Drinking in the Workplace

I’m in a particularly good mood today, it being Friday an all. There’s no management in, CJ has taken a flexi day (although god knows how she has actually built up any flexi with the times she rocks up in the morning/afternoon), Ladybum brought in donuts and we spent an hour and a half in the pub at lunch time with cider and nacho’s - what’s not to like?

I signed Ladybum’s leaving card this morning, it says on the front “Sorry you’re leaving” and I had to ask “but are we really?” Yes, yes, he brought donuts in, I shouldn’t be so mean, but I’m really not sure he’ll be missed that much. As I was signing the card Kirstie piped up “you know he’s not leaving today now?” Turns out he’s here an extra week, something to do with a prolonged project but I reckon they’ve just found all the work he hasn’t finished and told him it’s got to be done. He seemed quite happy about it though, I thought he’d be bitching the whole day through. Maybe this Friday feeling is catching?

Friday lunches in the pub are a regular affair and tend to be attended by me and the 3 other ‘normal’s’ I work with. There’s Kirstie and 2 others who I shall call Gunner as he’s a massive Arsenal fan and Ginger, because well she’s Ginger. I know no points for originality but like I said, they’re normal’s so no distinguishing marks or behaviours to twist into a hilarious play on words with my devilish wit. Depending on our mood lunch can last from 1-2 hours (the longest on record was 2 ½ hours last summer – go team!) and we will have a few swift ones and maybe get some food.

This is also the ideal time for us all to have a massive bitch about all the mentals in the office. You’ll be shocked to hear that the topic of discussion at the moment is CJ and her general annoyingness and manner that makes people want to smack her in the face. We spent a good 30 minutes or so on her today and have all started laying bets on how long she’ll last here. We do talk about other things, what we’re up to at the weekend, Gunner’s many past jobs and drug induced frolics as a youngster, Kirstie’s wish to return to Australia with her hubby…but it always comes back to the bitching. I’m not going to apologise, we all do it and quite frankly it’s a time to let off steam and a lot of people in our office would be charged with GBH if we didn’t.

Me and Gunner are the 2 regulars down the pub on a Friday, we’ll go on our own, join up with different departments (who normally stay for their allocated hour and then leave us getting another round in) or invite whoever’s interested to come along. Kirstie would like to come down more often but tends to get stung with those Friday lunch time meetings (who does that?!) and Ginger is either skiving (exhibit a – today), going to lunch with her hubby (and then not coming back) or wanting to leave early (as in 1.30pm). Ginger is very good at not coming into work, she knows how to play the system and I take my hat off to her for it but Gunner and I think Moon Monkey in his Gestapo manner is going to cotton on to this soon and she needs to watch her back.

I just read that sentence back – this blog is starting to sound like some 70’s kids TV series.

One lunch time a few months back Gunner and I had been putting the world and the office to rights and I managed to put back 3 pints of la Strongbow (it’s all class with me) in about an hour and a half. I hadn’t eaten and so came back to work fairly inebriated – let’s not mince around the facts here, I was pissed. We strolled into the office laughing away and my supervisor wanders up to us and says “What time do you call this?” Well, the apples kicked in and before I knew it the words had left my mouth “Er, about 2.30?”

Long pause.

Luckily he didn’t have a response to that so I hurried past and tried to look busy at my desk all afternoon whilst fighting the urge to fall asleep, laugh loudly at emails and pee every 5 minutes. I’d recommend being drunk in the work place though, it makes the day go a lot quicker and data entry can be quite challenging when you can’t type properly. And here I am still employed. Can’t complain can I?