching re-runs of Blake 7 and Dr Who. Then we’d eat some medieval feast for dinner and she’d show me her wardrobe and collection of lethal 16^th century weapons. I’d stay over in the spare room where she keeps her spare long staff and lie in a single bed with a Lord of the Rings duvet staring up at posters of Star Trek characters. Amazing. I’m itching for an invite, might have to drop a few hints over lunch.

Otis! My Robe!

I’ve mentioned before that my job role is changing somewhat (unbeknown to me initially) and whilst I haven’t been given any objectives or final answer about this things seem to be seeping through the woodwork. I’ve been invited along to numerous meetings with numerous teams and heard whispered conversations about who is meant to be doing what and how that will affect everyone. It can get to be a bit tedious if I’m honest, all this drip, drip of information – just hurry up and tell me what you want me to do! I don’t mind doing it (well I might but I’ll have to regardless) so just firm up the details and send me the memo.

A lot of this seems to be stemming from one individual in particular, a man who I have now been informed will be my new boss. Joy. Whilst I do moan on about Harley and Moody this guy is likely to provoke moaning cranked up a level and probably some serious hard core ranting. Tighten your seat belts. So far he’s only managed to push my buttons a couple of times and it’s not been a case for rant-o-rama but you know when you can sense the potential? I’ve heard rumours and seen the evidence, all nicey nicey on the surface and then stabs you in the back with a fork when you’re not looking.

Luthor (as I like to call him because he is quite possibly an evil genius with a huge underground swimming pool and access to a crate of kryptonite) can rub people up the wrong way just by entering a meeting room and I’ve already snapped at him twice. I must remember this is the man who will be defining my bonus next year… So far a couple of irritants have been the fact that he’ll only give you half the information you need and expect you to polish up your crystal ball or just invent the other half for yourself. I often receive emails with:

Nancy,

Please progress with set up.

Have a nice weekend.

Luthor

Below will be a massive chain of emails from various departments talking about something I have no clue about and by the end of reading not the foggiest as to what I am meant to be progressing. 9 times out of 10 I have to walk over and ask him what the feck he wants me to do. He also has that annoying way of acting like he has already imparted all of his wisdom and knowledge on the subject to me and so I am of course being an idiot in asking him about it. “You know, the thing we discussed in the meeting?” Oh right. The ‘thing’. Of course I am so sorry, what a retard I am for not linking the ‘thing’ with your cryptic email. Sack me now.

He almost made CJ cry in a meeting with him and Moody last week, he’s determined not to let Moody walk back in the door again even though CJ and I are fighting for it (there are one or two rather important matters to clear up with him?), he seems to do everything his own way and follow the minimum amount of protocol and has the highest sense of self-importance I have ever come across in a person. He doesn’t get involved in the ‘little things’ with the ‘little people’.

In conclusion a grade A twat who I will most likely not be on best terms with. And now he approves my annual leave, awards my bonus and is the man to go to when I have any issues. So what do you do when the issue is the person you go to your issues with?!

Currently I am ignoring the fact he’s the dude to answer to and still consider Harley to be my big wig (careful) and I will continue to do so until directed otherwise. Or am stabbed with a fork.

New home

Well new office, new desk, new pass and new rules….

It seems to be living up to its reputation so far for swanky-ness. I walked into the main foyer this morning and was ushered into the main canteen on the ground floor to collect my pass. Free fresh coffee on offer as well so I grabbed a mocha as one does. I then got in the lift to go up one floor without thinking I could just take the stairs. Me and one guy from the company on the 4^th floor (we are not alone…) got in and it started going down not up. Picked someone up from the car park level, back up to ground floor and more people get in. Then about to go and the doors open again and then the people say “oh no we’ll get the next one”. At this stage the original guy in the lift and me are pissing ourselves laughing thinking we may never leave this lift again. As I fought my way out onto level one I wished him luck in reaching the 4^th floor!

My desk is much of a muchness, I have a lovely view of the fire escape and if I crane my neck can see a small portion of the lake. I’ve got Ms Rigsby sat opposite me but we can’t see each other as the tall desk partitions are back even though we were promised they wouldn’t be. At least I have somewhere to stick up my post-it notes. My phone is new and has a mini computer screen on it and my name! Although it doesn’t seem to work very well. I’ve had several people call me and shout “Hello Nancy?!” down the phone and not be able to hear me. The last woman said I sounded like a Dalek just before the line cut out. Teething problems I think.

