Shite Talk

At work, rushing to the loo because I've left it almost too late for number ones again.

I crash through the toilet doors and barely notice the two people at the sinks as I lurch towards a stall.

Having successfully completed my business without spilling a drop, I wash my hands and return to the section.

"Ooh Govstooge, you were in a hurry back there," a colleague's voice calls from across the section. "You didn't even stop to talk when I was in the bathrooms."

Now, toilets are for weeing and pooing into (just weeing for me at work). Sinks are for washing hands and the tap with the boiling water coming out of it is handy if I want to strip a layer of skin that I don't need any more.

Workplace bathroom facilities are not places for congregating socially. Not for me. I can't understand why (why, goddamn it!) some folk at work like to stand there and gossip for ages. Especially when someone's just dropped the kids off at the pool and the stench is slowly spreading. Why would you want to stand there and inhale all that?

I treat workplace loos as a necessary evil. Joining in conversations there in the presence of other people's bodily functions is not an option for me.

So I responded to the colleague: "Sorry. I was trying to get in and out without having to breathe. Lunch was half an hour ago and I was afraid what might assault my nostrils as a result when I went in."

It shut my colleague up. Which led me to think that they might be the culprit.

The most awful image...

I have a very strong tolerance of disgusting things. I can watch gory episodes of ER while munching on spaghetti bolognese, or discuss embarrassing bowel conditions over a leisurely lunch. I am a big fan of Peter Jackson films (in his pre-Lord of the Rings days - Brain Dead, Bad Taste, anyone? Rent them, see what I mean). I have a very scatological sense of humour and few conversation topics have the capacity to put me off my food.

Today, I discovered my Achilles heel.

During tea break, a conversation arose between some colleagues about why the HEO was late this morning.

"A chance conversation with a passing AP?"
"A quick cup of coffee?"
"One of the children vomited all over the house?"

And...
"Having a shit?"

At which point I spat my chocolate croissant out and roared "For fuck's sake, I do NOT want to think about a HEO sitting on a toilet while I'm having my tea!!"

Exploding brains, zombies being chopped up with lawnmowers and melting heads, yes.

A Higher Executive Officer pinching a loaf, definitely not.

Bleargh.

The Eve of the Bleeeearrrrrrgh

Oh lordy, it's this blog's first birthday tomorrow. I'm trying to think of something witty and wonderful to mark the occasion.

Given that a substantial number of posts I write are concerned with toilets, arses and things that fall out of arses into toilets (we would hope, anyway), I was hugely amused by the discovery that tomorrow is also POOP FOR PEACE DAY.

If you don't believe me, have a look here. Nice thought, but pooing on demand isn't exactly an easily-mastered skill. Poop Report is a great site, there's even a section about pooing at work, which should be downloaded by our Personnel department, printed and put into the employee induction handbook. It's an intellectual approach to toilet humour, and thankfully, it's not illustrated.

And, as I type, I'm listening to a song with "Bum" in the title.

That's serendipity or something, isn't it?

----------------
Now playing: Arctic Monkeys - Mardy Bum
via FoxyTunes

Someone's listening at last!

I went to the jacks at work today. I had to do a pee, and I didn't want to mess up the carpet in the office, so I braced myself for the olfactory onslaught of the ladies' toilets.

No stink!

And I noted with glee that our facilities management section had stuck notices on the backs of each of the doors reminding users to "Leave the facilities as you would expect to find them".

Hooray!

Now, if we can weed out those staff members who expect to find the toilets minging of shit and with piss, toilet paper and other disgusting women's things on the ground, hunt them down and kill them, we are onto a winner.

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!!

Gotcha!

Today, purely by accident, I discovered the identity of one of the Department’s most notorious offenders (in my opinion). Yes, I’m talking about the Workplace Shitter.

I needed to use the toilet this morning (for number ones, obviously), and when I entered the bathrooms I found myself swathed in the most noxious freshly expelled intestinal gases I have ever come across. For a moment I thought I was in a time machine and had been transported right back to the Somme in the middle of a mustard gas attack. Just as I began to grope for the door handle – my eyes were watering so much that I couldn’t see where I was going – the toilet in the sole occupied cubicle flushed. Despite my heaving stomach and my limited eyesight, my curiosity overrode all of my physiological protests and I lurched to the window and flung it open. With conditions now marginally improved, I grabbed a paper towel and pretended to be calmly drying my hands while taking care to remain as close to the window as humanly possible without actually falling out and cracking my head open on the crappy Government issue concrete 40 or so feet below.

The door opened. The thought of seeing the offending arse and its owner filled me with so much trepidation that I turned my back as I could not face seeing them emerge surrounded by their own vile stench. I held my breath. And prayed that it would be over soon.

“Hello, Govstooge”, a voice behind me called sweetly.

“Fuck!” I thought.

I turned.

When my eyes had adjusted to the thick fetid atmosphere of the toilet area, I saw that it was none other than one of my section’s own Clerical Officers, who started chatting away as if nothing was wrong. I made my excuses and left. I didn’t even wait to see if they washed their hands.

Now, as I type, I can see the arse in question, and I know exactly what rank aromas came out of it earlier.

My curiosity salved, I now feel dirty.

