Bill Hayley we hardly knew ye...

Bill Hayley we hardly knew ye...

Despite a unusual sensation on Tuesday of professionalism, since writing the last blog I have done little more than scour and pillage the depths of www.MySpace.com and try to hide the fact that I have done sweet bugger all.
Yesterday was the worst day for this yet, I spent the remainder of the afternoon sucked in, and what’s more I didn't even try to hide the fact from my dimwitted co-workers.

Today, however, after a pleasant night and a alarmingly cheerful morning, despite the Council turning off the water, I have once again set myself the challenge of actually getting knuckled to do to some work. So far it has proven to be fairly productive too. The time has passed quickly, and I even threw in a obligatory loosening of the tie and heavy sigh whilst holding my forehead- ensuring that my colleagues knew I was indeed busting my hump. I even justified myself to eat a Time Out choccy bar for my breakfast. Brain food.

Obviously, writing for this blog does not constitute doing work I suppose, and I fully appreciate the irony that instead of working I am regaling tales of blood sweat and tears, crouched over a hot keyboard, however as I write, it's now 11.25, and it is the standard one hour wind down to my lunch break, not doubt 'Early Doors' Gerry will make a cuppa any minute now.

The Office is pretty quiet and all one can hear is the pitter patter of keyboards, the occasional rustle of paper and the odd swirling noises our printer/photocopier makes.
It is a different story from 10am this morning, as Sean was doing his usual stressedoutmyheadisgoingtoexplodeunlessifindthatfileanditsallgoingwrongandit'sunproffesionalthisplaceisafuckingjokeblahblahblah. This is quite a common occurrence and unfortunately for him he must be heading for a heart attack if he carries on like this. I could tell from his reaction to my "good morning" greeting this am that he was in one of those moods, whereupon he would stare intently at his monitor, his tie firmly loosened, cheeks a reddish hue and that look of woe he wears so well upon his face. You can usually tell on what scale of stress he is on by the time it takes him to acknowledge when someone is talking to him. In this morning's case it was nearly two minutes before he returned the customary "ooh, good morning Matt" to me. This was all over a missing file. He saw me check my drawers in case it had found its way there. He then when I was up making a cup of tea decided to treble check and proceeded to rifle through my stuff whilst his face grew ever reader and he seemed to be chuntering in a Star Wars bounty hunter-esque dialect. Granted when file is misplaced, it is usually found on my 'pile' or desk-despite me assuring folks that I have looked thoroughly (I am the world's worst looker- officially! "has anyone seen my shoes/keys/glasses/phone/self respect/car/cheese grater/bankcard" etc)

Sean, as pleasant and funny a guy as he is, is alas; one of those people who takes everything to heart. He feels the weight of the world upon his shoulders and wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about a potential acquisition problem that might occur should he not get into the office at 6.00am to rectify. No one else is like this in the Office. I have a healthy "sod it" attitude. This is partially because I don't class myself as a worker per say. I romantically see myself as a musician (or to quote Sweet Jonny when he told the census people of my job title "creative force") who spends his days in a dour and depressing office for the wages and free use of the internet. The other reason I don't take it to heart is because I’m working for the friggin' Council and there is always someone out there you can delegate it to, or blame.

When i first started to work her and we had the problems with the temps (see last Monday's Blog) It was up to me to get some poor suckers in to replaced them. After the early departure of two of the temps, I felt duty bound to apologise for this and made the following bold statement:

"If the next temp doesn't work out, I'll take full responsibility!"

The immediate response shocked me. Every stopped what they were doing and looked at me a gog and bewildered. "Don't be soft. you're working for the Council now, no one takes responsibility" I was coolly told by Sean (oh the irony eh?)

I should have this phrase tattooed upon my body somewhere as it some how embiggens my work ethos.

Oh Gerry's offering the team tea...bang on time- see I told you!

Anyway, I'm actually becoming ever more guilty with the fact my days are so uneventful, especially when Lisa informs me of some of the horror stories from her days working as a social worker. What response can I possibly give when questioned about my day? "God damn it-so what if you've been dealing with poor abused children none stop in ever more stressful and emotionally challenging scenarios, working 9 hours straight with no lunch or time to sit down- the photocopier in MY office ran out of toner, the internet was slow and no bastard emptied the dishwasher!"

Trust me this response was not greeted well at all.

On a slightly more positive note: today's calendar message is:

"Virtue is its own revenge."
As I lost my virtue years ago I think I'm safe from my revenge, although I do feel that fate is playing a cruel trick on me sometimes.