Ginger and I had a wander round this morning and it’s all looking very impressive, bit empty and huge at the moment but I’m sure that will change. The main kitchen downstairs has about 15 microwaves in it which seems excessive. Even the toilets are impressive! And it takes a lot for a toilet to impress me.

We are now going green and have a ‘bin-less’ office. I bitched about this this morning until I realised I had voted in favour of this prior to the move. Ah. I suppose it is a good idea. We have no bins at our desks only in the kitchen where there is the recyclables, food waste and general waste. Hopefully people will soon learn that a piece of kitchen towel does not count as food waste and you are able to recycle paper.

We have a small kitchen in our corner which is well equipped and randomly has a photocopier and printer in it as well. So to get my printing I have to go to the kitchen. But at the moment I can’t print to that printer. Which is handy.

Earlier Ginger and I were making our lunch in the little kitchen. It has coffee/tea a kettle, fridge and 2 microwaves. So I am heating up my spaghetti hoops and Ginger her Chinese. Some guy from facilities who is loitering about comes over to tell us off:

“You can’t heat up food up here”

“Er why?”

“Because the ventilation system on this floor circulates it round the other floors so it spreads the smell”

“You mean just like the old building where no one seemed to mind? And where do I eat my lunch then?”

“You have to take it to the kitchen on the ground floor and cook it and eat it there because the ventilation system is different”

“So why do we have 2 microwaves?”

“That’s for heating up porridge and hot drinks”

“So you’re telling me you find the smell of my beans offensive but not my porridge and why would I reheat a coffee?”

“Well, you just can’t eat that here”

Eventually he walked off and we continued cooking our lunch and ate it at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. I can understand them saying you can’t eat it at your desk but I am not taking my tin of beans, loaf of bread and trekking all the way downstairs to cook it and eat it. Fuck that. Ridiculous. I’ll wait for my formal warning before I stop enjoying my spaghetti hoops at the breakfast bar. It was quite nice as well, me, Ms Rigsby, Ginger, Kirstie and Andre all chatting and eating. If I went downstairs I’d be a right nobby-no-mates on my own. Feckin’ jobsworths. It won’t last, there will be an uprising!! “We will rise up and stab them with our plastic forks!”

Work wise I have achieved very little today you’ll be surprised to hear. Too many distractions, too much free coffee to drink, too many places to go and people to find. I’ll start a-fresh tomorrow I’m sure.

Right.

Fitness Freak

We have this ‘thing’ at work over Feb called “February Health Club” or something and the idea is you are meant to try and set yourself targets to lose weight or do more exercise or give up smoking or whatever. I can’t be arsed with it as I don’t have the time or the inclination but now Saffa has gone all Mr Motivator on us and has entered the department against the EHS team. We’re not going to win; we’re a bunch of unfit alcoholics, 70% of which are fat old men. I think she just wants to loose weight and is dragging us all along for the ride.

Don’t get me wrong, normally I am all up for the team stuff but this is like enforced healthy living. I got told I had to pick 3 or 4 so I picked 2. I am eating 5 pieces of fruit and veg and day and drinking 4 bottles of 50cl water and I’m going to cycle 4 more km a day. Maybe.

The options are:

Fat Club: set a target weight loss or body fat % loss

Fitness Club: set a target of how many runs or visits to the gym you make each week, for example

Food Club: can you eat 5 pieces of fruit every day or limit yourself to chips once a week?

Fag Club: can you give up smoking or cut down for 4 weeks?

Firewater Club: set a target of so many units of alcohol or even complete abstinence for 4 weeks

OK so I’m not fat and don’t really need to lose weight, I’m already fit enough thank you very much, I hardly eat chips and I already have lots of fruit, I don’t smoke and you can sod off if you think I’m giving up drinking for 4 weeks – where’s the sense in that?! It’s not that I can’t do it you understand, it’s that I don’t want to. Honest.

