Die Nancy Die!

Firstly apologies for the promised Friday update not happening. I did in fact sit down to do it on Friday afternoon but then discovered my computer at home does not allow me to access the blog due to cookies or some other sweet snack product. Sigh. I think it must be a sign that I am not destined to blog away from the work place. I’ll look into getting that sorted in case of another weekend emergency, I’m sure it’s quite simple but I was quite hung-over and so in no mood to tackle any technical issues. More so some pizza and a cup of tea.

So, where to begin?

I’ll start with the boring bits and then finish on a flourish with the Halloween party…and the aftermath.

Meetings. There – I don’t think you can start with a more boring topic. My continued involvement with this feckin’ new system (I’m bored of calling it ‘the new system’, I’m going to call it Crapbags from now on…) has now also managed to get me on every meeting invite going. Half of them I have no idea what they are about prior to the meeting (and sometimes after the meeting too), most of them I get invited to with 5 minutes notice and none of them are interesting or engaging. I also seem to walk out of them with even more work to do, funny that.

One meeting last week, which was actually not about Crapbags and with the Italian lady, was 2 ½ hours long. Two and a half. And I contributed one head nod and a couple of “mmmm”’s and that was it. I was not meant to be there, I have no idea why they have dragged me into this whole process but it was 2 ½ hours of my life that I will never have back again and that makes me sad. At one point I was wondering if I shoved my pen in my eye that it might get me out of the meeting – drastic but totally worth it in the long run. Now Italian lady wants to schedule a 4 hour workshop. Four hours. Four. Hours. I am going to try and get out of it but I don’t think I can. Maybe a sickie on the day it’s scheduled? I could throw myself down the lift shaft? Stick my wet fingers (careful) in a plug socket? I’ll think of something.

I also had my first experience of a web-based conference call. Like so many things here the person organising it assumed that we’d all been on one of these before and knew what we were doing. I didn’t. Ginger was also invited and just didn’t bother with it as she couldn’t figure it out! “Oh that, yeah I get invited every week but I have no idea where or how to log on to it….” OK. So I figure I’ll do the same. Then I get an email from IT Geek with a link, so I click on it and I’m in the call! There’s a chat board down the side so I say ‘hello’ and ask what I need to do. IT Geek sends me some numbers. ‘OK what do I do with these?’ Nothing. Other people look like they are joining the call. Still nothing. Someone is moving a cursor all over the screen. Which is black. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll just see what happens. Kirstie asks what I’m doing so I explain. We realise the numbers are a phone number and code so I give it a shot – I’m in!

“Nancy Clueless has joined the call”
“Oh hi Nancy I didn’t realise you had dropped out the call?”
“Er, I don’t think I was ever in it….”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway, what we were saying is…can you see this by the way?”
“No, it’s a black screen”
“OK hang on”

And so I can now see what his cursor is pointing at. It’s weird. There are 7 people on the end of this phone and his power point presentation is whizzing about on the screen in front of me. What’s weirder is that I am sat at my desk and so they can probably hear everything that’s going on in the office around me too. Inappropriate conversations, people shouting, Kirstie belching (that was one of my favourite moments). Weird.

Crapbags is still a bag of crap. I’m managing to do things to it that apparently aren’t possible as well. Completely unintentionally of course. If I knew what I was doing then I’d be getting paid thousands of pounds a week to be a consultant and trying to fix this shambles. Twice now I have worked my magic and completely baffled the nerds. Once was on Thursday when I managed to approve my own contract (only Harley should be able to do this) and today I received an email from a confused IT bod asking why I had closed and order and then approved it and why I had done this. Er I wasn’t aware I did? “Thank you anyway. I may have more questions. We shall see.” Sounds ominous.

The Temp is starting to get on my tits a bit with the constant chin wagging. She’s also very softly spoken half the time so I don’t even realise she is talking to me. Then I have to say “pardon” or more increasingly “what?!” four or five times until I can hear what she is jabbering on about and by then of course I’m trapped with no where to run and a 15 minute conversation about what bubble and squeak is or some ‘hilarious’ story from her last job. Shush now luv, some of us have work to do….or things infinitely more interesting that listening to you. Because her and Kirstie chat all the time as well and Temp mumbles so much I have also become an interpreter. “What’s she saying?” from Kirstie…”eh you did what?” from temp… Today I finally said “look you’re going to have to speak up because I am turning into the BT call back service here!” Temp apparently thought she was being really loud – er no that would be Kirstie.

I was also followed around at the Halloween party. Gunner and I made a pact that we would try and palm The Temp off on other people that evening whenever we could but he frankly let down his part of the bargain monumentally. Aside from the odd thumbs up from across the room or when I dragged him over he did his best to steer clear of Temp and I was stuck with her for a large proportion of the evening. There were 2 occasions where I was Temp-free, one chatting to a new boy and the other chatting to the guy from the post room. Gunners excuse was that he’d ‘tried’ to come and rescue me a couple of times but I was talking to someone or he got pulled away. Whatever mate. To give her her due, Temp was quite entertaining after a few ciders and by the end of the evening had thrown herself into the swing of things whole heartedly, managing to tick off most of the office do’s and don’ts in one evening.

I wasn’t in on Friday but apparently she managed to sleep through her alarm, rock up at 11am, puking in the street into an M&S carrier bag on the way and then spend half the day in the loos repeating said gesture. Girl after my own heart. She also snogged someone (I’ve no idea who he is, from legal apparently) on the way out and I had to drag her out of the place and make sure she got into a cab to get home. She doesn’t remember me taking her to a cash point to get the taxi money and regrets the decision to buy a Subway en route to the taxi stop. To be honest I didn’t think she was that drunk, but maybe I was just comparing her to the skeleton passed out on the dance floor or dude in the Scream mask asleep at the bar.

It was optional fancy dress which meant about 10 out of 70 people dressed up, me included. Of course. I went as a stab victim, a t-shirt I’d made with knives going all the way through (not literally of course, it just gave the illusion – I’m dedicated to the cause of fancy dress but I wouldn’t go that far) plus some gory make up, a lot of blood etc. I got ready at work and then got the tube with Gunner and Temp getting some odd looks as they were dressed normally and we were chatting about The Inbetweeners without any reference to the fact I had been stabbed 3 times with massive carving knives. Either that or we were saying ‘clunge’ a bit too loud… The stab victim outfit went down a treat and I may even have won a prize had the skeleton (organiser) been sober enough to hand them out. I considered just nicking one off the side but thought better of it. What did worry me was how much people enjoyed grabbing hold of my protruding knives (easy) and pretending to stab me. Really relishing the idea of it in fact – screaming ‘die Nancy die!’ and everything. Whether it’s the idea that they like pretending to stab someone or if it was me they were stabbing specifically that bothers me the most I’m not so sure.

The drunk post room guy sent me a picture this morning which is also quite disturbing. It’s him and the Kiwi from Finance (“decking”) stabbing me (screaming ‘die Nancy die!’ I expect) but also some random’s hand coming up from the bottom of the picture and grabbing my chest…. Hmmm. We haven’t identified the hand yet and to be honest I don’t remember that being in the photo – I do have my eyes shut though. He’s also reminded me that he promised to record me the whole Leonard Cohen back catalogue. So I’m holding him to that.