Down time

It's been almost a week since I wrote anything. Fact is, I've been enjoying the weather too much ("sickie", anyone?) and, in the last two or three days when it started pissing again, I've been getting pissed. Mainly to forget about what's coming up in the next couple of weeks.

The interim reviews. Oh, fuck.

The thing is, with all the new minions reporting to me since earlier this year, it's going to take me a whole week to get through these poxy meetings. Not to mention the fact that I inherited a few extra people as a result of another EO leaving.

Some of the meetings might be fun this time around, however, as I might like to get revenge on some of these additional staff for an incident on the other EO's last day, which went something like this:


EO: Well, I'm off. It was lovely working with you all. (Goes to door)
CO: (Stands on desk) O Captain my Captain!
CO 2: (Stands on desk) O Captain my Captain! Please don't leave us!
EO: Err...
CO: Yes, please don't go. Our new EO is a bitch.
CO 2: Yes, she swears at us.
(At this point the HEO intervenes saying that people standing on desks is a breach of health and safety law and he ushers the EO out the door, while simultaneously restraining Govstooge from harming herself and others, as she is now foaming at the mouth and flailing her arms relentlessly. The HEO receives several bite marks to his forearms and has to leave early to go to the doctor.)
CO: Fuck, anyway.


The rest of the interim reviews won't be fun. Especially since I am now medicated to keep all that involuntary movement under control. It's just going to be a lot of sedate form-filling and box-ticking and running around trying to find an office vacated by an AP on a well-timed sickie so I can at least hold the review meetings in private.

How do they do it?

Oh Jaysus.

I am so sick of fucking forms. I am short staffed at the moment (I think it's something to do with the weather - wish I'd fucking thought of that), and so I've had to pick up some of the slack.

I don't know how the clerical staff do it. Processing form after form day in day out. Fucking hell. I think I'll go easy on them at the upcoming interim review (Then I'll balance it out by going medieval on their asses for calling in "sick" at a moment's notice. Heh heh heh. ), because I know if I had to do it all day every day I'd go fucking mental.

I can just see myself, having strangled a senior manager with his tie and tied it around my own head as a headband, leaping the desks in the open-plan areas throwing ninja death forms at everyone in my path. The carpet would be soaked in copious amounts of blood from the papercuts I would inflict mercilessly on my co-workers. My ululating battle-cry would echo throughout the building and those left alive would not emerge from beneath their desks until it is time for my tea break.

Feck it, it's going to be lovely again tomorrow. I think I'll call in sick. It might just save their lives.

Ladies...

I work with some very weird people, as regular readers will by now have guessed.

However, the vast, vast majority of my section colleagues are completely normal, sociable, decent people, with whom I enjoy working very much indeed. (And no, none of them are reading this. If you are, GET BACK TO WORK! NOW! )

I was astounded, and hugely amused, by something one of my normal (ladylike) colleagues said today. Becoming increasingly irritated by the incessant commentary by another colleague on various non-work related matters as she attempted to concentrate on her work, she turned to him and said: "If you don't shut up, I will say two words to you, one has to do with sex and the other with travel."

What a novel way of saying "Fuck off!"

It's a pity she is not on leave for the next three working days, then she could have said "See you next Tuesday".

I suppose it's good to know that my swearing in the office isn't being seen as "Leading by example".

Still on the subject...

... of vomiting, that is. Not piercings.

Those ads for Erin "Chunky Soup" really freak me out, especially as this is a euphemism for vomit that I've been using for some time now.

I've no intention of trying the product as I really don't want my food to remind me of puke.

Achilles Heel

A random canteen conversation revealed my Achilles heel to some COs today.

It was a perfectly normal conversation about Goths and other teenage trends. Until it turned to the subject of piercings.

AAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!

Fuck it, there's nothing that nauseates me more than the thought of piercings. I have never even had my ears pierced. The very idea of poking metal through my earlobe gives me the willies. (I can cope with big fuck-off needles at the dentist though, oddly enough.)

One friend likes to get revenge on me if I'm being obnoxious by shouting "PIERCED NIPPLES!" at me to make me shut up.

People with tongue piercings make me want to yak. Bleargh.

So now the COs have ammunition to use against me if I piss them off. Feck anyway.

Mind you, all I have to do is shout something like "CANTEEN SAUSAGES", "ROLE PROFILE FORM" or "DEAD PEOPLE" back at them.

Yes, it's a new game we've invented. Actually, I've invented it. I'm the boss, and can do whatever the hell I want.

Nausea Tennis, I'll call it.

The Cultural Divide

I like the Statcounter thing I installed on this blog about a month ago. It provides me with excellent real-time statistics on the hits I receive. It gives fascinating insights into the random search terms Googled by people all over the world to lead them to me (bwahhahahahahahaha!). Most, however, are looking for the sort of things I don't provide, and their visit only lasts a nanosecond.

Most interesting are the differences between hits I receive from IP addresses in Asia/ Africa and those coming from Europe.

For instance, many people using Google from European domains search for things such as "Promotion to EO", "HEO Irish Civil Service", "PMDS", "Civil Service Shit" and "Civil Service Sucks". Now, I can provide insights on all of these. Particularly the last two. Oh, and someone once searched for "women peeing and crapping". Yes I am a woman, and I do use the toilet, but I don't have a live toiletcam in my ensuite. At least, not that I know of.

Visitors from Asia and Africa on the other hand, have searched for - almost daily, and from different countries each time - "boss fuck servant", "servant fuck boss" , "my servant fucked me". Sorry lads. No can do. I am a civil servant who wants to tell my colleagues and my boss to fuck off from time to time, but I'm not branching out into the master /servant porno stuff. But if any of you work for the civil service in your own countries, I'd be interested to know what kind of crap you put up with.

The visitor who had me rolling on the floor laughing was the person who googled "I had garlic last night now I stink at work". They were from the UK. Again, I could offer them nothing, other than a realisation that it helps to keep clerical staff at bay.

Prerequisite

Sometimes the clerical staff just don't appreciate the type of person it takes to rise to the level of manager in the civil service. Following yet another of my canteen diatribes one of the throng who reports to me had the temerity to suggest that I complain a lot. The exchange went something like this:

Clerical Officer: For someone with authority, you complain a lot.
Govstooge: What the hell do you mean? Do you not know that it's a requirement of the job? If I don't voice at least ten complaints every day, I could get demoted? Or my head could explode with all the pressure of repressed emotions? Don't you realise what a terrible existence the average EO ekes out?
Clerical Officer: Oh, I see now. Thanks for clearing that up. I think I'll withdraw from the current EO competition that I did the exam for last week.
Govstooge: Yes. Save yourself. Redemption is at hand. I, on the other hand, am lost forever.


Fuck.