Job Seekers
At the job seekers centre, the staff seem to spend their time shuffling piles of paper, pen-pushing, making lists as long as The Great Wall Of China, and printing off mountains of forms, notes and letters from the beleaguered printer. They type with furious concentration into their computers, as if what they are doing is going to save the world.
At one of my appointments, the staff lady addressed me as Kathleen. I’m not Kathleen. Yesterday, she got out my notes, well I should say someone else’s notes, and started going through them. The name on the top page wasn’t mine and it wasn’t poor old Kathleen’s either. After a while I mentioned that those notes had someone else’s name (in large print too). The staff lady quipped that she didn’t know if she was coming or going. At least she got something right.
One time I phoned to say I was unable to come in and the staff lady said, that’s okay. Next day her colleague phoned to ask why I was not at my appointment.
I receive print-outs with confusing advice about job-seeking. Who-ever typed it must have missed out a few important words. I asked one of them, what does it mean? She didn’t know but didn’t seem interested in clearing up the mystery.
One staff member laughs like a cackling chook with painful haemorrhoids. Her colleague has such a cheerily fake voice that every time she sings ‘Bye. Have a great afternoon’, as someone exits the place, I want to shove her smile to the back of her head.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed
Icky
Teenager Icarus Featherley regularly succumbed to acne attacks during the time I worked with him. Poor kid. But I would shudder every time he’d stroke his latest pimple outbreak with inquisitive fingers and then want to use my pen, or my pencil, or my keyboard.
What was needed for Icarus at this time would have been an Elizabethan collar cone. Or handcuffs. Maybe both.
Filed under: teenagers | Closed
Micro Manager
I’m at the basin in the ladies toilet. Laverne McBoot at the next basin barks, ‘The tap’s still running!’ She points to the tap I’m using. Laverne may be a short-arse but she compensates with her muscle-mouth.
Okay, the tap is on, drizzling not running. It’s my lunch-break.
Laverne continues, ‘Think of the environment!’
Huh..?
Then, in a tone of disgust and of expecting obedience Laverne snarls, ‘Go on. Turn it off!’ Her ‘unpleasant’ face is on, which on a scale of 1-10 for twisted repellence, would definitely hit level 9.
Laverne is a supervisor, afflicted with a tendency to overlook staff who do need supervision. However, she is good at micro-managing the soft targets.
One of these days, I will suffer a serious bout of oesophagitis from the overload of jizz that I have to swallow in this job.
Filed under: ladies | Closed
Spit and Polish
One of the staff left their newspaper in reception for others to read. Along comes Lola Spitemore and places it out of sight behind my desk. That particular paper is considered not ‘high-brow’ enough for this company’s clients. Only a ’posh’ newspaper is allowed to grace this waiting room.
But some clients enjoy reading the Low-brow newspaper while they’re waiting.
If Lola Spitemore wants things in order, she can start by using the office kitchen sink for kitchen purposes only, not to swill out her mouth or brush her teeth there.
Damn you, Spitemore.
Filed under: ladies | Closed
Sharp Tongue
Delphinia McFish issued yet another proclamation about someone being stupid. I had thought it was only me she viewed as dim-witted because of her penchant for telling me how to do my job; a job I’d been doing in the decade before her arrival.
Her latest broadcast occurred when she referred to a client by using the ‘not the sharpest knife…’ analogy. The client is an international figure and would need to be sharp to hold that position.
When I spoke in defence of the client, Delphinia McFish conceded that the person probably wouldn’t have time for trivia anyway because she was so arty.
Okay McFishface, you’re ‘off the hook’, just this once.
Filed under: ladies | Closed
Flippant
Icarus Featherley was in such a rush to go home that he almost forgot to take some of the mail on his way out. Taking the mail to the post office is one of his agreed tasks. I called him back to pick it up.
’Oh, thanks. Where would I be without you?!’ he says cheerily. ‘Bye by-ee!’ he sings this at me over his shoulder then breezes out of the office. Icarus is so cocky, briskly departing his unofficial 40 minutes early. Although I’d like to see him get found out, I just can’t snitch on the shithead. And he knows it.
Where are the argus-eyed sentinels of the office who are usually so grumblingly disapproving if someone should leave for home a mere five minutes early? Too busy applying their nosey expertise where it’s not needed. Bastards!
Filed under: teenagers | Closed
Mugsville
Years ago, I worked in a large, busy office as a telephonist. One time, I picked up a call which happened to be my friend phoning me.
’I knew I’d get you!’ she said.
‘How’d you know it’d be me?’ I asked.
‘Because you always take so long to answer the phones,’ she said.
The delay in answering was due to only a few of us actually working, even though we had the full quota of staff. There were two telephonists wandering about the room, chatting. Another was with the pinch-faced supervisor, laughing and talking about something private. Another woman had surreptitiously plugged her switchboard out of use but remained in her seat, pretending to be ‘occupied’. Someone else was reading a magazine, while fiddling with the metal-piercing in her nose and answering the incoming calls at half-speed.
In this sloppy, demoralising atmosphere, the supervisor sat derelict, wasting space behind a large desk. Her smile-starved face and small, belligerent eyes made her look as mean as a bad character from a Dickens novel.
But the ‘mugs’ are needed to get on with the work, otherwise the slackers can’t get on with their slacking.
Filed under: ladies | Closed
Misunderstood
Spartacus Boothroyd was about to go home. He entered the lift with his back towards me, at the same time rattling off information for me to give to someone else. I called out loudly from behind the reception desk that I didn’t catch what he said, and to come back and tell me PROPERLY.
But he didn’t. He was now mumbling as the lift doors closed, with me doing my best to lip-read from a distance.
So then it was up to me to try and work out what his message was from the few words I’d heard. Even more annoying is that I should have gone home 15 minutes earlier but was held up by answering one of those last-minute, phone-calling clients.
Now I’m half-expecting Spartacus to accuse me of inaccurate message transfer, when I next go in.
People issuing instructions should make themselves clearly heard and always ensure that the instructions have been fully understood by the recipient. Otherwise what’s the point?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed
Personal Space
Today I got a seat on the bus. Only half of a seat actually because there was a fat gentleman next to me. Seats these days are too narrow for modern obesity.
His thigh squashed against mine so I had to hang into the aisle. Then his arm was resting on mine. He inhaled and exhaled against me. Squashed! Standing for the remainder of the journey.
Filed under: public behaviour | Closed
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