Office Troll

Smaug Behaviour

[CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST]

As I said before, even if I'm borderline rude with Smaug 99% of the time, he doesn't seem to find it a deterrent from pestering me at every given opportunity.

It's almost home time. Smaug comes down the stairs and then, pointing at the photocopier, he asks: 'Does it print on A3 paper?'.
"No, it doesn't" Nicole and I reply.
"Are you sure?" Smaug perseveres.
"Yes. We dont't have the facility to print on A3. We can only photocopy" I confirm.
But Smaug won't give up: "What if we hook it up to the printers?".
Sure, Smaug. Of course we can hook up our cheap, shit photocopier to the printers and then miraculously, print on A3. Why did we not think of that before???
I take a deep breath and just say to him: "We can't. It's a PHOTOCOPIER, Pedro" - I stop myself just in time from calling him Smaug - "It doesn't print, it just MAKES COPIES".

At that point, Smaug, like an 6-year old boy at primary school, starts saying stuff like 'Oh, you're getting upset now', and every time I tell him that I'm not, he says 'yes you're getting upset now! I can tell!'. I cannot believe this man: does he really want me to punch him? Does he not understand that I'm not 'getting upset', rather, HE is the one who is irritating the living crap out of me?

Smaug is relentless: "I like winding you up". But this is the kind of 'humour' that I really don't find amusing at all and I tell him so. 'Trying to 'wind people up' for fun is bad for you, you know?' - I continue - "it upsets your karma, and your chakras". KARMA? CHAKRAS? What on earth made me come out with such crap? But the man is pushing me to the limits of tolerance and I'm struggling to find things to say that will get him off my case, without telling me I actually is on my mind, which is "FUCK OFF".

I rushtowards the door, and as I try to open it, I drop one of the bags I'm carrying. Smaug rushes to pick it up and as he hands it back to me he says, with his broad alligator smile: "Here you are, I'm doing this to restore your CHAKRAS".

I snatch the bag off his big hairy paw and squeeze past him, out of the door.

I HATE YOU, Smaug.

You Have Been Smaug'ed

I am beginning to find Smaug's stalking presence in the office rather unnerving. He just seems to constantly appear out of nowhere, everywhere I go – there he is, grinning at me, trying to start a conversation. It doesn't matter how rude I am to him, he doesn't seem to be put off: in fact, that seems to encourage him, possibly in that annoying Mediterranean misconception that if a woman acts as if she hates your guts, it's only a case of wearing her down until she sees the truth and her contempt turns into adoration.

Take this morning, for example. I was in the basement, trying to break up a massive cardboard box. Suddenly, there was Smaug. Possibly in an attempt to appear suave, he opened with 'Buongiorno, signora!', followed by 'Did you have a nice weekend?'. But monosyllabic answers don't work with him. He just stands there and keeps grinning, idiotically, expectantly, as if waiting for the most exciting piece of news ever to be revealed. After the usual token answer, I made my excuses and  ran to the safety of the server room, with the pretext of having to look for a Stanley knife. Putting one leg out to hold the fire door open, I started to rummage in the toolbox, trying to make the search last as long as possible. After a few minutes, with no sign of the Stanley knife, and having almost completely forgotten about Smaug, I closed the toolbox and  as I looked towards the door, there he was, still waiting for me, still grinning.  There was really only one thing I could say to him: “Have you seen the Stanley knife?”

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Scent Of A Workie

Carol in Accounts has been having problems with her computer for days - or so she claims. I immediately try to find out what the problem is, but I can't see anything obvious. I need to call our I.T. people so that they can look into it via remote support. But Carol is too busy. She's busy, you see, so I can't hog her machine for half an hour. I roll my eyes and say that I'll try later. But later is no good either - she's still busy. So I try to help her the next day, but still 'oooh, I'm really busy'. This is ridiculous. How, exactly, am I meant to fix her machine if she won't let me get to it? Even at lunch time, there is no guarantee that a) she's not taking lunch at the same time as me and b), that I.T. are actually free to get on remote support with me. This goes on for a few days, me trying to get hold of I.T. and they calling me back and being told that we can't access the PC anyway.