I am not this person’s boss. But even if I was, does my remit extend to controlling the bodily functions of others? Do I have the authority to place a large butt plug firmly in this person’s anus to prevent further exudations during work hours? Can I claim expenses for the purchase of said butt plug? Is there Health and Safety legislation relating to colon gases that I can cite?

Or can I just give them a good bollocking?

Answers on some used bog roll to the above address.

I am putting barbed wire around my desk in the meantime so that this person can't come near to contaminate my work space. It has the added benefit of deterring unwanted HEOs.

Today was a good day...

Yes, it was.

Despite drinking several cups of civil-service-standard-issue ditchwater coffee and a few bottles of you-don't-know-where-it's-been-but-you-can-guess water from the water cooler, at no time did I feel the urge to urinate while in the Department today.

So therefore I did not have to endure the stink of the festering contents of other people's colons.

One of the clerical officers confesses to never visiting the workplace toilets. They are always in a good mood. Now I know why.

What a wonderful day.

But maybe I should see my Doctor.

A Typical Civil Service Day - Part 1

This is my attempt to convey what a typical day is like for me (Actual contents may vary from description on packet).

Today:
I arrive at the Department, park my car in some far-flung recess of the car park, because I haven't bothered to come in before 9.30 and all the best spaces have been taken by my large-bottomed colleagues. It takes me five minutes to get from the car park to the double automatic doors, which groan lugubriously as they admit me. I have my daily fight with the time clock, where it refuses to register my identity card and bleeps loudly, attracting the attention of at least ten of the twenty or so civil servants who are propping up the walls in the immediate vicinity. Maybe the reason the evil machine fails to recognise it is because the picture on my identity card no longer looks like me - although it is only a little over a year old, it looks about five years younger. The Department is a parallel universe in which people age more rapidly than normal.

I go to the toilet, cursing myself for not arriving earlier, before the assault on my olfactory nerves caused by the arseholes of fifty women who have used the toilets since the Department opened at 8 this morning. Fucking rank.

Some gagging, some stairs and about fifteen sets of moaning and groaning double doors later, I arrive in the part of the building where I work. The sight that greets me is not pleasant. Before I even enter my section, I see my HEO leaving the AP's office. "Fucking great", I think, "they are talking about me already". The HEO is leaving the AP's office by walking backwards. It is like watching a film about royalty, in which the subjects of the monarch are not permitted to show their backs to the royal personage. This toadying makes me gag some more.

Suddenly, the HEO backs into the path of... wait for it... a Senior Manager! Much confusion ensues. Paper is flying everywhere. HEO looks panic-stricken. The ultimate outrage has been committed. A middle manager has been the cause of a senior manager dropping the printout of his Joke of the Day emails. Also, the HEO's back has been presented to the senior manager. This is a serious breach of HEO protocol.

Before anyone can say anything, though, and as I watch, dumbfounded, stopped in my tracks by the exciting events unfolding before my very eyes, the top of the HEO's head flips open, and a very small brain jumps out. Evidently the breach of protocol was too much for it. The brain bounces down the corridor for about ten feet, stops and then returns to the now motionless body which previously housed it. The brain manages to extract the HEO's identity card from his belt loop, and having secured it, it bounces merrily back towards the exit, on its way to God knows where, but making sure to swipe out properly first. The consummate bureaucratic cerebrum.

What happened to the body?

It got a promotion, of course!

In Part 2: I have to fill out some forms, and I go for tea.

What are HEOs for, exactly?

They make €45,000 approx. a year, minimum.

They make a simple job appear as complicated as quantum physics. In Sanskrit.

They flap about the section leaving in their wake confusion, frustration and swearing.

They spatter their EOs and clerical staff in verbal diarrhoea.

That sounds like fun.

When's the next promotion competition?

(*HEO = Higher Executive Officer - Basically, an Executive Officer who has taken more drugs than the others. Amphetamines, in this case. )

Something Lurking...

For fuck's sake why does it always happen to me?

I arrived at the Department this morning at 9.55, swiped in and went to the toilet to have a piss before I started the day's work.

Went to my favourite stall, and what was there to greet me?

No, not the resident perv. Nor was it a lost cleaner.

It was...

... a neat, perfectly formed turd, clinging to the air with the tenacity of slightly more viscous shit to a blanket. It was the exact opposite of an iceberg; most of it was above the water.

It was this, this nasty chocolate surprise, with its three-inch skidmark down the bowl, that put me in bad humour for the rest of the day.

What to do? Pooing at work is a basic human right, what if I needed to go, but wasn't allowed? The garage nearby has a toilet, but it's not been cleaned since 1988, since then at least 15,000 sweaty truckers' arses have delivered loads there.

As a consequence, I have devised a new entry for the Civil Service Staff Suggestion Scheme.

It is thus:

"All staff should obliged to follow a diet consisting of Guinness, bananas and rye bread. This will benefit the Department in many ways - 1. Shits will be heavier in consistency and will therefore be dispatched from the building if done during work hours. 2. Additional flushing to remove the 'lighter' shits will be eliminated, thereby conserving water. 3. Errr.... "

I have less than three years' service. That award is mine. MINE I TELL YOU!