I’m back up to my neck in petty bureaucracy, ropey plumbing and orang-utan arsed contractors.
The familiar smell of my workstation – Tipp-ex, chocolate, wood polish and cyanide (I will find a use for those capsules one day, I promise you) is not acting as a balm. One expects a little residual sourness when one returns to work after a holiday but the rising torrent of acid that is currently bubbling away in my gorge (oo-er) is alarming to say the least.
How am I keeping myself sane? You may very well ask.
Current favourite coping strategy is to indulge in a spot of dark fantasizing.
No. Not of that sort, you mucky minded lot...
I am not really a building supervisor for a local government authority.
I am a sleeper agent.
I am here to dismantle the system, the authoritarian regime that maintains law & order and regulates the price of DVDs in this capitalist nanny state. You see me sitting here, searching Google Maps for the nearest Jewson’s outlet, never realising that I am in fact subtlely interrogating Google Earth for the wherewithal to gain access to this country’s great edifices of power.
But I am not sure, at this point in time, what exactly those edifices are.
I thought it might be 10 Downing Street but mentally I have this confused with Billy Smart’s circus. My ‘controller’ is pushing me to apprehend the nerds that run Twitter but I suspect they might be a little out of my jurisdiction. Besides which, I use Twitter to further my own socialist manifesto so suspect my ‘controller’ might be a double agent. Or at the very least Ryan Giggs. Either way, not to be trusted.
However, the perks are pretty good. I have excellent ball control.
Unlike Ryan.
I am of course building a dirty bomb beneath my desk. My work colleagues no doubt think I am up to something seedy and unpalatable with a sheet of bubble wrap and an old copy of Hello magazine but really I am constructing a weapon of such awesome destructive power that Harold Camping has snapped his Casio pocket calculator clean in half and is currently sobbing into his Gideon’s Bible. Once I’ve inserted the last paperclip you’re all for it.
I am looking around the office. Taking careful note of the photocopier, the stationery cupboard, the water cooler. Noting their location.
‘Cos tomorrow they won’t be here. Instead their atomized remains will be spread across a 10 mile wide crater, at the centre of which will be the smoking remains of my desk and my sock suspenders.
I may bequeath my hole-punch to someone before it is too late.
Oh what the hell. It’s too good for any of them anyway.
Now, where was I?
Oh yes.
There’s dog poo outside the building.
By ‘eck, I needs must get me shovel.
It’s so nice to be back at work.
37 comments:
I trust you are going to rappel down the outside of the building whilst humming the mission impossible theme tune to get that dog shit?
Heather: right after I've woven myself some rope out of the index pages of the new Screw-Fix catalogue...
'Sock suspenders' - my fantasy is now in tatters.
Just count yourself lucky you still have a job, young man. I won't have in 3 weeks time!
(Part of me can't wait.)
Trish: wait... wait... I forgot to mention the tassles...!
Rol: shit. Certainly hope that's by choice!
Not by choice, but f@ck 'em. I'm better off without them! ;-)
Rol: f@ck 'em indeed - and right royally too. I doubt they'll be better of without you.
Good luck, mate.
Perhaps you should engage in some script-writing while there - sounds like you've just created the newest Hollywood blockbuster.
Tomorrow - the dress! Or the Finish playsuit. Either or. Keep em on their toes.
Shit... somebody hide the paperclips!
Readily A Parent: to use spare unproductive work time for productive endeavours of my own designing would, I think, be a horrendous misuse of the opportunity that my employer has given to me to earn money by responding to their every whim. I can, however, dress as I like - so Finnish playsuit it is.
Very Bored in Catalunya: I can make it with bulldog clips if I have to.
I have been working in the gallery this morning. I had the grand total of five people come in.
I have been listening to my IPOD and pretending it's the soundtrack to some fabulous film I'm in.
How sad am I?
Managed to get lots of work done though...every cloud :)
Suzanne: damn. I've got to get me an iPod. Either that or work at the same place as you.
Gis a job.
It's voluntary! One of the conditions of having work in an atists run gallery :0
Suzanne: double damn. I'd printed off my CV and everything!
I'm glad you mentioned Billy Smart's Circus, because you might be the human cannonball they're looking for.
Instead of building the dirty bomb you could be the dirty bomb, which would save you a lot of work. Who would you ask to be fired at?
Gorilla Bananas: right now I'd love to take out the entire coalition government in one fell swoop.
Good day at the office then, was it? I shall listen to the news on my way home tomorrow with interest (for a change).
Alienne: they use codenames apparently. My office has earnt the moniker "Afghanistan".
How funny!
I, too, live a rich fantasy life, mostly involving having published a best seller, finding the perfect-fitting shoe, and the end of the world.
On bad days, those subjects meld together...
Pearl
Hasn't your line manager recently had to take you to one side and reprimand you for playing with the office equipment?
A building supervisor with sock suspenders. Now that's where I get off.
Pearl: find the perfect-fitting shoe? Geez, girl, you set the bar pretty darn high, don't you?
Marginalia: I don't care what anyone says, that stapler was asking for it - positively gagging for it. I did what any red-bloodied male would do and got binding.
Can send you a pic of the sock suspenders if you like. For a modest fee.
I was wondering what that eery glow was on the northern horizon... looks like England just disappeared off the face of the earth...
Guess you'll be parachuting down into France from the upper atmosphere any minute now... shall I open bottle of champers ?
Glad you left the sock suspenders behind, they can be annoying when landing in wooded areas in a parachute, they also tend to get hung up on church steeples and the like. Have a nice flight !
I'll take the hole punch, if its not too late already....
Long weekend off now over I am going back to work today.......I feel your pain. Do you need a partner in crime? I think I may have some old lycra somewhere...
Owen: champers and some nice French onion soup will go down a treat, old boy, though preferably not in the same tankard.
Organic Motherhood with Cool Whip: it's yours with pleasure - only one irate owner.
Libby: is the lycra for me or you? Welcome aboard. I need an extra pair of hands to light the fuse.
I think you need another holiday !
You are putting Hello magazine in your dirty bomb ! Have you no soul ? Think of the damage just one article on Kerry Katona's latest diet could do.
Selina: I need a permanent vacation (and I'm not talking about an old Aerosmith album).
Keith: not to mention Cheryl Cole's make-up tips.
Just make sure you grab Elvis's hand tightly as you 'leave the building'for the very last time singing 'Jailhouse Rock' together.
Phil: nice idea but I much prefer the music he wrote for the R White's lemonade advert with his dad.
Written so eloquently, Steve. You paint the perfect image of "The Office".
CJ xx
CJ: I just hope I'm not turning into David Brent.
You need to write a manuel of must-haves for work-stations. I have the tipex and choccy... now for the cyanide...
You have sock suspenders??? I'm not sure whether to offer you a sympathetic hug or... a sympathetic hug for that one. Chin up, Stevo. I just cannot imagine (but actually, I can, for I had a mind numbing awful, repressing job once) how you are doing this and staying sane. Honestly, I hope you get out soon. It can't be good for you long-term. x
About Last Weekend: available at all good pharmacists... and eBay.
Being Me: actually, the sock suspenders were a complete fantasy too. That is how low I am sinking.
Here's a great fantasy for you, rather than being the Evil Genius why not be the "Mild Mannered Janitor" that jumps into the filing cabinet and emerges as.....Hong Kong Phooey!!! You could wear your dressing gown to work, get a cat to do all the real work and you get the credit.......simples!
No?
Joe: with the added advantage that I could sing the theme tune: "chicky-chong, chicky-chong, chicky-chicky-chicky-chong..." Oh how I love those thoroughly modern PC lyrics! ;-)
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