Eventually, Carol is called to a meeting so I seize the moment. It turns out, as I suspected, that there is absolutely nothing abnormal with her machine, except for the fact that it could do with a bit more RAM (but coudln't we all?) - which I duly order for her. But the I.T. guy is particularly to explain various tricks of the trade to me, and as a result, I'm on the phone for ages. During the endless phone call, I can't help noticing the overpowering scent of Carol's old woman perfume. It's so strong it makes me almost sick - I'm sure there's a hole in the ozone layer right above our building. I finish the call and go back to my desk, but all I can smell is Carol's Eau de Vieille Femme. It must be on my neck and on my hair, from having the handset stuck under my ear so long. I feel so self-conscious. I feel like I've suddenly put on 5st and I'm dressed in baggy elasticated slacks and polyester floral blouse. I can't bear it.

I finally get home and make run for the shower. You know that film Silkwood- where Meryl Streep works in a nuclear plant and goes into the decontaminating shower? You get the idea. I re-emerge, half an hour later, smelling of mango and babassoo oil, having used about a kg of Body Shop body scrub, in a frantic effort to rid myself of every molecule of Workie Whiff.

Helmet Hair

Now that I've discovered the Margaret Thatcher Ladylike Style, I dream of launching an entire collection based around her. Skirt suits (she never wore trousers), blouses with pussy bows, hats that would have made the Queen Mother green with envy. The ultimate accessory, however, would be the formidable helmet hairdo that The Iron Lady sported in the latter years of her government. I could make them in different hair colours (for different degrees of intimidation) and instead of being made as wigs, they could just be built around the frame of an alice band, to sit on one's head. Like bunny ears. Or Mickey Mouse ears. Or Gary Oldman pointy bits in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

In the meantime, I've made an artist's impression of what I would look like wearing the Thatcher Helmet Hair (I think my Photoshop skills have really improved, lately).

 

Obsessions

During a particularly uninspired lunch break a few days ago, I picked up a copy of British Vogue - an issue dedicated on 'How To Grow Old Fashionably'. Having recently turned 35, I felt I was being targeted. On most days I end up asking Laura the dreaded question: 'Tell me honestly. Do I look like mutton dressed as lamb?'.[The correct answer is, in case you wonder, 'of course not'.]

Anyway, I was flicking through the pages when I stumbled across a photoshoot of Margaret Thatcher by fashion photography deity Mario Testino. Suddenly, with the eyes of a 35 year old, I realised how stylish The Lady was. The brooches! The handbags! The matching gloves...! Suddenly, I understood.

After reading the Vogue article, I have become obsessed with Margaret Thatcher and her outfits. From the 40's and 50s dresses and Hollywood style hats, to the 1980s pussy bows and fitted jackets, her immaculately groomed look is a vintage lover's dream. In a stroke of good timing, I had recorded, only a couple of days earlier, The Long Road To Finchley, a BBC film on Thatcher's early years (the best ones, clothes-wise). All that was left to do was to gather a pile of tomes from the library. I immediately returned those with no photos.

My poor boyfriend is used to my regular but generally short-lived bouts of obsessive interest in a certain subject. He has to suffer the consequences. First came Scientology: I read everything you can find on the net, downloaded out-of-print books, learnt to tell my Thetans from my Clears and plotted about going undercover at Sea Org. The Other Half was mildly amused. Gradually, he allowed himself to be assimilated: I had him watch endless war movies during my War Phase: 'Nam to start with (Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Apocalypse Now and all the rest), then Africa (Blackhawk Down, Tears of The Sun) and World War II (Saving Private Ryan and worse). I eventually ran out of movies but shortly afterwards I developed a different obsession, this time for submarines. So along came 'Das Boot', 'Crimson Tide', 'K19','The Hunt for Red October', 'U-571' and whatever I could record from the Discovery Channel. It was then the turn of mountaineering, with a particular focus on the 1996 Everest disaster. You would not believe how many books have been written about the 1996 disaster. I've read several already but Amazon keeps 'recommending' possible new titles. It's fantastic.

