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.

In the Shite Garden

Back home, and I opened my front door and battled my way into the hall through the usual profusion of fake charity collection leaflets (Go away.) and Sky TV promotions (just feck off!), and I decided that then was as good a time as any to make good the damage wrought by the recent inclement weather on my back garden.

First of all, a haircut for the lawn which, if a lawn could be compared to a person, would be Brian May. Or Slash.

Throwing on my old tracksuit bottoms and baggy t-shirt, I bounded gleefully out the back door and begin the slaying of the grass. When that's done, I decided to tidy up the edges and pulled on a pair of sturdy gloves, in order to pull up nettles, thistles, atropha belladonna, hemlock, stinking bindweed and all the other nasties that seemed to have congregated for a weed convention among my gladioli.

I filled a whole sack with the stuff. And as I picked up all the waste vegetation, I felt a draught on my back. "Oh bollocks, stupid tracksuit bottoms, the old builder's bum is showing again" I thought. I stood up, hitching up the offending leisurewear. At the precise moment the next door neighbour stuck her head out of her upstairs window and went "Jesus Govstooge, the place is looking lovely! It's like the Botanical Gardens".

"Er, no it's not." I responded, pointing in the direction of the Asiatic lilies, stripped of their vermilion petals by the recent high winds, "But thanks anyway. I try." More pleasantries were exchanged. And my ego was massaged for a little bit, even if some of the praise was tongue in cheek. But all I could think of was "did she see my bum cleft?"

Anyway, it's all looking slightly neater out there now.

The triffids are thriving.

Govstooge v the CPSU

My HEO approached me today with yet another stupid question:

HEO: Govstooge, why haven't you conducted interim PMDS reviews with your staff this summer?

Govstooge: I can't. All my staff are members of the CPSU.

HEO: So?

Govstooge: The CPSU have an embargo on PMDS since March or so of this year?

HEO: So?

Govstooge: (Jesus!) Look, if I was to ask them to fill out their self-assessment forms, I would be asking them to contravene their union's advice.

HEO: So?

Govstooge: Look, knucklehead, what I earn isn't enough to enable me to take on several hundred COs and their union officials - officials, might I add, who generally earn twice what I do.

So as far as I'm concerned PMDS is not happening this year. Haven't you heard?

HEO: No.

Govstooge: Well, maybe if you didn't have such a fetish for listening to Gerry Ryan every morning talking about his holidays and the latest Danish pastry he's shoving down his gob, you might have heard. Actually, now that I seem to know more than you do, can I have your salary?

HEO: No.

HEOs. What are they good for exactly?

Crap day

Anyway, it was a crap day as I pre-empted in my previous post.

Much of it stemmed from the fact that, while I was busy on other tasks, my HEO approached with something pointless and irrelevant for me to do.

"Govstooge, can you get onto Persephone in Hinges and Knobs Division about this matter. I think we should be informed about what's going on with this."

"Isn't it Hinges and Knobs job to do that in the first place? I mean, we've done what we had to do on it and sent it on, it's out of our hands now, isn't it?"

"Don't rely on them to do everything. It may be that they think it's our job to do it, and that THEY'RE doing nothing. It may well fall between the cracks and we could end up with egg on our faces."

"Jesus. Do I get a second EO payslip for doing their job as well? That might help to bring me up to the €50,000 a year we're all said to be getting."

"Heh heh heh. I'm getting more than that... Uhem! Ah, ... no."

"Jesus."

So, I fired off this missive.

From: govstooge@squeakydoors.ie

To: persephone@squeakydoors.ie

Dear Persephone,

Please see attachment.

Can you advise as to what is the status of this project?

I know I've already signed off on it but my HEO's powers of omniscience are receding and there is concern on their part that the project might not be seen to fruition now that it has passed from our division to yours.

If I can be of further assistance to you please return the attachment in the internal mail along with your most recent pay cheque.

If you need anything else please complain to annoyingHEO@squeakydoors.ie.

Kind regards,

Govstooge

Keyholes and Escutcheons Division

April is the Cruellest Month

After a day of planning my aforementioned bollockings (I was afforded this luxury on account of the offending staff members' being out on leave today), I have emerged unscathed from the workplace April Fools' pranks.

I wasn't taken in by the promise of free scones in the canteen. And the zombie attack was fooling no-one. I've said before, zombie attacks only work in places where you can tell the living and the dead apart.

Anyway, I took some time out to get away from it all. I took a leisurely stroll around the unremarkable environs of the Department for some fresh air and exercise (remember folks - only YOU can prevent the spread of CIVIL SERVANT ARSE (Gluteus bureaucraticus giganticus).

It was a nice day where I was. A cafe with outdoor seating was doing a roaring trade. I've never been there. And it's just as well I didn't want to go today, because there was a bum on every seat. I'm not sure why. It wasn't that warm to sit outside. It was ok to walk around without a coat on, but not to sit in one spot, outdoors, with a nasty breeze blowing up the leg of your jeans. And, in addition, while sitting outside, you can get a nice lungful of the carbon monoxide belched out by passing traffic and the idling Landrover abandoned at the blind corner by the yummy mummy with the gigantic sunglasses who just popped in to get a brioche (I thought most of these were extinct now, but no, some of them are still clinging on). So I gave that one a miss, regardless of how tempting the scones and cakes looked and smelt as I passed.

