O fair lady if you’ll be so kind

The Face Book stalker has returned. I thought I’d seen the last of him with the “I should have come to my senses a long time ago” message. Let me refresh your memory…

“This song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BioGt4BY-fI&feature=related can express some of the things I wanted to say. However, it is a rather sad song and it might upset you. Beg a pardon for giving you nothing but trouble. Now, I just want to go get a job and get a life.& Thanks, for you have been kind to me in some ways :) so wish you well.”

He wished me well, he fecked off, I slept a little more soundly at night and I was hoping he’d go off and find a nice gal his age and live happily ever after (possibly secretly mourning me in those quiet reflective moments). Then there were a few months of silence and today he sent me a lovely (creepy) poem. I do wonder if he has been spending the 2 months writing this:

‘Love Shyness ss da phrase’

O fair lady if you’ll be so kind
To hear my poem composed to thy
For a tale I am about to describe
Relates to one who’s been stuck in my mind
‘But why do I still memorize?’
‘To keep a doomed wish high?’
Before you ask me ‘Why?’
Let’s turn time back for a while
N’ hear da story from my side: ** ver.2
“I once have some courage
Performed some failed magic
Yet the rewarded was wicked
Cos a blushed face looks fantastic”
So I know it in my heart
And believed in my eyes
She’s a Natural Beauty in Disguise
Now time has fly
Promise could turn into lies
‘Is my hope going to die?’
If so, I’ll be sad and ‘sigh’
Lovesick is a bad sign
Feels like night without stars that shines
Sometimes it makes you cry
Or like me I’ll go and hide
Soon I’ll get sick
But I was never tire
So I tried by and by
But no matter how I tried
The times I’m getting denied
Which makes me even wondered
‘For the reason that I am a guy?’
‘Or age the otherwise?’
They say love is blinded
They say life is complicated
Makes me so frustrated
But no matter what people will say
I just hope dinner is not too late (and Okay)
For I’ve longed for that day
When you and I could date
But to ask you through this way
I know I am still not brave
Don’t know why am I afraid
Even though Jaques say
“All the world's a stage”
Life could merely be a play
If one day I get lucky
You’re willing to take a ride
Give me chance to turn the tide
I will still need some aid
For I am not wise
I miss good opportunities because
I don’t realize
If I missed another chance
I shall go and eat a huge pie
Then go and drink some wine
Forget my belly size
Take a random drive
A brain surgeon I must find
To check the way I am designed
To find out why am I so shy

** ver.2“A mind’s so cunning? Without me knowing
The eyes are dazzling, is what I am dreaming
A face that’s good looking, I can’t help but watching
A smiles that’s bewitching, that’s why I am liking
Her presence is stunning, so I’ll keep on trying”

I particularly like the line “If I missed another chance, I shall go and eat a huge pie” and I’m not sure if being a ‘Natural Beauty in Disguise’ is an insult or compliment. And what about ‘If one day I get lucky, You’re willing to take a ride”? Cheek!

Anyway as hilarious as this is and no one has ever written a poem for me before (yes, yes you may pity me now) it is also incredibly weird and creepy. I mean he told me he was going to go and get a life but clearly he hasn’t, he’s been hauled up in his bedroom with a bunch of poetry books and Jay-Z’s albums scribbling away, thinking I am going to fall at his feet at this ‘romantic’ gesture.

I’m starting to think I need to watch my back again and maybe keep one of the kitchen knives on my bedside table…

So I’ve broken my vow of silence and I have replied this time saying “Please stop emailing me”. I hope he gets the hint, it’ll either stop him or push him over the edge and I’ll be bombarded with more messages I reckon. We shall see. In the meantime I may invest in some mace.

DO NOT SAY I DID NOT WARN YOU

Some more comedy messages from the database email for you today. It’s one person in particular who calls himself Mr Isibor and is a Chief Consultant no less. I’m guessing Mr Isibor isn’t used to conversing over emails with people from the UK and didn’t get the memo about writing all of his emails in CAPITAL LETTERS. I don’t know about you but when people do that I read it like they are SHOUTING AT ME! So it’s a bit disconcerting, plus the fact that a lot of his sign offs, whether intentionally or not sound like he is threatening me to buy things.

Initially he sent a very short email with no information about the company so I replied asking for various things like an address, telephone number, web site etc. This is what I got in response:


From: Mr Isibor
Sent: 05 August 2010 15:57
To: Database
Subject: Re: D2 SCO for POF provider

KINDLY INDICATE IF YOU CAN SUPPLY D2/JP54-PLS SEND YOUR SOFT OFFER FOR IMMEDIATE RESPOND.

REGARDS,
MR. ISIBOR
CHIEF CONSULTANT


Hmmmm, none of this answers any of my questions. So I again reply to ask for some company info so I can add them to the database. And this was Mr Isbor’s swift reply:


From: Mr Isibor
Sent: 06 August 2010 09:23
To: Database
Subject: Re: D2 SCO for POF provider


Dear

Our products list is as following:

(Massive list of products….)

Wish our products will be helpful for your business .Any questions,Welcome here.
=================

REGARDS,
MR. ISIBOR
CHIEF CONSULTANT


Right, I don’t think he gets it. Tell you what I don’t give enough of a flying fart to carry on with this, I’ll just ignore it and not bother.

But the man is persistent with his random emails so I have been lucky enough to get a few more through since:


From: Mr Isibor
Sent: 05 August 2010 16:11
To: Database
Subject: BUYING OFFER (05-08-2010).

FROM THE LAST DEAL OF THIS SEASON.

I received this from a contact. let see if we can work on this withGENUINE procedures.

YOUR PROMPT REPLY IS MOST APPRECIATEDWE NEED:
(Again with the long list of stuff…)

100% IRREVOCABLE ,DIVISIBLE,ASSIGNABLE NON TRANSFERABLE USA CONFIRMEDDOCUMENTARY LETTER OF CREDIT AVAILABLE AT SIGHT AT CONFIRMING BANKCOUNTERS.L/C IS ISSUED AFTER ACCEPTABLE DIREDT RECEIPT OF :1) COPIES VALID ACCEPTABLE POP OF FIRST SHIPMENT .POP MUST INCLUDEINDEPENDENT INSPECTION CERTIFICATES OF QUALITY AND QUANTITY.2) INOPERATIVE BANK PB OF FIRST SHIPMENT TO BE MADE OPERATIVE BY USACONFIRMING BANK SAME DAY L/C IS ISSUED.


REGARDS,
MR. ISIBOR
CHIEF CONSULTANT


Er yeah ok I’ll send you all those details shall I? Leave me alone man. Oh hang on, he’s back…


From: Mr Isibor
Sent: 12 August 2010 15:45
To: Database
Subject: FOR YOUR BUYER'S INTEREST..

THIS IS TO INFORM YOU THAT WE THE SELLER, WE CAN GUARANTEE YOU A ALREADY COMPLETE DEAL. HE IS READY TO PERFORM WITHOUT UPFRONT FEE.

IF BUYER IS NOT OKAY WITH AVAILABLE OFFERS-WE WILL BE WELCOMING TO YOU NEW BUYING REQUEST AND YOU WILL HAVE IT SUCCESSFUL BUT ONLY IF YOU CAN PRESENT BUYER'S LOI/ATB OR CPA FOR LOADED VESSEL. WITH THIS WE HAVE A DEAL.

REGARDS,
MR. ISIBOR
CHIEF CONSULTANT


WTF is he going on about? Who is ready to perform without an upfront fee? All sounds a bit dodgy to me. Maybe I should be reporting this to the police…..


From: Mr Isibor
Sent: 16 August 2010 13:31
To: Database
Subject: BLCO TTO SPA

ATTACHED IS BLCO OFFER ON TTO FOR INTERESTED BUYER ONLY.SELLER IS READY TO PERFORM WITHOUT UPFRONT FEE.

--

REGARDS,
MR. ISIBOR
CHIEF CONSULTANT


Again with the upfront fee. And why is he shouting at me?! What did I do wrong?


From: Mr Isibor
Sent: 17 August 2010 12:32
To: Database
Subject: UPDATES ON AVAILABLE OFFERS.

THIS IS TO LET YOU KNOW THAT SELLER FOR THE "PAL REK" TTO SPA/2 SPAs FORCADOS NAIRA/DOLLAR DEAL/FOB-MIRC/CIF-TRIAGLOBAL ARE READY TO PERFORM.

ON THIS AVAILABLE OFFERS I CAN GUARANTEE YOU-SO BE SPECIFIC AND KINDLY REVERT BACK WITH REFS. TO THE VERY SPA.

