Have You Any Idea Where This Poor Creature Is?
Almost on a daily basis now I enjoy strange little occurrences in my life and I note to myself (loudly), "Must blog that." Sadly I am too lazy or forgetful or both to make it a reality. But that's no good for you now, is it? I'll save you some bother: the answer to that little rhetorical question is no.
So I've been doing a little temping in another department in my building. Their unwillingness to do any work has left them with a frighteningly vast backlog. My first day was somewhat of a shock. Compared to my department, this office is what you might call a dungeon: dark, dusty and full of instruments of torture and old bones. My keyboard is full of fingernail clippings and food: my boss looks like she's nigh on ninety and straight out of Tales From The Crypt. Her reputation as a nasty piece of work preceded her but I must say she has been rather nice, if a little odd.
I am known round my office for being well-organised: I have good systems for managing gazillions of duties (gazillions being the technical term, you understand) and occasionally in this super-ordered pursuit I use paper-clips. You know. For clipping one document to another. Firm, but without the messiness of Sellotape or the potential finger scratching of a staple. Amidst the dirt and chaos on my temporary desk I could find none. I had a root in the stationary cupboard but still: no joy. I was weeping for the lost paper-clips when my temping boss tottered alongside.
Me: Hi, old woman. Where can I find a box of paper-clips?
OW: Paperclips? <narrows eyes> What do you want paper-clips for?
Me: To clip some documents together.
OW: We don't use paper-clips down here.
And that was the end of my silly notion that I could use paper-clips in the dungeon. Now I use elastic bands and Sellotape like all the others. It's really great.
So, anyway, with my naive enthusiasm fresh from my clean and airy office filled with sunlight and modern art, cool spring water and smiling faces, not to mention the streams of paper-clips to swim in, I lashed into the dungeon's backlog of work, only to be told at the end of the first day that I was "going too fast". I was urged in a conspirational whisper to "go slower". WELL HOLY MOTHER OF GOD. What am I here for if not to help you bash down that almighty pile of work you've gathered while you were taking fifteen coffee breaks a day (not to mention the fags)? Mark my words: they'll all be dead of lung cancer in a month. Lucky I've got a killer pair of black stilettos for the funerals.
So in other work-related news: I've applied for another job internally for which I interview on Friday, which if I get it, will bring my current number of jobs in the same building up to three. I'm impressed even with myself there. Of course I don't yet know if I'll get the job but between you and me and the internet I'd say I have as much of a chance as the other applicants, except for the ones with more experience, you know what I'm saying? I'm pessimistically hopeful. Presumably if I flash a bit of leg at the interviewer it'll do me some good. However, I do happen to know the interviewer and she's female and straight, got engaged last week and has the sense on humour of a plastic hammer. So maybe I should just brush up on my lying, like always.
I am sick for the fourth time in 2007. I took my sorry ass to the doctor this time and he gave me some Pinaclav (which tastes and smells like vanilla) and a sick note, of which I am availing while I convalesce. I might as well: I feel like a soaked and squeezed machine knitted pullover, trun on a dirty bathroom floor, probably owned by dirty students (trun being the Dublin word for thrown); noisy pretentious students whom I HATE. I have had no sleep at all - I've been far too busy hacking up yellow loogies into strips of toilet roll while my husband tosses and turns next to me. It has been a fabulous bank holiday weekend - one to remember for sure. However it has given me the chance to read a super novel - The Testament of Gideon Mack; a fabulous tale about an atheistic Presbyterian minister who falls in a river and meets with the devil. My co-worker saw it on a bookshelf and immediately thought of me. I don't know why: perhaps my Presbyterianism comes across as contrived? Maybe it's simply the devilish glint in my eye? Whatever the reason, she purchased it for me with great kindness and I lurched upon it like a literature fiend who has been forced to read Mills & Boon novels for a number of years and devoured it in a couple of days. You ought to do the same, and quick. I hear the world will be ending sharpish and as we all know, the afterlife is nothing but sitting chubby and naked on a cloud: no time for novels about satan then.
neuro-praxis -- Part Wallace, Part Rabbit
Posted by neuro-praxis on May 8, 2007 09:41 PM, in the category Teriyaki Steak