2 sugars please

If you are one of the unfortunate (few – it seems) to be working in the limbo that is the days falling between Christmas and New Year then I feel for you, I really do. As I am one of these unfortunates and so far it’s been dull, weird and well, dull.

Yesterday there were 2 of us in. Me and Moody and that was it. As you can imagine it was a simply enthralling day full of witty conversation and banter and I was loathed to leave the office as soon as I could. Please note the sarcasm in that last sentence. The sound of my typing was deafening, I had 3 cups of tea simply to pass the time and the toilet breaks that followed the tea drinking (goes straight through me don’t you know) also managed to use up a few minutes in an otherwise tedious day. Plus ironically I had nothing to do. Well technically there were many things I could have been getting on with but none of them important or urgent and so the motivation to do any of them was severely lacking. Thank god for the interweb and FaceAche chat is all I can say. I made it until just before 4pm and then gave up and went home – and only that far because Harley kept on emailing me from home and I had to reply to show I was actually in and I got caught talking to Moody about his daughter’s recent purchase of a shot gun.

This morning I decided to come in a little later and thank christ there were another 7 people in the office. I managed to dwindle the first 20 minutes talking to Gunner about our respective Christmases and everything zipped along until about 10.30am when I realised I had nothing to do again. Back on the web but it was a lot quieter than yesterday so I was left to my own devices. Gunner was only in today for this week, mainly to escape his home for one day of sanity (I know, if you’re looking for that in this place then feck only knows what your house is like!) and planning to make an early exit anyway. He informed me that his brood would be coming into the office later and then heading off to lunch.

By ‘brood’ I mean his good wife (who I met at the Crimbo bash and she’s quite a scary lady with a very firm handshake) and 4 children. All the kids are under the age of 12 and have very Irish names and from his stories sound like a right handful. Well at about 2pm I got to experience the Gunner clan in person. They all came clambering over the desks, hanging off Dad and his chair and asking a million questions.

“Is this your desk?” “Is that your computer?” “Why does that poster say ‘Fuck this I’m going home’?” (erm…) “Do they call you Dad here?”

Have you seen the film Daddy Day Care? Well it was a bit like that. You know in movies when kids go into their parents office and cause chaos by putting their pet frog in the coffee machine or accidentally shredding the bosses best tie – while it’s still attached to the boss? They don’t make that shit up, its from someone’s own personal experiences! They were pushing each other around on the chairs, crashing into things, putting post-it notes over everything, making the water cooler overflow, playing with staplers – it was, well actually it was quite entertaining. I can see why Gunner is tired all the time. Like being in a Starbucks on a Saturday morning.

So they all went off to lunch in one of those big cartoon balls of dust with legs and dolls and racing cars flying about and all again was quiet. Then the Portuguese lady who comes round and clears all the cups and plates and things from people’s desks every afternoon and who doesn’t speak a lot of English showed up. We did our usual ‘hello’ and asked about each others Christmases not really understanding what the other was saying but getting the general gist and all was fine and normal. Then a moment later I get a tap on the shoulder and she is looking very confused. In her hand she is holding an empty coffee mug from Gunner’s desk with a post it note stuck to it saying ‘Daddy’s Mug’. Should she clear it? Did he want to keep it? There was a far more confusing conversation as I tried to explain why it was on there “er his children were here (various hand signals) – writing on the mug…erm…” in the end I just took the post it off and told her not to worry about it. Kids eh?

The childer returned an hour or so later in another whirl wind and more chaos ensued while Gunner tried to finish off his work before he headed home with them. Eventually they were placated with tea and biscuits and one of them even made me a cup of tea. Well trained, I like it. It did make it seem like I was in Starbucks even more though with a hot beverage in my hand. Just need an overpriced muffin and a pram rammed into my right ankle and I’m there!