You get the idea. So you can only imagine how excited I was to find, in one of Thatcher's biographies, a photo of her in a submarine! The Other Half commented, only half joking, that it could only be bettered by a movie about Margaret Thatcher, at war, in a submarine that lands on Everest, time-travelling through Vietnam and WWII, perhaps fighting the Evil of Scientology in the progress.

Now, imagine the outfits for that movie.

It's All Wasted On Them

After all the effort I went through, to finally get our office a half-decent coffee machine, it now seems to be all wasted on those philistines I am condemned to be working with. I keep catching them with their hands in the instant coffee tin. Aileen from Accounts, when I questioned her, said that the new coffee is 'too strong'. It's not. Even the 'Darkest Roast' that we get straight from Holland is pretty bland and weak. The Espresso pods are marginally better, but still rather pathetic. But for Aileen, it clearly tastes as tar and probably has the equivalent effect of a hefty dose of amphetamines.

I initially thought this was an isolated incident and put it down to Aileen's middle aged, middle-Englander Daily Mail reading habits. But then I caught Paul, the new guy, making himself a cup of instant: he must know better, he's younger than me. He must have heard of Starbucks. Or Caffe' Nero. The problem is that he has. Indeed, this is where the real tragedy lies: he says it's 'just what I'm used to'.

So this is how they thank me for bringing progress to the office, eh? Well, if it's instant they want, instant they'll have. I will buy the cheapest, nastiest, tooth-corroding crap I can find from Somerfield's value range, and pour it into the Gold Blend jar. See how they'll like it.

Philistines. A bunch of philistines...I tell you....

Friday Afternoon Racism

"This is where the party ends/I can't stand here listening to you/And your racist friend" (They Might Be Giants, 'Your Racist Friend')

It's Friday afternoon and The Captain is full of energy, despite having just been floored with high fever the day before. Between fits of coughing up pleghm, he starts to recall a conversation with the fishmonger from the local market - his favourite lunchtime haunt. Anyway, the friendly fisherman had apparently been praising the benefits of using 'the belt' for bringing up children. His argument is that if you tell your child to 'go and get the belt', the child will instantly know he's done wrong and as he will be punished, he surely won't do it ever again. The Captain totally approves of such methods. I feel slightly nauseous. I can't say that I have ever been hit with a belt, but I have had my arse kicked by my father a few times, and the memories are not pleasant ones. If I were a parent, there is no way I'd want to inflict the same terryfying experience on a child.

But as usual, Our Hero manages to surpass himself. 'Because you see', he carries on ranting to his secretary, clearly on a roll, ' It works with dogs as well. The dog doesn't do it again! This is what we should do with those Arabs, Saudis and Pakistanis. Like that Muslim cleric who's just been released from prison and now we can't deport him'. I can't believe what I'm hearing. I look at Laura and she stares back at me, in disbelief. We cannot believe he's saying stuff like this. But he goes on: 'Our boys are getting killed in Afghanistan, but we can't even touch these people', he rants away.

I cannot believe this man. I'm certainly not one for extreme political correctness, and I would be very happy to see the world rid of Islamic extremism (as well as Christian extremism). But the way The Captain manages to turn even the most unrelated subject into a racist rant really shocks me. You wonder how people like him managed to get to where they are. This is a man who, when he gets an enquiry from a Middle-Eatern, African or Asian-sounding name, he automatically treats it with suspicion. During my time as his secretary, I used to have to make him reply to such emails, trying to drill into that thick head of his that they could have been from a Saudi Sheik looking for his next luxury mega-yacht. God knows how many mega-deals The Company has lost thanks to this moron.

Sick of hearing his rants, I get up to make a cup of coffee. As I get Laura's cup, she says, 'are you sure you want a black coffee? Would you not rather have a nice Aryan coffee?'.

Smaug Idol

This is not something I am proud of, but I have reason to suspect that Smaug might fancy me. It all started last week, when some of us went out with my camera to take some photos for our website's staff page. Oddly, Smaug brought his camera along too, and as we were snapping away, he started, in turn, to take photos of the photoshoot, like in one of those 'making of' featurettes you get as extras in DVDs. When I downloaded the photos from his camera - thinking they could be good 'office' snaps - I found out, to my sheer horror, that most of the photos were of ME.