REGARDS,
MR. ISIBOR
CHIEF CONSULTANT


Er you what now? I need to visit a spa?

OK so I am skipping 4 of these as they are a bit repetitive and also make no sense whatsoever. We’ll move on to the ones that start to sound threatening…


From: Mr Isibor
Sent: 19 August 2010 14:50
To: Database
Subject: ATB MT VIRGINIA AND SPA 2MB FOCADOS FOR IMMEDIATE BOARDING


ATTACHED DOC.

IS ANOTHER FOCADOS OFFER DOLLAR DEAL FOR 14 NET 9. SEE ATTACHED ATB FOR VERIFICATION AND CONFIRMATION RAISE BG TO ACTIVATE ATB TO BOARD.

THE SOONER YOU RESPOND, THE BETTER.

--
REGARDS,
MR. ISIBOR
CHIEF CONSULTANT


Jesus, the sooner I respond the better? Why? What will happen if I don’t? I didn’t check these emails for 2 weeks! Should I check on the cats? Come to think of it I haven’t seen them since yesterday….


From: Mr Isibor
Sent: 21 August 2010 19:00
To: Database
Subject: SPA DOCS FOR 2 LOADED CARGO MT KOS & MT MARAN LYRAN

FROM ONE OF MY SELLERS CONTACT;

3MB OF 2 CARGOES BCLO FOR IMMEDIATE CLOSING. LET BUYER VERIFY THE CARGO WITH SGS REPORT blah….blah….blah….blah…. SHARING STRUCTURE ARE 100% NON-NEGOTIABLE.

I AM A PAYMASTER FOR 6 CONTACTS IN MY GROUP. ANY ATTEMPT FOR ANYBODY TO TAKE OUT OF THE COMMISSION OF MY GROUP IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE. IT IS ALSO IMPORTANT YOU KNOW THAT OTHER ALTERNATIVE BUYERS ARE ALSO INTERESTED IN THIS DEAL AND THAT SELLER WILL ONLY CLOSE DEAL WITH THE QUICKEST & FASTEST BUYER TO RETURN SIGNED AND SEALED CONTRACT.

DO NOT SAY I DID NOT WARN YOU.

REGARDS,
MR. ISIBOR
CHIEF CONSULTANT


Blimey, I’ve had a warning now. It’ll be horse’s heads in my bed next. And why does he keep on shouting! I think this guy means business.

The next email was sent yesterday and was massive and written all in CAPITALS but not just only in CAPITALS but RED CAPITALS. Do you think this might be a coded message? Red….blood…..danger….oh deary me.

Then another about 20 minutes later….



From: Mr Isibor
Sent: 23 August 2010 19:35
To: Database
Subject: FOB AND TTT BLCO PROCEDURES

THIS IS FOR ONLY SERIOUS BUYER NO TIME GOING BACK/FORTH HERE.

NOTE:
WE ARE NOT READY TO ENTERTAIN UNNECESSARY COMPLAINS IN REGARDS TO THE ABOVE OFFER.

--
REGARDS,
MR. ISIBOR
CHIEF CONSULTANT


I’m sorry I wasn’t aware I made a compliant. I’m considering it now, you hear me? I SAID I’M CONSIDERING IT NOW!

Today the messages are a bit cryptic as they are blank and have been sent twice. What does it mean? Have I scared him off? Perhaps someone else got there first and he’s not able to type due to some mafia inflicted injury? Or this could be a silent threat? Clearly the shouting wasn’t working so he’s going for the softly softly approach? Well dear readers, if you don’t hear from me by the weekend then expect the worst.

Sir I can clearly see your nuts….

I know I go on about it a bit but everyone here is completely nuts. I think some clinically so. I’m getting more and more concerned about Moody as well as he’s definitely on the edge of some kind of mental breakdown. Every time I go over to see him he sits muttering to himself about whatever I have asked him, then claims to have an email from someone about it, then spends 10 minutes trying to find the email and can’t. Then he finds a print out of it right in front of him but it still wasn’t what he expected it to say. Then half an hour later he’ll come over to me and say “you were right, it wasn’t what I was thinking…..”

He’s said “I’m not having a good day” 5 times to me so far but has yet to tell me why.

It can be entertaining working with completely nuts people but it can also be very frustrating. Take the incident above for example. I had 4 contracts to work on this morning, hurrah – work to do, and now have none as Moody has had to take them off me to “look at them”. Not because I’ve done something wrong on them, I haven’t even had a chance to get started on them to do that yet, it’s because he needs to scrutinise everything about them, go through his 3 billion pieces of paper on his desk to find that one email about them (he likes to do his bit towards destroying the rainforest) which tells me nothing useful and has an attachment I already had. This whole process can take up to 20 minutes during which I am mainly stood next to his desk inspecting my nails or thinking about my plans for the weekend or raising my eyes to the ceiling at Kirstie across the partition. All the while Moody is muttering away and cursing to himself.

Losing. It. Big time.

I was bitching about this over email to a friend and he asked me if there were any other sane people in the office aside from myself (well relatively sane then)? Just as I was reading his email I hear Kirstie singing the little circus song, you know “di di diddy diddy di di di di….” And you can picture the clowns circling the big top on tiny tricycles and threatening each other with custard pies. I turn to see her trying to balance a small ball on her nose like a seal. She’s not successful so she tries to stick it there with some blue tac……then an elastic band. When bored of this she starts to throw the ball at her keyboard to see if she can type with it. She was going to be my one saving grace, the person I mention in my reply to my friends email about the other ‘sane’ people I work with. What do I do now? I am lost at sea with the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

What if it’s catching?! I mean I don’t remember Moody or Kirstie being this weird when I started; it seems to have developed over time. Definitely with Moody, there’s always been the talking to himself but now there seems to be full on conversations and debates going on. That could be me in a years time, I’m sure there’s a jacket with arms that tie round the back and a tub of little green pills waiting for me with my yearly review.

Well so be it. If you can’t beat them (and you can’t, I’ve tried with various implements and anyway I’ve been told it’s illegal to hit your work colleagues even if they are 2 sandwiches, a packet of hula hoops and an Umbungo short of a picnic) join them as they say. I’ll start taking requests for demonstrations of circus skills….roll up, roll up.

Here comes the massive bride

Everyone in this office is either getting married or having a baby. That’s how it seems anyway, I could be slightly over exaggerating on this one occasion but there are a heck of a lot of fat ladies walking around and people huddled in corners talking about bouquets and reception venues and the size of their rings (easy).

I’ve just been sat on the loo listening into a conversation between a pregnant lady and a lady who is getting married in a week and a half. Yes I was ear wigging, don’t judge me – how the heck do you think I get half the information for this blog anyway?!

So the gal getting hitched is my co-captain for the netball team and has been as useless as a chocolate fire guard this week in organising the team as her head is in wedding land. I just took over in the end as she was driving me insane and the rest of the team were very confused. As far as I can surmise she is getting married to an Irish gypsy or something, he seems hard as fuck and dodgy as they come anyway. Gunner predicts fights at the wedding and drunken mishaps. She’s not an Irish Gypsy herself, I think she’s from Croydon, but she likes horses and obviously likes a bit of Traveller so it’s probably a good match. I saw the photos of her hen do – it wasn’t pretty.

The pregnant woman is from Finance and the most miserable bitch ever. She’s Eastern European (that’s British for “she seems to sound Polish but might not be so we’ll just put her in that general direction”) and quite pretty but as sour as they come. I think I’ve seen her smile twice since I have been here and once was probably when someone fell over and hurt themselves. I have to give her my expenses forms and purposely go down there all chipper and jolly “Hello!! Where would you like this form?!” (I can think of several suggestions…) “In the blue tray” doesn’t even look up from her computer and sounds like she is about to pull out a rifle on me. She is massively pregnant, so big I am worried she might pop at some stage all over the coffee machine or something. That happens right? She waddles at some speed when there is free cake involved though. She’s apparently shite at her job and on contract so when she goes on maternity leave she’s not coming back. Shame.

It’s ok though, she has duped some poor rich guy into marrying her and having her babies (I know this through the very gay guy in Finance – her boss) so she’s got an engagement rock on her finger and nothing to worry about.

