The Birthday Planner

Everything has been quiet at The Institute after then fun and frolics that followed the Bored Meeting. This week, The Professor was dragged away on a city break by his wife for a very special celebration: his 50th birthday. As a result, I've been getting hardly any emails, save for the odd one that he manages to sneakily send from his Blackberry (his wife cunningly booked a holiday where the G3 signal is patchy at the best of times).

In typical - actually, stereotypical - secretary fashion, I have therefore made it a personal mission to organise a belated birthday celebration on his return. Out of sheer desperation for some frivolous behaviour, I started to plan this two weeks in advance. I researched what kind of stuff he's into, blocked time in the diary for the gift-giving gathering, scoured the internet for cool presents that don't involve anything remotely ethnic, or fair-trade, or eco-friendly. In the end, I opted for this  since The Professor is a self-defined 'music freak' and a Clash mug - apparently he sometimes joins the 'house band' to sing Clash covers.

But my greatest effort has been the creation of the ultimate birthday card: using my rudimentary Photoshop skills, I've managed to paste the Professor's head onto Wayne Rooney's body in a mock football magazine cover, so that the charismatic academic is forever immortalised as the captain of his favourite team.

The workies seem a little bit taken aback by my sudden enthusiasm: I am one step away from the full-blown J-Lo Wedding Planner type of stuff, complete with Blootooth headset, clipboard and snappy attitude. But what they don't realise is that I am absolutely starved for a bit of fun and work stupidity, something that I used to get a lot of at The Company. Here it's all about saving the world, starving children, starving farmers and women with droopy tits. I need to rock this place. This place needs ME.

The chances are that tomorrow will be a Big Disappointment

™ and that the boss will probably end up booking a meeting for the slot I reserved instead. At least, I will have tried. They will not get a second chance.