Office Troll

The Stalker

The Stalker. Now, he's not one of my so-called 'Boyfriends'.

I met him at the boat shows and when I found out that not only he was half-Italian but he'd grown up in my home town, out of boredom and sheer desperation I got drawn into a friendly conversation with him and when he asked for my number, I gave it to him.  At boat shows you give your work mobile out to people all the time without really thinking about it. That was a mistake, because first he started to text me and call me on the Blackberry - 'ciao bellissima, avrei voglia di uscire con te stasera*'- then he turned up on the boat I was on board of, as a visiting broker, and didn't leave for about an hour. He wouldn't stop talking shop and I got so bored after a while that I left him with the yacht captain and went back to the insane but safe company of The Captain, who was on duty with me. [*Translation: Hi, random female human being under the age of 80 with all functioning limbs and weighing under 20 st, I'd like to go out with you tonight']

Something about The Stalker had alerted my Creep-O-Meter: the sneaky feeling that as soon as he'd realised that I wasn't interested in him in that way, I could still be useful for his sneaky networking machinations.  Which is probably why he rang me at work, out of the blue, a couple of weeks ago.  He's clearly trying to get a job with The Company and is under the impression (wrong) that I can somewhow exercise some sort of leverage on The Big Boss.  He now keeps emailing me about work stuff that I have absolutely no involvement with, and hints at 'possible collaboration' and other yuppie shit like that.  I have repeatedly told him that all I do is look after the website but he's either more stupid than he looks or he's clutching straws, the straw being me, because clearly nobody else in The Company is interested in hearing about his 'cooperation' plans.

Note to self: I must stop talking to random people at Boat Shows just because they speak Italian and I am dying of boredom. Must take up unconspicous emergency past-time, like Sudoku, or assessing women passers-by's bra size.  Actually, I already did that for most of the Cannes show. Hmmm.

Whose Idea Was It?

A month has passed since the torture of the boat shows, but I'm still bearing the scars.  I only found out today that Wayne, a Sloaney arsehole who treats everybody like shit, has been slagging me off with Laura whilst I was on holiday (what an idiot, saying that to Laura, of all people.  She's Mini-Me).  He's been saying to her that I 'clearly couldn't cope' at the shows, that I 'wasn't cut out for it' and that he 'had a run in with me' at one point.

Well, technically, all of the above is true. I found the whole thing incredibly stressful, my control-freak boss didn't really let me do anything that wasn't manual labour and yes ,when Wayne literally commanded me to turn over some wet and dirty rugs on the quay, I told him  to bloody do it himself.  He actually apologised later on for having been rude.

So, despite the fact that Wayne thinks I sucked, the job got done - my important role was covered. The rubbish got taken to the tip (by me), the tables got wiped (by me) and a meeting with a big Italian client and Big Boss was successfully translated (by me).  So why am I pissed off? 

Well, I'm annoyed at myself first of all because I showed weakness - and these arseholes smell the blood from (nautical) miles away.  I also never asked to be sent to Cannes, Monaco or Timbuktu, to 'organise' any exhibition of BOATS, ladies and gentlemen, BOATS, of all things, I DON'T GIVE A FLAMING FUCK ABOUT BOATS, I have a Media Studies degree, I listen to punk/rock/goth or whatever else that isn't the coffee table CD of the moment, I play Warcraft, I have only just learnt how to swim.... does that not tell you that I AM NOT A FUCKING YACHTIE!!!!

I got a secretarial job at The Company and I managed to eventually snatch the I.T.Coordinator job from the departing partner's wife. I didn't ask to be sent away for two entire weeks, with my psycho boss breathing down my neck every minute of my day, wearing shit beige trousers and equally shit beige shoes, constantly being asked why I haven't got a tan, surrounded by tossers who wouldn't even know who Kurt Cobain was or.  So whose fault is it, eh? Whose idea was it? Was it mine? Was it mine? WAS IT MINE???   

And breathe...

Flashback: The Hovel

It was decided a few days before my departure that I was going to be moved from the luxury four-star restort in Monaco, after the first two nights, to the very basic 3-star family-run 'hotel' in Antibes where our workies are normally sent to when they visit the French office.  For 'Cost reasons'. Ok.  I'd been to that hotel before - it's very basic and certainly less luxurious than your average Travelodge or Ibis, but it's clean and the owner is delightful postcard French man, complete with moustache and bouffant hairdo.

The move takes place on Wednesday.  I'm exhausted, I have a migraine and I have to drag my suitcase, which weighs about a ton, on the train to Antibes. A well-meaning colleague from the French office decides to kidnap me and makes me go to her house first, talking non-stop during the train journey and during the 10-minute walk from the station to her flat.  By that point  my head is pounding and the migraine-induced nausea, coupled with hours spent on the deck of a yacht, is making me want to curl up in the foetal position and die. By the time we get to her place, I'm sure the weight of my suitcase and of my bag has doubled.

