Tuesday, January 19, 2010

In the Thick of It

Last week wasn't an easy one for me.

I discovered 1920s style personal hygiene due to the total absence of water in my house, decided it was crap and went round to an unaffected friend's house to borrow their shower in exchange for some beer. I may have a filthy tongue, but smelly I am not. Anyway, the H2O's back now, pouring from my taps as well as drenching me from on high when I go outside, so all that's over.

A HEO descended on me with a printout of an email from Personnel. "Please conduct PMDS annual reviews asap," it said. "Bugger." I replied. And then, "You could just have forwarded that to me... save the trees and all that." The HEO responded that I smelt too nice to be a tree hugger and told me to just do it. Arse.

The second working week of the new year flung me into the shit with a new project that demanded intense concentration and participation of me. Neither of which I really wanted to supply at the time but I think I muddled through OK only to burn out just as the weekend was upon me.

In spite of this, I was happy to have the Bearded One (aka "Himself") turn up on my doorstep with some beers and a bottle of Buckfast. The resultant hangover rendered me useless for most of Saturday, which was an utter pain in the arse as there was stuff to be done that had to be put on hold as I lay upstairs trying to shut out the waves of alcohol-induced pain surging through my cranium.

This week feels far more calm. So far. Mind you, I haven't gotten round to those PMDS forms yet so who knows what delights they have in store for me.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Fed up with Brick!

Ok, I've had it. Now that the snow's finally melting, I'm officially bored of this weather.

I'm sick of walking around like one of those clockwork dolls to avoid falling on my arse. No I don't have a key in my back. But I can put my foot up the backside of the next person who pisses me off.

I'm sick of slush being sprayed at me by passing cars whose drivers are irritated that I haven't fallen on my arse and given them a cheap laugh just because I didn't fall over like that bloke on the news the other night.

I'm sick of driving at 15 miles per hour and arriving into work late.

I'm sick of the fucking teenage c***s who decide that 1.30 in the morning is a perfect time for a drunken snowball fight in Ballyfuck Main Street.

I'm sick of not having any running water (but at least I got plenty of bottled stuff without a fight).

When it was white it was lovely. How fickle am I?

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

When icicles hang by the wall, and Dick the shepherd blows his nail

Or, more colloquially, this weather would freeze the balls off a brass monkey. (Mind you, I have never seen a brass monkey, with or without balls.)

Anyway, I love this weather. There is nothing quite like a gentle stroll in a wooded area on days like these, with the white ground crunching underfoot, returning home to a warm house and a steaming mug of coffee.

It's not all fun and games though. It's taking about twenty minutes to de-ice the car every morning to render it safe for purpose. My commute this morning was almost twice its normal duration due to the state of the roads. At certain points, a speed greater than 5mph would result in movements that could be considered the automotive equivalent of Torvill and Dean. And still the knobjockeys in the Transit vans continued to overtake.

Given the road conditions, I've decided to take the rest of the week off with some annual leave I'd reserved specially for this purpose.

Add my traditional New Year grouchiness into the mix and there you have it, a happy ending for both EO and the poor misfortunate COs who must put up with the irascibility and general sweariness of the said EO.

I'm also between projects at the moment and therefore things are quiet. I do not ask the HEOs for more work lest they jump at the opportunity to dump everything on me and go back to playing Spider Solitaire or updating Facebook while the EO on 20-grand-a-year-less does all the hard work. Seriously. It has happened. It is happening. Just to prove a point, I wrote a report recently that had a HEO's name on it. I sent the report as a read-only file to the HEO for approval, without granting the HEO editorial privileges. I doubt the HEO even read the report, they merely nodded and said "that's grand". Really? Even though I "accidentally" misspelt your name on it? Isn't it great, being a HEO and having a report written for you with your name at the bottom, a report whose sole authorship and editorial privileges are assigned to a lowly EO? That, gentle reader, is the life.

So, to just return to having to deal with the quiet period, I've been dreaming up things for myself to do, like give the desk a clean to remove the Olympic symbols I've been making with coffee cups. Or draft a "how-to" for my successor should I run away screaming. I have internet access, but there's a restriction on most of the good stuff, like some blogs and b3ta.com.

Time off is a very good idea right now.

Winter walks a-plenty for Govstooge. Happy days.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

New Year, Same Old Bollocks

Argh, facing into a new year is generally fraught with optimism and hope for change for the better. But once the Prosecco hangover wore off on New Year's Day, those alien emotions wore off pretty damned quickly.

I'm back at work tomorrow, and to get myself in the mood, I dug out my DVD of Falling Down. I felt better straight away.

Sometimes, when faced with pay cuts, PMDS Annual Reviews, training courses and being sucked onto new project teams, one needs to find some way of detaching from it all. I choose a Michael Douglas film about a bloke who goes mental one day. Hmm.

Anyway, much of tomorrow's going to be catching up with everyone else at work. I expect to hear all of the following (I should really devise a bingo card for this stuff):

"I got soooo twisted on New Year's Eve."

"Timmy didn't like the choo-choo Santy brought him. I was gutted."

"My mother-in-law's turkey was so dry it was like eating wood shavings."

"Whose turn is it to take down the office Christmas decorations?"

"Are there any sweets left?"

"Govstooge, my PC won't start. There's melted chocolate all over my keyboard."

"Govstooge, can I have the afternoon off?"

Argh, fuck off.

For the record, my contributions to the whole affair will be along the lines of:

"Who wants to do their Annual Review? And where's my knuckle duster?"

"If there's any Galaxy truffles left, they're MINE!"

"Christmas? Oh yes, it was fine. You know I'm a Hassidic Jew, though, right?"

"Ah, just piss off."



Here's to 2010, folks. Have a good one. Because I know I won't.