So back to the toilet conversation. You know when people stop to chat as they are washing their hands and you’re trying not to wee too loudly or let out a little guff? Move on people, there is a time and a place! So here we have preggers and wedding chick chatting about the upcoming nuptials:

Preggers: “Hi how are you?”
WC: “Good thanks, bit stressed out though”
Preggers: “Oh yeah when is it you are getting married?”
WC: “Week after next”
Preggers: “Wow, where are you having it?”
WC: Names a place I can’t remember, lets say The Albert Hall
Preggers: “So how many people you got coming?”
WC: “79 to the ceremony and then more in the evening, not sure how many”

At this point I zone out a bit, it’s boring and dull, they’re chatting about buffets and free bars etc..yada yada ya…

Preggers: “Yeah I was engaged to be married but I could never be bothered to arrange the wedding”
WC: “Oh…….. right?”
Preggers: “Yeah we were engaged for 4 years, we split up in the end though”
WC: “Oh no, sorry to hear that”
Preggers:”It’s ok we’re still good friends”

Yeah I’m sure you are if he has any money….

Preggers: “I think it’s because we waited too long to get engaged, this time though I just did it all quickly”
WC: “Yeah I can see that!” (Probably indicating her massive massive baby bump)
Preggers: “Yeah you know it’s probably happened a bit too quick but well…”
WC: “Yeah, er, well I really love my fiancé so…”
Preggers: “Eh? Oh of course, yeah right…”

At this point I realise I have been sat on the loo for about 5 minutes and they might think I am having a huge dump or some kind of bowel problems. Then I’m undecided as to if I should wait for them to go or just come out the loo. They’re still chatting, they could be hours and I have things to do before I go home. Erm. I flush.

Preggers: “Anyway I hope it all goes ok”
WC: “Yeah thanks, I’ll be glad when I’m on that plane to Thailand” (Honeymoon)

Oh damn, they’re ending the conversation. Do I wait a bit? Yeah I’ll wait.

Preggers: “Oh is that your honeymoon?”
WC: “Yeah, can’t wait, we’ve booked to stay in…..”

Bugger. Now I’ve flushed and have been stood here ages, they’ll be thinking I am having trouble pulling my knickers up or something…. I’ll leave, I’ll go out. I do. They both say hello. I leave.

Damn work toilet etiquette.

So in conclusion be sure to get engaged and married and pregnant as fast as possible in order to snare your man. If you can’t be bothered to organise your own wedding you’ll lose that guy and his wallet and have to search around for another, looking sour all the time. Alternatively search the local caravan sites for a suitable gyppo.

I should write a book on weddings, this shit is easy.

Gag reflex

I am tying this through a blur of watery eyes and runny nose, actually it might be bleeding, I haven’t checked.

Pepe le Pew is back today and I am trying not to pass out as I type. I mentioned in my list of rants yesterday that there was a man who has been sat at the spare desk next to me for the past 2 days and his aftershave is so overwhelming it is actually hurting my sinuses. People can smell him on the other side of the office. Gunner thinks it’s because he is French, I think maybe it’s because he’s a massive hairy man who needs to mask his BO. Whatever the reason it is giving me a headache again and makes me feel really sick. Also worryingly enough it smells more like perfume than aftershave…. Donna has just told me he is going to be here for 4 weeks, maybe longer. I may have to request a transfer. Why do I always end up sat next to the freaks?! I’ve already had to be moved once!

It has been suggested that I douse myself in Katie Price’s new stink and try and get a bit of sweet smelling revenge but I think the combination of the 2 aroma’s could cause some kind of fire or possibly merge to form a type of mustard gas and set the fire alarms off. Plus I’d quite like to keep the hairs on the inside of my nose and try to limit the chemical burns to a minimum.

I may sound like I am exaggerating slightly but I really am not. I worked out I can smell him on my walk back from the other end of the office before I turn the corner into our area. That’s a good 20 paces away. Everyone who comes over this side to speak to one of us has also commented on the odour.

“Oooh who smells nice? Is that your perfume Ginger?”

Yeah it smells nice because it’s only just wafted into your nostrils and soon you shall be clear of it. You haven’t had to breathe it in for 7 hours and fight off the urge to stuff tissues or biscuits or tampons or whatever comes to hand up your nose to try and mask it.

Everyone who comments also refers to it as ‘perfume’ which is fairly comical. Maybe he is wearing perfume? Kirstie thinks she recognises it and it’s one of them Jean Paul Goat-ier ones with the gay sailors in the adverts but perhaps he picked up the lady bottle instead of the mens and no one corrected him about his mistake? Or he could just like wearing lady perfume, you never know, each to their own and all that. I’m not sure why he feels it necessary to put so much on though. He must be getting through it pretty quickly by now.

Tomorrow I am going to come in with one of those masks Michael Jackson used to wear and a diving mask and….heck I’ll just don a full chemical hazard protection suit like they wear in ET! I’ll set up a series of plastic tunnels to and from my desk as well to ensure that nothing gets through. Do you think he’ll get the hint?

Muttered obscenities

I have been in a foul mood since I got back to this piss-face arse-crack of an office. These long weekends are all good and well while they last but then you have to come back to reality and that really, really, really sucks. Massively. Even the shorter working weeks aren’t helping as I thought they would, they still seem to drag. Never happy am I? I suppose 4 days of cack is better than 5 and I have yet another long weekend to look forward to this week. It’s like having a daily dose of the holiday blues though; perhaps I need to tone down the enjoyment factor at the weekend to compensate for the low on a Monday morning?

For some reason this week seems worse than normal, I think I am just uber fed up and without gossip or scandal or anything remotely interesting happening at work. Everything has become a chore and everyone is pissing me off. Everyone. Even Kirstie’s attempts to cheer me up “go on give me a little smile!” Er how about I give you a little kick? She means well but the good intentions are lost on me at the moment. I find myself cursing and swearing a lot under my breath and not so much under my breath at times. Simple tasks are winding me up and my fuse is so short it’s reached the point where Coyote is staring bug eyed at the ACME bomb Road Runner has just handed him as it fizzes away and inevitably blows him 30 miles off the cliff and into the path of a speeding train. It’s ridiculous, it’s completely unjustified and it’s irrational but damn it I don’t care.

Things that have pissed me off today:

The fact that I didn’t cycle into work so to avoid the forecast rain and it has so far been dry as a bone (my own stupid fault for trusting weather forecasters)

Waiting for Andre all day to do some poxy handover (she’s going on holiday AGAIN for a week and a half) of her work and knowing she’ll come over to see me at 4.55pm when I am about to leave.

The fact that I have been lumped with Andre’s work.

The French man who sat next to me all day stinking of really strong aftershave. Aftershave that actually worryingly smelt like perfume (well each to their own) and has burned through my sinuses, given me a headache and made me feel sick. It was so strong even Ginger who sits 4 people up from him smelt it.

That it is only Tuesday.

That it is currently only 15:56 and I wanted to go home 6 hours ago.

Being lumped with the netball organisation for tomorrow at 2pm today by the co-captain (she had to go to a wedding rehearsal – on a Tuesday?) who told me she was really short for players and then finding players and then being shouted at by people who she had promised could play but forgotten to tell me about or put on the players list.

Then having to stop WW3 amongst netball players and actually give my position up on the team so some stroppy South African kicking up a fuss can play instead.

The fact that the co-captain told me everything about her current life (wedding traumas, husband to be spending all the honeymoon cash, argument with Dad, anorexic sister…..keep going I’ll pretend I give a toss) but failed to tell me anything useful about the netball fixture.

That there is a distinct lack of cake in the office today.

I was hoping after yesterday’s day of rage it would subside and this morning did seem to feel a bit better but as the hours have worn on the rage has returned and frankly I’m ready to sharpen my wooden spoon…..

Kirstie keeps a bottle of Rescue Remedy on her desk that I might lace a chocolate éclair with.

Drive by caking

Lots of free food in the office today, I’m feeling particularly stuffed and should really hit the gym tonight but instead I’ll probably go home and eat more. We’ve had free sandwiches and rolls thanks to Saffa ordering some for a meeting, then cancelling the meeting and forgetting to cancel the food. She came round to apologise to Kirstie about it but instead got a pat on the back for providing us all with a complimentary lunch! Said lunch was wheeled down to us at midday by a lady from reception and we all dived in!

On top of this it’s Moody’s birthday today, I think he’s 102 years old or something, he won’t tell us. He keeps claiming to be 22 but the full white beard and dicky heart say otherwise. So birthdays mean cake and Moody did us proud by bringing in a fabulous selection from a yummy bakery. No Sainsbury’s donuts or Mr Kipling lemon slices in there! Not that I’m not partial to a lemon slice (careful) but these were stupendous. Kirstie grabbed a chocolate brownie the size of my hand and I got a danish (as in the pastry not someone from Denmark). We went halves and had the danish in the morning (easy) and then devoured the brownie in the afternoon. My god. Possibly the best brownie I have ever had. Fact. I tried not to inhale it in one go but it didn’t last long. Feckin’ amazing.