I’ve never seen Saffa so motivated about something, she’s running round the office with these flyers and waving them in people’s faces. Kirstie has been dragged into the mix by agreeing to help organise it. Apparently there is some incentive on offer as well, like a prize. Well it’s not going to be a cocking bottle of wine is it? Probably a spa day or a free health check up or some such choz. I’ll have a family sized bar of Dairy Milk please, it’s ok I’ll take it to the spa with me. Not that I am going to be close to winning this thing, I don’t think my heart’s in it (you may have noticed by the tone of this blog? No?) and frankly I have better things to be doing than extra sessions down the gym….like extra sessions down the pub.

Anyway, enough of my griping. The move is almost here, I’m surrounded by boxes and removal men and utter chaos. All that remains on my desk is my computer, a contract, 2 boxes of condoms (managed to offload the other 2) and my phone. They told us to make sure we were packed up by 3pm but that the office would close for business at 5pm. Hmmmm, anyone else see a flaw in that logic?

The next time I’m writing to you it’ll be from the new, swish, state of the art offices across the way – ooooo exciting! I’ll be celebrating with a bacon sarnie first thing on Monday from the new canteen….oh no, sorry I mean a banana and a bottle of Evian….sigh.

I beg your pardon

My jaw hurts from laughing too much, we’ve got an attack of the giggles in the office today. It has arisen from a multitude of things, most of it filthy and all of it hilarious. Everything has just degenerated into chaos now and I can’t say anything to Kirstie without finding innuendo in it. Earlier I made her spray the water she was drinking all over a power point presentation and then Ginger joined in and Ms Rigsby wanted to know what we were laughing about….

It all started this morning at breakfast (yes its been going on all day, I’m pretty sure the guys sitting opposite us have invested in some ear plugs by now or will try and eject us from the office some how) and for some reason – I forget the specifics – I started singing the song “Rose Garden” by Lynn Anderson (if you don’t know it you might want to You Tube it now so the rest of this blog is mildly amusing rather than confusing to you) but an alternate version that myself and some friends made up (well I say made up but I’m sure there’s nothing ground breaking about our adaptation) on a holiday in Greece some time back. And so the 2 lines I sang to Kirstie as we walked through the office were:

“I beg your pardon, I never promised you my lady garden”

Kirstie found this hysterical and now the song was stuck in my head so cue many versions popping up all day long. Kirstie was also throwing in questions about the said lady garden in the song. “But what if your lady garden is all barren and dry and hasn’t had any upkeep?” “What if it needs the lawn mowed?” “You don’t need to see the lady garden to tender it…” and so it goes on.

Ms Rigsby and her impressionable and inquisitive young mind piped up this afternoon, enquiring as to what we were crying with laughter about. Kirstie said she shouldn’t know as it would sully her thoughts but she insisted so I had to explain things to her. Bear in mind she is a young whipper snapper as well so I had to first explain the song and sing the original to her.

“So there’s this song and it goes….”

“OK, I don’t know it”

“No, it’s quite an old song. Anyway we were making it into a rude version”

“How?”

Seriously this girl is so innocent sometimes…

“Well by putting an extra lyric in front of the word ‘lady’”

We now watch the expression on her face as she frantically thinks of what word this could be…

“Would that word be….lady?”

“Yes, yes it would.”

She went puce and giggled and then didn’t really know what to say. Then she googled the song and found out the lyrics and who it was written by and I’m now afraid of what I’ve started.

Then Kirstie sang quite loudly that she could smell my lady garden as Ginger was walking past! Then Ginger asked her what she said and she once again sang it at top volume. Ginger then posed the question of how Kirstie had smelt my….well you get the picture.

Gunner was looking perplexed at this point so I warned him this was one conversation he did not want to get involved in and he retreated immediately. He knows his place does Gunner and is quite happy there and away from any lady-parts talk.

Honestly I think the women in this department are worse than the men when it comes to lewd language and smutty talk. Well ok, some of the women. Well, alright…us. We’re just making the most of it before we are cruelly separated in the office move. I’ll be a whole 2 desks away from Kirstie there and so may have to resort to emails and shouting over the tops of other people’s heads.

“HEY KIRSTIE! A ONE, TWO, THREE……I BEG YOUR PARDON….”