It gets worse. A couple of days later, as I bumped into him in the kitchen, where he was sipping his coffee in absolute darkness, he said to me 'You look gorgeous today'. Dying inside, I muttered something like 'oh, thanks, but I don't feel it', and swiftly changed the subject of the conversation to his house-hunting. When I finally re-emerged from the basement, I made my way to Laura's desk to tell her but, as I whispered 'You won't believe what Smaug just said to me', she revealed that she'd heard everything, as she was happening to walk past the kitchen on her way to the loos.

All I can say is, thank goodness that it was Laura who walked past and nobody else. I'm already tramp idol (more examples coming soon). But Smaug Idol? I don't think I could handle that.

The Coffee Machine

My boss was barely out of the door when I finally executed the plan I had been scheming for the last six months: I got us a coffee machine. Despite being in the business of luxury goods, our office was distinctly cheap in the refreshments department. Supermarket-brand instant coffee and floor-scrapings tea bags were, until last week, the standard fare on offer to both staff and visitors. My boss was just too selfish to sacrifice his budget for something everybody could enjoy.

So on the Monday after my boss's departure, I went straight to one of the Directors and pleaded our case. He has a coffee machine by his desk because he also thinks that instant coffee is an aberration. So of course, he said yes. And so two days later, the Senseo machine arrived, giving me the excuse to spend my days fussing over it, 'training' people on how to use it, finding the best online supplier for the pods, and, of course, 'testing' the coffee.

It's still not as good a coffee my own private cafetiere stash, but at least I won't have to die of shame when a visitor comes in and I have to serve them a cup of instant sludge.

Next step: Yorkshire Gold teabags, which my boss infamously used up from my personal stash - 79 teabags out of 80 - and never offered to replace. I bitterly regret not only letting him get away with it, but also not having poisoned them.

The Matrix Unplugged

Offices are strange places. On one hand, you have an entire workforce constantly in search of new distractions. On the other hand, as soon as the computers go down, you get the kind of crisis which in different parts of the world would require the intervention of Medicine Sans Frontieres. Take my workplace, for example. It's 4:30 PM and we've all had a long day, so when Si the I.T. guy tells us to log off so he can reboot the server, my first reaction is, bring it on, time to get a screen break and catch up with the stash of magazines we keep in Laura's in-tray.

But it appears that for some, a few minutes unplugged from The Matrix are too much to bear. The Captain, is on the phone to a client, is in denial and refuses to budge until the end of his call, on the account that he needs what's on the screen. But that could take us to Christmas, so I force his secretary to log him out.

Once the system is back on, I over hear him dictating an entire paragraph explaining in great detail how our computers were down and he couldn't get to 'the system'. 20 minutes of working time spent writing about why he couldn't work for the 20 minutes prior to that. It beggars belief.

But the real lost soul is Smaug. He descends on our floor, starts to make phone calls on his mobile (why? his desk phone still works) between the double doors, defeaning us all. He paces around the room. Worse of all, he tries to talk to me. I'm trying to ignore him by pretending to read Closer in great depth.
Smaug asks: "What are you doing?"
"I'm reading a magazine".
"I can see that". Smartass. "What are you reading?"
I hold up the copy of Closer to his face, trying hard not to roll my eyes.
"Oh, it's Hola!" says Smaug.
No, it's not fucking Hola! I am not Spanish. It doesn't even have the same kind of graphics. It's not Hello!, or even OK!, which we only buy when Jordan has another 'world exclusive'. It's Closer, a poor woman's version of Now!, with third-hand gossip and 'real-life' stories about fat women who end up marrying waiters in Morocco and then get conned out of all their life savings.

Anyway, eventually the computers are back on and order returns. The Captain resumes his pointless dictation and Smaug goes back to upstairs, finally leaving me to find out just how many grapes Victoria Beckham eats for her dinner.