We are partial to a cake in this office as you already know but today I saw another side of some of my colleagues, a side I’d rather not know about. When there is cake and free sandwiches about you had better get in there quick and then stand out of the way of the stampeded or you’re going to get hurt! You’d think some of them hadn’t been fed in a week. Strange how they don’t react like this to a free bar…oh hang on they do don’t they?

When the sarnies got wheeled over Kirstie whispered to me “you had better get in there quick before CJ realises there is free food in the room”. She wasn’t wrong. I was standing perusing the selection with paper plate and napkin in hand when I look up to the sound of hurried stomping and see CJ literally running up to the trolley. She comes up right next to me as if to check out what I have on my plate and I almost cover mine with my hand protectively. Then she barges past me to get to the rest! I’m not exaggerating, her shoulder made contact with mine and my rolls almost ended up rolling on the floor! Jesus luv calm down, there’s plenty there unless you’re worried I’m about to make my way through 40 rounds of cheese and pickle!

The woman is the size of a twig so it could be she only eats free meals and they don’t come along very often. I’m sure I saw her stuffing some into her pockets out the corner of my eye…

The cakes were a different story all together, they went quickly and not only CJ was in a hurry to pick out a good one. But as is always the way we had left overs. A couple of weird looking tarts (I’m still talking about the cake selection here), some cupcakes and a sponge bear who was looking very lonely and unloved. Kirstie was good to get in there early for the brownie and I thank her for that profusely.

Anyway we have some leftovers and I am thinking it’s going to go to waste so I email some of my buddies in Finance who I know are cake lovers. No joke you could count down on your watch as to how long it took them to get down from the other side of the office. Maybe just under 30 seconds?! The flamboyant gay guy (he who was flirting with everything male at the rounder’s BBQ) actually ran down, straight past the cake box and to the sandwiches and then looked disappointed until I pointed them out. The New Zeeland girl (“I had some good dicking last night…”) followed up on the rear (easy) and pinched a cup cake too. I think Mr Flamboyant might have taken out a couple of the IT geeks as he ran through and there was a ‘swoosh’ of papers somewhere further up the office. I can picture him now walking back to his desk staring longingly at his cake whilst everyone around him recovers from the pastry seeking missile that had swept through a few moments earlier.

In conclusion I work with (and I include myself in this statement) a bunch of greedy heffers who would sell their own grandmother for a double choc chip muffin or egg roll if it’s going free. No one’s going to die of starvation round here by the looks of it.

Nom, nom, nom.

½ Day Hell

Just a small bit of news to start. Today I noticed that this is my 100th blog. I’m not sure whether to be proud or cry into my spaghetti hoops. Maybe I’ll celebrate later with a Starbucks. A centennial of rants.

The reason for my radio silence is that I have been away, far, far away. Well not physically but mentally for sure, work could not have been farther from my mind over this lovely long weekend. Thursday night I ran screaming in joy from the building throwing handfuls of paper into the air and sending my pen tidy skittering across my desk in celebration. Goodbye losers! Farewell freaks! See you on the other side!

But it all goes by far too quickly and before you know it you’re back sat at your desk turning off your out of office (resentfully) and going through the 6 million emails (4 of which are of relevance to you) you have received over the period of 2 ½ working days. One big mistake I made was returning on a half day, i.e. coming into the office after lunch at 1pm. My advice to you would be to never take a ½ day that way round, always take it in the afternoon, dragging yourself into work after a morning off is HARD and those 4 hours shall be the slowest of your life. For me it just worked out that that was the way it had to be, personal commitments were required and I didn’t want to use up that other ½ day of precious annual leave but if you have the choice just throw caution to the wind and take the whole day. Lesson learnt.

What didn’t help was that I also returned to a huge steaming pile of cack at work. People shouting down the phone at me about things I wasn’t responsible for, cold calls for the feckin’ database, emails from HR that just pissed me off no end and to top it all it was raining so I was looking forward to a cycle home in the wet. Huge, massive grump on let me tell you! I managed to shake it off soon after leaving the building in the drizzle and this morning was an improvement (people had stopped shouting for one thing) so today has been better.

I’m off again on Friday so with a 2 ½ day working week I can’t complain that much I suppose (but you know I will….) and then next week another Friday off and the following week is a bank holiday weekend. I might just save up all my annual leave next year and book off every Friday so I end up with a 4 day week here. Brilliant plan. I’d end up just wanting to work a 3 day week though, I know I’d never be satisfied.

On the up side we won 5-1 at netball today! Stunned and amazed I was! Well lets be honest we haven’t had the best run this season and what with the various injuries we’re one or two players short. It was a clincher of a match though; we needed to win it to carry on into the ¼ finals so clearly we must play well under pressure. Let’s hope this winning streak (can you call one win a ‘streak’?) continues and in several weeks you find a photo of me sporting the netball trophy! Well stranger things have happened. Not many but I’m sure there’s some.

News Flash

I forgot to update you on the break-in. My sincere apologies dear readers, how slack of me. You must have been on tenterhooks ever since the first instalment of the Great Robbery and sat at your computer screen awaiting any developments. Or more likely you had forgotten about it until I mentioned it just then, I’m sure some of you are still racking your brains as to what I’m talking about and are now scrolling back through the other posts to get some enlightenment.

I am talking about the break in we had at work a few weeks back. When someone stealthily walked in the main entrance and stole lots of laptops and things and then walked out again, probably with a member of staff holding the door for them. We then received the email from he up on high declaring more safety measures were being installed with IMMEDIATE effect! Oh good, I feel a lot better now, I can stop locking my chocolate digestives away at night.

We then received another email a week later informing us there had been another break in.

(Hang on, what about these increased security measures?)

And that the intruder was the same man.

(Weren’t they meant to be put in place with IMMEDIATE effect?)

And that he had walked into the CEO’s office and stolen his laptop. And his golf clubs. Snigger.

(sigh)

What is even more ridiculous is that this person used the same staff pass card he had done the 1st time around to gain entry to the building. So these increased security measures didn’t involve cancelling that card they know he used to get in last time? Well done people * slow hand clap *.

I do like the fact that he nicked the top bosses golf clubs though. Those clubs would have been worth A LOT and would have REALLY pissed off the CEO. I’m sure he didn’t give a stuff about his laptop…oh no hang on, his lap top probably had quite a bit of confidential information on it about the company didn’t it (never mind the porn…) – whoops! Go Team Security!

That is all.

Izzit yeah?

I have been sat here counting the number of times CJ says ‘yeah’ in her phone conversations (things are pretty slow today) and on the last call it was 58. No exaggeration. I think 23 of those were in her sign off as well.

“So yeah, yeah, I hope we can yeah, yeah……yeah? Well if we can sort that out then…yeah. Anyway, yeah, how have things been yeah? Yeah? Yeah, yeah…of course it’s like that isn’t it? Yeah, yeeeeeah, yeah, yeah, yeah….yeah…….yeah. Yeah. Right yeah, well yeah I will speak to you soon yeah? Yeah. Bye then. Yeah.”

I emailed Gunner who sits opposite her:


From: Nancy Clueless
Sent: 04 August 2010 16:34
To: Gunner
Subject: Yeah

“Yeah? Yeah….yeah….yeah? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah….”

Expand on your vocab a bit luv.



From: Gunner
Sent: 04 August 2010 16:35
To: Nancy Clueless
Subject: RE: Yeah


Yeah


Sums it up I think. I’m not sure if it’s some kind of nervous oral twitch (easy) of hers or if she just has nothing better to say or is shit at general conversation or has just picked it up as a bad habit. Probably the latter, I know of a few people who do the same thing. I have found myself saying the work ‘like’ a lot more in my sentences which I am deeply ashamed of. I sound like a bloody toff kid “So like I was like at the bus stop like…” Well maybe I’m not that bad but it’s getting there. I have a friend who says “Sort of” or “Sort of thing” all the time which once you start to notice it can be really annoying – again a bad habit he’s picked up. There was also a girl who shared a house with some uni mates years ago who said “Izzit” to EVERYTHING you said to her.

“I went to the cinema last night”
“Izzit?”
“Saw a great film with whassisface in”
“Izzit?”
“Cost me £7 though, bloody rip off”
“Izzit?”

That response makes no sense. “Izzit” being derived from “Is it” and every time she said this she posed it as a question so asking me “Is it?” after telling her I went to the cinema is just plain baffling. She also used to say it in a long drawn out sing song voice that made you want to clamp your hand over her mouth after about 5 minutes of conversation.