I wasn't alone in my activity. There were several joggers about. Joggers! Gurrgh! I don't have a a problem with jogging as a form of exercise. I DO have a problem with the fact that they have a rotten habit of jogging right up behind me to overtake as I walk, no matter how wide the pavement is. Hey, assholes, I'm walkin' here! I'm sticking my leg out the next time they do that!

Maybe I should have stayed in at my break and gone along with the pranks. It might have been safer.

I pity the fuel...

Our office canteen is great. All kinds of things can be had for breakfast, lunch and tea breaks in general. I myself prefer a cup of steaming black unsugared coffee and maybe some yoghurt or something when on a tea break.

Today I saw a HEO in the canteen getting breakfast. I often wondered where these managers got the energy to keep them flapping around the place belching out incomprehensible management speak all day long.

Well, after today, I wondered no more.

It was an enormous plate of baked beans.

A foodstuff low in glycaemic index (being mainly protein) which is widely known for producing a large volume of smelly methane from the nether regions within hours of consumption.

There you have it.

Conclusive proof that HEOs talk out through their arseholes.

The Birth of PMDS

‘Twas December, and Bertie Augustus did issue a decree that there would be a Census taken, and all the people would have to go to Dublin to be registered, because the CSO had exploded in a freak accident and all the census forms were destroyed.

So the senior civil servants travelled the short distance to the Department of the Taoiseach, to register themselves. Among them was one who was heavy with cakes, having eaten too many at the staff Christmas party.

This man, once he had signed his form, felt a rumbling in his stomach and thought: “Oh shit, I think I need to do a poo.” But the toilets at the Department were all full, with politicians regurgitating the excesses of the celebrations of their pay rises. So this poor burdened bureaucrat was forced to check into the nearest five-star hotel (on expenses, of course) where he could relieve himself of his heavy load.

Grunting and straining on the diamond encrusted marble jacks in his suite, the senior civil servant gave birth to a monstrosity. It was a pile of shit so large, that he had to run into the corridor shouting “come and look” to one and all. And come they did; porters, chambermaids, barmen, drunk politicians; one and all came to admire the magnificent creation. Three fuckin’ eejits walking past the hotel saw the stink waves emanating from the windows of the penthouse suite, and they followed the smell, and they too came to have a look. The fuckin’ eejits brought gifts of toilet paper, air freshener and a plunger.

The senior civil servant, breathless from his exertions, announced to the crowd “Behold my magnificent creation. I have decided that it will be of benefit to all civil servants. From now on every Christmas, all civil servants will have to endure the process I have just completed. In a metaphorical sense of course. Not all people have my capacity for cakes and gut-busting turds. No, I have decided that all civil servants will be subjected to pointless forms and chats with their bosses at this time of year. It will be just as excruciating and painful as what I have just done. I will call it PMDS - short for Pretty Meaningless Dreadful Shit."

And so, PMDS began. And people learnt to take it seriously, as it's linked to our pay awards. God Damn us every one!!

Soylent Grey

I sometimes think that the civil service is fattening us up for slaughter. The canteen is full of lovely things (Yes! An office canteen that doesn't serve watery slop with a side order of listeria!), all of which contribute to that lovely fluffy stuff in our arteries and our big bouncy bottoms. The fried breakfast, for example, or the things that comprise pastry and chocolate or cheese. Not chocolate and cheese, though, that would just be wrong (but maybe just right for a person who has just smoked a particular herb).

Civil service office blocks are like great big farms with nice fat edible employees roaming freely around the corridors and going to the toilet whereever they please.

But they are not slaughtered on site. No, that would be too crude. In fact, they are not slaughtered. The cardiovascular system does all the work so others don't have to.

They are let retire first. An unreliable statistic suggests that the average age of death of retired civil servants is 67. So it takes an average of 40 years for a return on the investment of fattening up these employees.

I dunno. If I was investing money I'd go with the post office if I wanted to take that sort of risk.

And anyway, who the hell would eat them? It would be like eating the rind off some hairy bacon. With a nice juicy lard topping. And some forms on the side.

Mmmmm. Forms.

I think too much.

I'm going to eat some lentils now.

(Today was a bad day.)

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Now playing: Frank Black - I Burn Today

via FoxyTunes

Sickie

Dear Boss,

Please excuse my absence from work today.

During the course of the weekend there was an unfortunate incident involving a spiral staircase, a bottle of Buckfast and my arse.

As a consequence of drinking the Buckfast and then attempting the descent of aforementioned staircase, I received a rather nasty bruise to my posterior.

I am now unable to sit down, and as such, cannot come to work today. My arse is so sore, that I can't perform my duties to the optimum level; i.e. sitting on it all day .

Yours etc,
Govstooge

The Minor Functionary and the Case of Tinea Pedis

I have athlete's foot. Meaning my feet itch like buggery and smell like Taleggio cheese. Gone off. Bleargh.

I've no idea how I got it. I mean, ATHLETE's foot. I'm a civil fucking servant, for chrissakes. What a misnomer.

It's like Sonia O'Sullivan developing a giant arse. Which is a common affliction among us sedentary government employees (I have yet to get this, but I'm less than two years on the job, in all fairness).