Introducing Smaug

I am finding the new manager, Pedro, intensely irritating. Already, when he came for his interview and was sitting in reception, his eyes were scanning the room as he nodded to himself, with a mixture of smugness and contrived approval.

Instantly, he became, to Laura and myself, the only recognisable candidate, brutally nicknamed 'Smug Face'. When the Director took him out for lunch, our hearts sank, knowing that a working lunch at interview stage was the sure sign that an offer would be made.

We were right. Pedro was hired.

After his initial quick-fire of I.T. demands on week 1, Pedro has been settling in well. He wanders around the building, with his thick wooly sleevless cardigan worn over a shirt - the kind of thing my 72-year-old father would wear - clutching his mug, trying to strike up a conversation with anyone who will listen. He has an uncanny ability to materialise in front of me and Laura whenever we are huddled around my PC,looking at shoes or browsing a celebrity gossip site. He never gets the hint, even when every attempt of small talk is met with a monosyllabic response and followed by an awkward silence. Why doesn't he just leave us alone?

But the worst thing about Pedro is that he has the loudest voice out of everyone in our office. In fact, he has the loudest voice my eardrums have ever had the misfortune of encountering. His desk is on the first floor, but when he is on the phone I could actually take dictation from him from my desk, one floor below. I can hear every single word. If I happen to be upstairs to fix someone's PC, I have a tolerance of about 5 minutes before I want to run to the basement, the only place far enough from him to escape the wretched noise. Somehow he even manages to make a Portuguese accent unpleasant, something I never thought would be possible.

With someone like that around, we needed a nickname. Smug Face didn't really do him justice. So I started to think. Smug Face...Smug Face...Sm...Sm...how about SMAUG? Smaug is a monster in The Hobbit.  A dragon. A big monster. I think Pedro is harmless, but somehow the name works, it must be the sound of S..MAAAA...UUUG....

And this is how Pedro became known as Smaug.

Comments

[SFG]

IT CAN'T BE MUCH FUN WORKING WITH SOMEONE THAT TALKS AS LOUD AS ANY OTHER PERSON SHOUTS, JUST IMAGINE WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE IF HE SHOUTED ALL THE TIME.

Ahem. (8+)