“Um” can also be a trifle irritating. I find that pops up a lot in work presentations, especially if the speaker is nervous. I once attended a conference and we had these god awful boring workshops to go to throughout the day which got worse and worse. One of them was especially dull and the girl presenting said “um” over 50 times in her 10 minute talk. I think every sentence was littered with it. I started to tally them up on my note pad, which my colleague noticed and then realised what I was doing. As soon as the realisation dawned she burst into a fit of giggles which only unnerved the speaker more and created an avalanche of ‘um’s’ in the concluding part of the Power Point presentation.

CJ wins the award for most aggravating vocal disability though because her ‘yeah’s’ are dripping with a patronising tone. It’s like someone talking down to a tiny kid or old person “Did you hurt your arm? Did you? Yeah, yeah you did didn’t you?” Or like she is agreeing with everything you say just to placate you and pretend she is interested. It’s worse for us as well because we only hear one side of the conversation. I have no idea how her clients the other end of the phone take it.

“Er CJ would you stop saying ‘yeah’ all the time please?”
“Yeaaaahhh”
“It’s actually really irritating.”
“Yeah? Yeah, yeah.”
“I’m hanging up on you now.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeeeaaaahhhhh.”
Dialing tone.
“Yeah.”

To input or not to input? That is the questi…..oh who gives a toss?

I’ve just been sifting through the 72 emails for the database that have built up over the past few days. I’m wondering if there is any point in putting any of this choz in the database as apparently they are not going to be using it anymore. This came up during the hellish training course last week when it was made evident that all the data I have been collecting to migrate into the new system wouldn’t be used. I tapped Kirstie on the shoulder and whispered a question about this to which she looked very guilty and sorry for me and confirmed my suspicion that no, they don’t need it any more. Hurrah.

So the past 6 months or so of the inane, mind numbingly, soul destroying, brain bleeding, retina straining inputting I have been doing is for nothing. Nothing. All 600+ entries useless. It sits on my hard drive, inaccessible to anyone else and completely pointless. Whilst these poor blighters keep emailing me and the management forward me items they don’t want to deal with regardless of the fact it won’t go anywhere.

And did anyone think to inform me of this? Of course not. I’ll keep blindly inputting away and little do I know they have changed their minds, AGAIN. Kirstie has suggested I ask Moon Monkey about his plans for all this data but I am more tempted to leave it and see how long it actually takes him to tell me I’m wasting my time. Jerk.

Of course I’m not surprised, I said from the beginning it would probably never get used or suddenly change format or start again or become something that’s put on the ‘back burner’. This thing has already taken the form of 4 different systems or spreadsheets and none of those ever came to light so what makes this so different?

The question is do I carry on regardless, inputting information until someone tells me not to or do I stop and await the consequences – or just for anyone to notice? I’m thinking I might carry on but start putting made up information in there or for every 5 or 6 entries create some random, comedy company in there like “Mr Giggles Custard Pies” or “Sluts R Us”. To be honest even if it did go live I doubt anyone would question it as the information that goes in there normally is pretty odd to an outsider of the industry. Today I received an email about ‘Penetration Fittings’……

And there is always the comedy emails from overseas to keep me occupied. I couldn’t give those up could I? I’ve noticed a new trend in recent ones in reply to emails I’ve sent back – “Dear Sir” they say….er have you read my name at the bottom of the email? Clearly not a sir. Well maybe in some countries it could be mistaken, and I do sometimes get referred to as ‘sir’ in McDonalds (must be the facial hair, where did I put that Immac?) but over email they can’t make that mistake surely?

I was also sent a picture by one company of 2 parrots on a beach, one wearing a sombrero and holding an ice cream and one a cowboy hat and a camera around it’s neck telling me to ‘enjoy the holiday season’. Not sure why this image would make me do that but it was appreciated none the less. I’ve included it in this blog entry for your enjoyment. Happy holiday season!

Umbrella, ella, ella…

Welcome to Part 2. Friday afternoon and the end is in sight. This has been a bloody long week and I’m ready for my 1st pint of cider now thank you very much. Didn’t touch a drop at lunch today, went for a chokey cola and was very good – not sure why, maybe my liver was sending messages to my subconscious “Please no more! Just give me one day without the booze!” Won’t last though as I’m on my way out tonight for what will probably be a fairly drunken affair. And I’m damn well looking forward to it, even if Liver isn’t.

But I digress, this is a blog about my working world not the social on goings on Nancy Clueless and I’m afraid that is the way it will stay you nosey parkers. Unless play happens to encroach on work in some way, which it does on the odd occasion. But you’ll have to wait for those.

So back to this week. So far I’ve undergone 2 ½ days of some of the worst training experiences of my life, almost bludgeoned an old fat twat of a man to death with the arm of my chair (which I have ripped off through rage) and ranted a lot about people who er, rant. Now on to the fun stuff, the non-working work stuff, I am of course talking about the annual work rounders competition / BBQ. Last year I missed this event for some reason, much to my annoyance. Apparently it pissed it down with rain so there wasn’t much rounders and the focus was more on the BBQ and drinking side of things which sounds fine to me. This year (namely this Tues just passed) we were more fortunate and the weather held out at least for the rounders match so we managed to fit 3 innings in. The chose playing field was a local park located very conveniently next to the pub we moved on to afterwards.

Beer was supplied during the match so as you can guess the rules were a bit shaky and there was a bit of rugby tackling at 4th post going on in order to stop any ‘rounders’ being made. All in good spirits of course. There were about half of the netball team (not currently injured) playing as well so I warned everyone not to get hurt as we had 2 matches the next day. Famous last words. About 1 inning in one of my team simply fell over his own feet as his Achilles went snap and he literally had to crawl to the side lines. He was soon after taken over to the pub for some bandaging and ice packs. Then during the last round another one fell foul to a hard rounders ball smack in the face. Right on the cheek bone. Being a Scottish lass she claimed she was fine and stayed on for about 5 minutes before almost passing out and being dragged off by concerned First Aiders. Again, another one packed off to the pub for some sugary drinks and an ice pack.

For fucks sakes.

Anyone else for an injury? Anyone else more to the point, on my netball team who wants to bash themselves up?! Ah well, carry on. I think possibly our company and sport are not a good combination, I’m glad we get free health care here.

We lose by 1 rounder (I think the other team were lying about their score and the ref was easily led after 3 cans of Becks) but it’s all fun and frolics and I’m impressed by the amount of people up for a game. There must have been 20 odd people playing and another 20 on the sidelines. One of the guys from Finance is particularly good, hitting a rounder and running the whole thing in his socks carrying a beer. Impressive. He was on my team.

With the game done we all walk/limp/blindly stumble over to the pub where there is a tab behind the bar (no spirits mind…) and food being handed out. Must be about 50 of us in the beer garden which shows that when it comes to work socials you can forget the high brow theatre or tickets to the ballet, all we want is a burger and some free booze. Gunner is already fairly inebriated after the 5 cans he had in the park and some other people are well on their way. The cripple and smashed face chick are both sitting waiting at a table with the first aider who is also getting plastered. Self administering alcohol seems to be the chosen prescription for the evening for them. I managed to get quite a few pints I before the tab got used up (which was at about 10.45pm) but managed to get drunk but not dunk enough that I wasn’t able to enjoy watching all the wasted people around me.

Some highlights of the evening:

Gunner. Just Gunner in general, he was mahoofinated by about 9pm and turned into the right old Saaaaaaf Laaaandan geezer he is. Very good value for money and managed to pack away 2 of the massive burgers off the BBQ too.

The Finance Team. These people are serious drinkers and when they drink they are excessively funny. In particular is the massively camp South African guy who ends up coming on to anything with a todger in the bar who he works with and had me promising to make a secret pact with him to get people ‘talking more’ at work. I promised because I was a little scared. I will try but I can’t promise anything. There’s also the little Ozzy girl who works with him who was out on the infamous Netball drinks last week too. She’s always “I’m just staying for one” and then one of the last to leave and one of the only people I know who actually likes Chardonnay. There is a long running joke about how she pronounces ‘decking’ ‘dicking’ so we have many an hour of fun with that. “I got some great dicking at the weekend….”

The pub staff bringing out huge golfing umbrellas for us when it rained so we could stay in the pub garden – class.

My Co-Captain of the Netball team. She don’t drink much, in fact as far as I can tell she don’t get out much at all so she was totally off the wagon and going for it. Cue telling some of her work colleagues exactly what she thinks of them, ice cream fights where innocent by-standers get caught in the cross fire, holding hands with the dude in his socks all night (she is soon to be married) and generally being loud and mouthy. Love it.

