AND YOU CAN KEEP YOUR STINKING DONUT!

Yesterday was weird. OK, weirder than normal. Not in a Hobbit feast kind of weird way more in a what the heck is going on round here way. I think things are starting to reach a peak in the office and all of the frustrations, stress levels and blind anger from the past month are about to implode in a messy sticky substance all over the department ceiling. You can sense the tensions in here, some in a more obvious way than others. The sweary levels have definitely gone up, if I introduced a swear box to the department we would have saved enough to wipe out the UK’s debt by next Friday. There’s also a lot of muttering, slamming down of phones and, most worryingly of all, glazed defeated expressions of those resigned to the fact they may have lost the battle and be destined to put up with all of this for eternity or until their Euro Millions ticket comes in.

I haven’t quite reached the glazed stage but I’m definitely contributing to solving some of the nation’s financial troubles with my potty mouth.

So the weirdness.

Kirstie had returned to work after a well earnt day off on the Monday. It was in theory her Flexi Friday but seeing as she had to work that and the Saturday Moon Monkey kindly offered for her to take it then. I was also her wedding anniversary (7 years) and so her and her hubby were out on the town celebrating. It seems that she isn’t even allowed this luxury as the proverbial poop had hit the fan while she’d been off. Jesus Titty Fecking Christ was she in a mood! Phoooweee! Worst I have yet to witness! The heat radiating off of her in that fit of rage could have toasted marshmallows and on two occasions she was threatening to just walk out. She even yelled at this poor sweet guy visiting from the Bangladesh office when he asked her to pick out a Crispy Crème donut from the pile he had brought in for his birthday.

“OK, fine. I have a donut now. OK?! Jesus.”

Stomp, stomp, stomp.

You enjoy that luv and try not to choke on the custard filling will you (easy)?! I was about to haul her up on shouting at someone for giving her a free donut but then thought better of it. She said nothing to me all day (very unusual, this woman is a loud Australian and as you know not one to be the shy retiring type) and so I chose to say nothing back. It was only at about 4.30pm I managed to get a little smile out of her and some calm words.

There was also a very last minute ‘stand down’ meeting called for each department. I accepted the invite as it had come from the Moon Man and seemed there was no option to not accept but had no idea what it was about. Then at 10am the whole company got up and went to their respective meetings. I think this is what they term as ‘stand down’ – I get it now….see I’m learning the corporate ways.

The meeting was concerning the company’s health and safety standards which have reached quite a low on the EHS Richter scale. Why does this warrant an entire company stand down? Good question? Well it’s going to be affecting bonuses as the H&S record is one of the many targets the company has to hit in order for people to get their just rewards at the end of the year. So of course it’s taken a priority and people have thrown down their pens and telephones and rushed to the meetings. Or is it because we are genuinely interested in the H&S of our employees? Hmmmm, such a cynic aren’t i?

The meeting dragged on for an hour but at least I had a seat – there were about 25 of us crammed in to a room designed to seat 9, surely a H&S issue in it’s own right?! What if there had been a fire? What if I had needed the lavatory? At least 15 people barred my way to the exit and I would have had to pee my pants right there in the middle of the power point presentation! We were told about the accidents that had occurred over the past year including a scolding from hot milk, a BBQ explosion resulting in 2nd degree burns and an amputated leg. Ouch. Nasty stuff. There was some talk of introducing ridiculous safety measures such as laws to abide by in the office including always holding the hand rail as you use the stairs and covers for all the coffee cups but that was quickly vetoed.

So out of one meeting and after a short while of restraining myself from stapling Moody’s face to his desk, into another giving me about 12 minutes to engulf my panini, crisps and Crispy Crème (which I didn’t shout at someone about). As the meeting was around lunch most people had grabbed something before hand or had their food to look forward to for afters, however CJ decided to combine the two and brought hers to the meeting. Now this wasn’t advertised as a ‘lunch meeting’, i.e. where lunch is provided or people BYO to chow down on. We also had a visiting speaker there so even more the reason to refrain from eating your tuna baguette and slurping your Cup-a-Soup in there you’d think? Right? Apparently not.

I have mentioned before that CJ’s eating habits are a sight (and sound) to behold and she didn’t hold back on this occasion. She plonked herself next to me and started to unwrap the baguette and stir her soup while the people from IS looked on slightly bemused by it all. The meeting started and our visitor was asked to speak about what their company would be doing to bring our departments together to work in unity…..blah…blah….. Meanwhile CJ is chowing down rather noisily. I take my hat off to the lady doing her presentation, she didn’t let the gacking or rustling of baguette wrapper put her off, even though she seemed to be watching in some sick fascination as CJ had her lunch. You know when someone tries to make eye contact with everyone in a group when they are presenting? Well she tried but nine times out of ten her gaze would fall back on CJ and I can only imagine the masticated tuna and bread being chewed that she could see. Actually I don’t want to. There was also the odd slurp of the soup and clinking of the spoon as she stirred away to get those crunchy croutons to the top of the cup.

The lady presenting had a very thick Italian accent which was hard to follow at times and my train of thought began to wander. To be honest I was once again in a meeting I didn’t understand 65% of what was being said and there were so many distractions I switched off and my train of thought went else where. I mean the combo of the accent, jargon being used, gacking and slurping, the rustling and clinking and this Italian birds look of horror at the car crash of a meal going on before her was just a bit too much.

“So as you can sees, we iz definitely in a er…..”

Gack, gack, gack…..clink…slup…

“…a er position to be ‘aving ze opportunity to, er….to…”

Rustle….munch, gack…..

“….combine ze efforts of ze….tuna….er….of ze departments.”

Meanwhile I have a series of questions running round my cranium such as “What the hell is a KPI?” “I wonder if the other half of my panini will be warm after this meeting?” “Why am I in this meeting anyway?” “What flavour soup is that?” “This Italian chick looks quite tanned, wonder if she’s been on holiday?” “I must remember to buy loo roll later”. Actually that last one was a lie, I steal the toilet roll from the work toilets. Actually that’s a lie, I don’t really. Actually I do. Well not always. Or ever. Maybe.

This may all not sound that weird to you but I suppose it’s a feeling in this place that can’t be summed up in words. I have only tried to demonstrate a couple of the events of the day that went towards the weirdness and populating my mind with too many thoughts. Too many to help me cope with the 3 million questions they ask you in Starbucks anyway when I went to get my panini. They probably thought English wasn’t my first language.

“Would you like that heated up?”
“Sorry?”
“Anything else I can get you?”
“What?”
“Is that to take away?”
“Who does what?”
“Any hot drinks for you with your order?”
“Que?”

I managed to walk out with what I went in for so I can only assume some other customer took pity and translated for me or Starbucks are trained in speaking to dazed and confused people on a daily basis. It was a tasty panin anyway.