Trying to find out about the cute guy from Risk for a mate – is he single, does he fancy her? I went over on the attack with a very drunk partner in crime who initially scared him away with her screeching, demanding high fives from everyone around her but I managed to claw him back and find out a bit about him. He is very cute and a nice bloke too. Didn’t find out if he fancies her though. Yesterday she came running over to my desk asking exactly what I had said as she was rather embarrassed. I assured her nothing had been said to imply she liked him so she was relieved about that. However she then went on to tell me that at one point she had lifted up his t-shirt and had a good feel of his six-pack at the bar. Er and you were worried about what I had said?

I ended up offering to cycle the cripples bike home for him as he lives 5 mins from my house. He was eternally grateful but then started to get a bit too grateful and said things like “you can come in for a coffee when you drop it back” Hmmmmm. How about I don’t do that? Gunner told me to watch myself as he’s a bit of a hussy. Oh joy. He left me lights, a helmet, everything I needed so at 11.30pm I started to wobble back. Forgot to lower the flippin’ seat though didn’t he? So it was tippy-toe cycling for 9km. I got to his, dumped the bike and refused to coffee. He then insisted on walking me to the bus stop even though he couldn’t walk. While I was waiting with him for said bus Gunner text me with:

“Has he treis to lock yu in his cuspord yet?”

Which I think translates into “Has he tried to lock you in his cupboard yet?” He didn’t but he did start to ask about my partner and when I said I didn’t have one and he looked hopeful thank god the bus turned up.

The next day I was feeling fine until 11am and half way through training. The hangover kicked in big time but I think others were feeling it more. Gunner was a wreck, the mouthy Co-Captain had to go home at 9.30am and apparently threw up on every station on the Victoria Line and there were some dark rings around eyes all over the company. I then had to find people to populate my now diminishing netball team and we played 2 games back to back in the sun. So you can imagine I felt 10 times feckin’ worse after that. Eugh.

Had an email go round on the Thursday from the Sports and Social Committee asking if anyone had ‘accidentally’ removed an umbrella from the pub and taken it home as they were asking after them. About 30 seconds after I’d read it Gunner pipes up with:

“So THAT’S where that umbrella came from!”

Come back CJ all is forgiven

Right then, I’m back, on form and no where near a bar or netball court so all is good so far today. There’s quite a lot to catch you up on (I have a feeling this may be a 2 parter – ooh sequels!) so make yourself a cuppa, get comfy and read on….

If you cast your mind back to a few weeks ago you’ll know that there was much to-ing and fro-ing about my training dates and fellow trainee colleagues. At one point I was in a nice group with Ginger and Gunner and sane people and then I was in one with Saffa and then she dropped out and it would have been me and Harley and that Dickface and then it was changed again and I was with CJ and then Kirstie moved me to the non-CJ group. However, little did we know that this was a bad, bad move and by the end of 2 ½ days we would both be ready to commit GBH or worse and welcome CJ back into any training group with open arms. Yes it was that bad.

The group I ended up in was me, Kirstie, Moody, The Little Scottish Guy (LSG) and this guy who I luckily don’t have to work with on a daily basis. He’s an old bloke, totally old school industry, doesn’t like change, thinks his way is the best way and everyone else is wrong. The kind of person who will moan about everything and anything and if there’s nothing there to moan about he’ll create something. Even if you handed him the best situation in the world ever he’d find something wrong with it and tell you about it. And he’d go on and on and on and on…… I’m not sure what to call him as I’d like to call him a lot of rude words but the name Twatheadarseholeshitforbrains is a bit hard to write out again and again and I don’t want to come across as being too potty mouthed. We’ll call him ‘Tard as that is what he was, a complete retarded numpty moaning old fart.

Now you know who I have to deal with you’ll follow me over to the small, windowless training room on Monday morning. Our 2 trainers (poor guys) have gone to a lot of effort to put together training packs and a training system and try and work out a well balanced course. It all starts off ok until we start delving into this new database thingy. ‘Tard begins his first grumble about the system and trainer 1 combats this quite well managing to shut him up quickly. However, as the day progresses things get worse and worse and the trainers get more and more exasperated. Half the problem is that ‘Tard isn’t listening properly or hasn’t understood what they are saying so most of his arguments are redundant anyway. You can’t tell him that though, god forbid, you’d be wrong of course.

By break 1 me and Kirstie are seething and want to go back to our desks now please. Or maybe just eject ‘Tard from the training course? Evict him, let him go, paid redundancy maybe? It’s for the best. By lunch I am considering moving on to physical violence as it seems that would be the only way to get through to him. By the afternoon trainer 1 has had enough and asks if the conversation could be left until after the training as we need to move on. It’s all come down to some terminology that they are using in the system (just in the system, nothing outside the system changes and it’s internal and for recording information – get over it) that is different to what we use now. Trainer 1 offers to have a meeting about it after the course – “well what’s the point you won’t change it anyway” replies ‘Tard. It’s too late, I’m beyond anger now and I can’t help myself.

“SO WHY NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT IT THEN?!”

* tumbleweed *

Moment of silence, apparently LSG’s face was a picture of surprise. Nothing is said, I can feel Kirstie trying to suppress a giggle and the trainer sees his opportunity to move on and get away from this old fart’s whining. Well, I couldn’t help it, he’s lucky I was as polite as I was. Let’s hope he has got the hint.

Oh no it appears he hasn’t.

So imagine 2 ½ days of this. 9am-5pm stuck in this room doing what is already very boring training that’s being made even longer by this obnoxious, arrogant dinosaur’s moaning. He’s fucking rude as well, if I were the trainer I would have asked him to leave by now (this is at 10.30am on day 1) or said something about his attitude. Trainer 1 has the patience of a saint it has to be said. Plus ‘Tard is a complete retard when it comes to the exercises. Again, he’s not listening to anything so as soon as we start it’s “what are we doing?” “how do I log in?” Er you log in just like the last 20 times you have logged in. Seriously, I have known 3 month old kittens with more computer know-how. This again prolongs the training and it takes us 1 hour to do the first exercise which I would have completed in 15 minutes on my own. I know everyone moves at different paces when they’re working on things like this, not everyone is savvy with computers or software or whatever, I get that. What annoyed me beyond the realms of rage was that he was just not even trying to get it and not following instruction when he should. Get the fuck off the BBC news website and listen and then maybe you’d get it you wanker.

This carried on for the rest of the course; he even moaned about the sandwiches we got for the lunch on Tuesday, I thought Kirstie might stab him with a fruit kebab at that point. Then Moody starts joining in in the afternoon on Day 2, jumps right on the bandwagon and before we know it we’re into half hour conversations about god knows what. I switched off. Half the course doesn’t even apply to my role anyway and I have no idea what they are discussing and have no reason to care. I don’t chose to hide my boredom or exasperation of it all and sit colouring in my manual or going through my phone (no feckin’ phone signal down there either?!).

By day 3 I am hung-over, tired and ready to ram my keyboard…hell lets chuck the mouse and VDU in there for good measure…..right up ‘Tard’s arse. I am willing 12.30 onwards but time seems to have stopped, as has the course content again. Oh joy. Kirstie and I are in agreement that training with CJ could no be as painful as this course has been and that if possible we will never have anything to do with ‘Tard again in any way shape or form. Twat, twat, twat. I’m even passing notes to Kirstie like a 13 year old school girl. One of them has an arrow pointing towards him with the words MASSIVE MASSIVE RETARD on it. Unfortunately Kirstie is a big giggler and this starts her off, she’s trying not to but it makes it worse and she’s howling after a few seconds. We even get asked “what’s so funny?” by trainer 2! I am back in French GCSE with Mme Kerland again. My brain is ready to explode over the walls (I’d say windows but as we know there aren’t any) and I’m actually looking forward to getting back to my desk and normal work.

Bad times.

I bumped into ‘Tard in the kitchen this morning and he started asking me what I thought of the course. I chose not to say much as I wasn’t sure where this might lead and I can’t be held accountable for my actions when dealing with toss pots like him. Luckily he got the hint and left with his coffee. I’m sure it wasn’t strong enough though, or hot enough, or had enough milk…..

Sigh. Just even typing about this has got me all tensed up! The rage was at points bordering on uncontrollable. I could go on for hours….oh look I already did!

This rant is over for today. I’m hoping I won’t have reason to rant any more about ‘Tard as I will never have to be in a situation like that again. Next time I’m picking CJ and I’ll sit next to her and even make conversation!

Part 2 shall arrive tomorrow which will mainly involve the reasons for my hangover yesterday. Don’t worry it’s all work related and has many a funny tale – it’s also a lot less ranty and angry. I never can be when alcohols involved.

Apologies

I know I promised a full update today but my brain isn’t working and I couldn’t promise scathing wit and vengeful rantings so I’m going to take a rain check until tomorrow. It seems that 2 ½ days of training in a windowless box with a bunch of retarded 5 year olds and then a night of drinking and 2 games of netball have destroyed my ability to do……….anything. Agh. Roll on 5.30pm.

I will however promise you rants, laughter, drunken takes, more sports related injuries, random bike rides, hangovers, gripping netball matches and office romance. Well in one form or another. So plenty to loo forward to.

I’m off to have a sleep in a filing cupboard.

Training / Torture

You won’t hear much from me until Wednesday this week as I’m on a training course. Yes THE training course that I have been dreading for weeks. Just finished day one and I’m happy to report that my dreading hasn’t been in vain. It’s bloody awful for a plethora of reasons which I won’t go into now as I don’t have the time or the energy to do so but I’m sure it’ll make for a good read come Wednesday. Something for you to look forward to. That is if I am still alive and able to write to you and haven’t taken my own life in a vain attempt to save myself from the torment. Today I came very close on a couple of occasions to shoving my pencil up my nose so it’s a bit touch and go.

Tomorrow is apparently ‘more intensive’ and we will cover more and will finish at 5pm and not 3.30pm. I may have to swallow some rescue remedy before hand or just smoke some grade A drugs to calm me or I will smash one of my fellow trainees in the face or testicals with my keyboard.

Until Wednesday.

All the fun of the fair

Today I had a great day at work.

Yes that’s right, you read that correctly. Toady was ace! It’s a Friday and its 4.30pm and I’m still here so that goes to show how good it has been!

Last night’s netball social turned into an unexpected drinking session as one of the lads from another department was leaving and down the pub as well. He had a tab on the bar which was being paid for by ‘the company’ and was waving it about encouraging us all to get a drink all evening. So we damn well did. We got food too but I only managed to get in on about 5 chips and a piece of pitta bread which probably wasn’t the hearty dinner I should have had to accompany the cider and rum (not mixed) I was drinking.

A bunch of the netball team showed up and some stayed and some left very early (LAME) and then we kind of mixed into the leaving party. The business park was setting up a fair ground for today and me and Curly after a few shandies ran down there demanding to be let on the rides already. Surprisingly they wouldn’t let us on. Probably something to do with the fact they were half built at the time and we were in no state to be flung around on a bit of rickety machinery. Curly was slurring a lot as well – tsk, try and handle your drink woman.

Eventually everyone tottered off home until there were 6 of us left, me, the girl from accounts with the loudest laugh ever and this Kiwi girl from Finance and then 3 of the lads from IT. It got to the point where they were clearing our table away (the actual table itself) and asking us to move our seats so they could take down the outside umbrellas. We left and one of the IT guys said he could get us served at a local hotel as he knew the manager (he’s a bit of a cocky arse) so we wandered down and guess what? They wouldn’t serve us. Kiwi was wobbling quite a bit at this point (we’d lost the laugher along the way) as well so the bar maid took one look at us and just shook her head. Probably for the best as it was midnight by then anyway.

I got home on 2 buses but Kiwi had to get back to flippin Brixton or somewhere – she’s only just emailed me now and is still very hungover. Apparently there was some pukage at work this morning, har har.

Everyone is accounted for this morning and there was no fighting and the whole evening cost me a tenner, so all in all a great success!

This morning was not so hot and it took me some time to make my way into work. I then spent an hour procrastinating, going round chatting to all the other drinkers from the night before and buying myself a bacon roll and coke. The rest of the day has been much the same in not much work getting done but a lot of fun being had.

We went to the funfair at 12.10pm (I was ready at 11.55am but we had to wait for Ginger – sigh) and came back into the office at 2.45pm. Possibly a new world record for lunch breaks but I’m not sure it counts as we only spent about 35 minutes of it in the pub. The fair was great. I went on both big rides which were those chairs on chains that go round and round up high and you swing your legs on and the big washing machine one where you spin round and stick to the wall. I went twice on the whizzy chair one. At first I wasn’t sure the hangover would go well with fun fair rides but it seems to have been the perfect combination! I did tell one of the receptionists on the washing machine ride how hung over I was as it started to spin and she spent most of it freaking I was going to barf all over her. As if I would. I have more class than that. Just.

They also had weasel racing (yes weasel racing) with Mabel and Sandra from the local weasel sanctuary (I didn’t realise such a thing existed) and I almost bought a weasel birthday card. I also learnt the tale of Richard Gere and a weasel today…well I never…. Anyway they also had a coconut shy, shooting gallery, pig racing (not real pigs), a band, a town crier, the thing where you hit something hard with a hammer and it rings a bell, free candy floss and ice cream and sweets and popcorn and a cake stall by the Women’s Institute and a BBQ. The temp girl won an inflatable football, Kirstie won a coconut and we all ate too much sweet stuff. Then we went to lunch and I had a bloody Mary hair of the dog and a steak sandwich.

It’s not all bad here really is it?

Stranger danger

I think I am being groomed. Not in a dodgy ‘pervy old man offering me sweets or to see his puppies’ kind of way though, although it’s just as sneaky. I think I’m being groomed to become a fully fledged Moody or Saffa or Andre. There doesn’t seem to be a clause in there that says I have to be from New Zealand, cheat on my spouse or have a deep routed love for Orcs (that would make it far too interesting) but I could soon be on my way to an even more boring role in this department with…gulp….more responsibility.

I’ve notice over the past few weeks I’ve been asked to do some things that are not normally asked of me, take on extra contracts, sign this and that, cc’d in on particular emails. It’s all very sly and under the table but I’m on to them. There’s no pulling the wool over Nancy’s eyes. I’m fully prepared for Harley to pull me into a meeting room to discuss my ‘development needs’. How about my ‘just leave me the hell alone needs’? Huh?

In any other job the thought of progression or promotion might actually interest, nay excite me but here it just fills me with dread. Yes, what I do is boring as fudge and I long for the day my brain cells may be sparked into action by something * gasp * challenging but more of the boring is not what I was looking for. This grooming is paving the way for piles of tedious work (tedious in my eyes anyway, people like Saffa get quite animated about it but each to their own I suppose) and much more responsibility. It may also mean I have to actually talk to and have meetings with people from the ‘outside’. This is something I do not relish, it could also cost me in smarter work clothes, or maybe just a variation on the 4 outfits I currently have deemed as ‘work uniform’.

I need a counter-plan, something to throw them off the trail and get me back on the daily hum drum side of things. Possibly I have to start being shit at my job. But not too shit, I want to keep it as it pays for hookers, drugs and drink and if I stayed at home all day what would I have to write about?

Hmmmm, this requires some planning. I think a drink is needed, I’m off down the netball social to gather my thoughts….

P.S.

My training course with Dickface and Harley has been cancelled!! Hurrah! Looks like I’m being moved to the week after next – phew!

Sorry in all my moodiness it completely slipped my mind….

Plan B: Resort to violence

I wanted to blog yesterday but I was unable to because of Moody. Every time I tried to find a moment in my day to put finger to keyboard he would pop up again sprouting some guff about something or the other I have no interest in whatsoever. “Look how much they want to charge for this!” Who cares, just do the order already. “Can you look up this website?” You mean that website you have been on to and printed off information from? Why is it now deemed necessary for me to look it up again and why don’t you do it yourself rather than printing it off to bring round to me to do it? What’s that? Oh you think I actually take an interest in this shit? Sorry to disappoint but you are WRONG.

I was in a good mood today, well I was in an OK mood and not particularly pissed off about anything. Now I’m in a bad mood because Kirstie keeps accusing me of being in a bad mood when I’m not. OK so I am NOW but before when she was saying I was I wasn’t. If you follow me. This is because I have apparently got some kind of ‘moody face’ on me today. I think she may have mistook concentration for moody. Just to clear up any confusion that may arise from this she meant my ‘moody face’ as in the emotion not the person. Anyways all day I have had comments – “oh you’re not in a happy place today are you?”, “what’s up with you?”, “You’re very quiet” and on it goes. At first I was defending myself, trying to convince her of my non-bad mood, even trying to join in banter and force some joke or the other, then I remembered I don’t care what these people think and stopped bothering and started shrugging and then I eventually fell into a bad mood and no longer need to defend myself. Ironically she’s not saying anything now.

I normally wouldn’t mind so much as I can be a bit gobby and so being quiet would probably come across as unusual in my day to day workplace behaviour but after the shitty mood Kirstie was in yesterday I feel she is no place to judge.

In her defence she wasn’t having the best day, all that training malarkey was going tits up and she wasn’t feeling well but the whinging was getting to monumental levels that would soon create some kind of self destructing tornado of catalytic proportions or I would have lent over and smacked her full on in the face. The spoon was out and primed and it was more than a relief when she went home sick at lunch time. That was after an entire morning of sighs, whines, bitching, fretting and constantly going on about how ill she felt. I suggested she go home if she didn’t feel well and was met with a look that said “how can I when I have all this work to do and the world might explode if I don’t do it right now?!” But she carried on complaining…


Kirstie: Oh god I feel so sick
Me: You should go home
Kirstie: Oh I can’t I have too much to do
Me: But if you feel rough you should go, look after yourself
Kirstie: Well maybe later but I need to wipe Moon Monkey’s bottom first

10 minutes later:

Kirstie: Oh god I feel so sick
Me: You should go home
Kirstie: Oh I can’t I have too much to do
Me: But if you feel rough you should go, look after yourself
Kirstie: But the world may end if I’m not here whinging all day

10 minutes later:

Kirstie: Oh god I feel so sick
Me: You should go home
Kirstie: Oh I can’t I have too much to do
Me: Fine but shut the fuck up saying you are ill then. You can go home, we don’t work for a fascist sweat shop company that will make you work with broken limbs and bleeding eyeballs so no one is going to force you to stay, you are only staying to be a fucking martyr and think that this department will fall apart if you are gone for 1 afternoon. Nothing you do can be THAT important and I am sure it will wait until the morning or possibly..gasp…the day after and you can deal with it then when you are feeling better. You don’t get paid enough to put your health over your job or to frankly give this much of a shit about it anyway.

After I went to cook my jacket potato for lunch she had gone home.

OK so I may have not said ALL of the above but I think my exasperation at her finally showed through and she got the hint. She’s back in today and feeling a lot better and the world didn’t end while she was gone. My afternoon was also greatly improved and I had a nice peaceful time until Moody showed up with his inane mutterings about websites. I am thwarted at every turn dear readers! Why won’t they leave me alone?!

Apparently this morning something was being discussed in the office with MM and at one point CJ stood up and said “Well you don’t care anyway as you’re going off to the Air Show!” I’m not sure in what context this was used but she was alluding to the fact that MM has to go to some meeting at an air show to look at planes for something or the other. Anyway it came across very patronisingly and well, rude. Kirstie was sat here fuming as MM will now think she is discussing his diary with everyone and Bog Monkey told Kirstie later that MM’s face was like thunder after CJ stood up and shot her mouth off. I think it may have been CJ’s attempt at humour but she has failed miserably and has already had a telling off from Kirstie and there has been some whispering between the great leader and his whinging sidekick about it as well so she’s probably in for a bollocking.

HA HA!

Ginger was just leaving for the day and Kirstie said something about me which I didn’t hear (because I was engrossed in this blog) so I got another comment about being moody and I’m afraid to say I snapped. There is only so much one can take you know, I have the patience of a saint and it is often pushed to it’s limits here. Now she’s just winding me up because she knows I will bite so my next step is going to be total blanking of anything she says and if that doesn’t work I will resort to violence.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Spoons, Dickface and pink curlies

Why is it that after an ace weekend Mondays at work always seem even shitter than one after a semi-ace or even below average weekend? And I don’t mean just the come down (from a natural high of course) that kicks in on a Sunday night just before bed time and looms over you as you swipe your pass to the office door the next morning, I mean that once you’re in and at your desk everyone seems to want to throw all forms of faeces your way. Until your desk looks like the monkey enclosure at London Zoo and people are gagging as they pass you.

Today is one such day.

Feeling slightly jaded if I’m honest which doesn’t help matters much, had some fun in the sun yesterday which involved a large amount of alcohol and not enough sun cream. So I arrived in work tired and feeling a little sun stroked and dehydrated. Fired up the computer and straight on to Internet Explorer (of course, priorities right?) to check my email and FaceBook. Internet is crappy. Computer freezes. Computer freezes on an image of me with candy floss sticking out of my jeans to indicate sweet tasting, pink, if not slightly over grown pubic hair. Turn off computer forcibly by ripping plug socket from wall. Check to see no one saw that. Once my computer is finally working at its normal snail rate a reminder pops up for a meeting I have at 10am with CJ.

Oh yes. Sigh. Forgot about that.

It’s in 9 minutes and I haven’t had my banana bread breakfast yet so I engulf that to stop my stomach rumbling and to keep the sickness at bay. This is the meeting I arranged (why did I do that again?) to try and teach CJ what I actually do so that she can stop being so feckin’ lazy when I am on holiday and cover for me with no excuses. It takes about 15 minutes and the whole time she looks disinterested and doesn’t make one note on the subject. I’m sorry is this too beneath you? CJ also enquires about my weekend and so I have to ask about hers. She’s been to a wedding of her friends and it sounds like her mate is just as fun as her, running the wedding with a variety of spreadsheets and schedules. Wow, bet she was a barrel of laughs at the top table.

I manage to fob her off with an “anyway, things to get on with…” and return to the daily drudge. Prior to this meeting a bunch of people had been headed to training on the new system, which Kirstie had organised. No one wants to do this training, it’s boring and run by some big corporate IT company who I won’t name but there aren’t many and Moon Monkey comes from those waters too. Gunner and Ginger are both on today’s which started at 9am. Ginger came running in the door at 8.54am and Gunner was still finishing his breakfast. The training was happening in another building so it was safe to say they were going to be late. Kirstie starts her ranting about people and tardiness “come on you two, get over there!” and is duly ignored. Eventually they leave, still ignoring her as they go. I don’t blame them, she sounds like a fucking head mistress and I want to hit her with the wooden spoon. One of the other guys who is on the training then comes into the office “why aren’t you in training, you’ll be late!” and again when we bump into Jean Brody on our way back from the kitchen “you had better have a good excuse missy!”

Really big wooden spoon. With serrated edges.

My training joy starts on Wed afternoon this week. Originally it was me, Gunner, Saffa, Harley and a couple of other guys from the team. Gunner was moved and the group has for some reason whittled down to 4. Now Saffa is saying she can’t attend as she has a meeting in Norwich on the Thursday.

So that leaves me, Harley and Dickface. Dickface isn’t mentioned much in this blog because luckily he is hardly ever about. He’s an obnoxious prick who is prone to an argument and bitching session more than is necessary. He thinks’ he’s gods gift and will piss anyone off who deals with him. It takes him 2 hours to say anything that would take a normal person 2 minutes to summarise and if you mention his name you’ll get a chorus of groans round the office. At one Christmas party he cornered me and tried to impress me with stories about him and his friendship with Roy Chubby Brown. Wow I’m impressed, no really this is my impressed face, it also bears a very close resemblance to my bored face, my annoyed face and my I couldn’t give a shit face. In a word – twat.

Because there is only the 3 of us in this group and we have 2 external trainers for it Kirstie is keen to try and swap someone else in for Saffa so she’s doing the rounds. Seems everyone has prior arrangements. I’ve already had words with Saffa about leaving me with Dickface and Harley in a badly air-conditioned room with no windows for 2 ½ days. Can it get any worse? Oh hang on, it possibly could because now Kirstie is asking CJ if she will swap. She sitting next to me and without a word of warning asking CJ if she can change her training days. I sit here in disbelief, wondering what I could do to possibly get out of this situation…..maybe break a leg at netball training tonight? Hang on, CJ can’t swap, thank fuck.

I email Kirstie immediately:

From: Nancy Clueless
Sent: 19 July 2010 13:37
To: Kirstie
Subject: Why?

Were you about to put CJ on my course?

That would mean I was training with her, Dickface and Harley.

Do you really hate me that much? What have I done to hurt you?

Why, why, why?


I know she’s getting desperate with organising this training and no one wants to do it and everyone wants to swap and people are showing up late but how could she stoop so low – HOW? The wooden spoon is out on the desk.

I shant go on but the day has generally carried on in the same manner, I’m counting down the minutes and hoping Tuesday brings a little less shit and a little more well, just a little less shit is all I can hope for I guess.

One thing that lit up my morning momentarily was the arrival of Moon Monkey into the office (bear with me…) looking decidedly put out. Kirstie enquired as to what was up. Seems that the accommodation he is staying in this week is a bit of a building site. He’s in the show room and they are still building around him. So last night they switched off the electricity and water, he he. Wait it gets better…. Then at 4am this morning they turn the electricity back on which means everything comes on by default – lights, TV, alarms, the whole shabang, hee hee. And the water is still off so he had to come into the office to shower, heeee heee heeee! Kirstie laughed and then stopped laughing when he didn’t join in and then apologised. But when he’d gone back to his desk she started laughing again and me and Gunner joined in. My ribs hurt for a bit after that.