We go out for dinner and I swear I'd give a kidney if only my colleague stopped talking. How can people talk so much? I have nothing else to say. I'm completely spent.

Eventually I am driven back to my hotel - where I have yet to check-in. It's the kind of establishment where after 10 PM there's not even a receptionist, just a night porter. I'm handed a key (they dont't even have room cards) and I make my way towards the stairs, but the porter stops me and tells me, 'non, madame, c'est la-bas' - whilst pointing at the breakfast/bar area.  I'm confused. Why does he want me to go into the breakfast room?

The porter insists and gestures for me to follow.  To my horror, I realise that there is a door at the back of the breakfast room.  Through that door, there are 2 guestrooms. One of them is 'mine'. You are having a laugh, right?, I think to myself.  It's on the ground floor. It's behind the bloody bar. This cannot be happening.  I chase the porter back into the main reception and ask him if he can give me a different room, but he shrugs in that unique way that only the French have and tells me that they are full up, and to ask the receptionist the next day.  There is nothing else I can do but to let myself into my quarters for the night.

I already knew that the hotel was basic but this room has been clearly added hastily and very cheaply to make the hotel some more money from desperate tourists and it's an absolute hovel.  I could cope with the tiny bathroom, if only the sink stayed stuck to the wall instead of perilously shaking every time I'm leaning on it, and if the toilet didn't fill up with water right to the top every time I flushed it, eventually emptying itself but ruling out its use for anything other than a pee.  I could even cope with the one, pathetic piece of curtain that hangs in the middle of the rail, covering only about a tenth of the surface area.

But I cannot accept that one side of the room, which is on the ground floor, is basically one, long, glass French window which opens directly onto the pavement of the hotel's road-facing courtyard. Literally outside my window there are plastic chairs and tables, where, no doubt, low-income pensioners sit and admire the beauty of the main road opposite.

I also cannot accept that the room is at the back of the fucking bar and I can hear the TV, which is left on through the night to keep the night porter awake, blaring in the background, the bass thumping through the walls.

By now I've been working non-stop for 10 days without a break. I have a migraine, I'm tired and I just can't take it anymore. I'm a single woman away on a business trip and they've put me in a shit hovel of a room on the ground floor of a busy road. I know that Antibes is not the Bronx, but this is not safe, not funny, and I've had it.

I ring my boyfriend and as soon as I hear his voice, I crack up and I cry and cry and cry, I cry for over half an hour into the work Blackberry, I cry because I am so tired and homesick and pissed off that I just can't take it anymore and I can't believe that at 6:30 the next day I'll have to do it all over again and get on a train to bloody Monaco and keep going for another 5 days.

Eventually I pop a Xanax and squirt some decongestant into my nostrils because I have cried so much that my nose is all blocked up and I can't breathe. My face is red and swollen and I look like a pig. I turn the light off, put my flight mask on and stick my earplugs in, because I can hear people shouting in the street, socialising around a car parked nearby with the engine still running. 

How much more is this going to suck?

1-Click I.T. Magic

It's day 5 and I come back from a coffee with an Italian chef I've befriended, to be met in front of our stand by one of our new brokers, Mitch, who tells me, in a very concerned, hushed tone, that a boat I was recently asked to put on our website should not be on the website after all, in fact, it's a bit of a diplomatic incident and is there a way I could use The Big Boss's laptop to remove it there and then? Would I be able to do that?

Mitch is an extremely large American in his fifties.  He used to be a chef on board and has met Bruce Springsteen (my idol).  He's very keen to get on within The Company and I can see how he wants to be the one who manages to avert this diplomatic disaster.   He says that if necessary he'll be happy to drive me to the office the following morning (a Saturday) so that I can do it asap.

I think for a couple of minutes - the boats on our website are updated via an online database (all I know is that it's something to do with SQL. Sounds impressive, huh?).  I can get on the database from anywhere in the world as long as I have internet access.  That is easy.  The only glitch in the plan is that I am not sure I remember the URL for the database site as I have it bookmarked on my machine at work and it's probably written down on a post-it note somewhere on my desk but it's past 5:30 on a Friday and there's no way that Laura is still going to be in the office.

I don't want to tell Mitch and Big Boss that the only possible obstacle to The Fix is of such trivial nature.  So I go 'hmmm' and mumble some pseudo-technical crap hinting that it may be a bit of a tough one BUT maybe, just maybe, I may be able to pull this trick off. I discreetely interrupt Big Boss from his meeting with a rival broker to ask him if I can use his laptop to remove 'that boat'. Big Boss anxiously logs me in.  He's got a special SIM card that gives him net access while everybody else at the show is struggling with the shit Cannes Wi-fi signal.

He resumes his meeting and I type the URL from memory, mentally crossing my fingers hoping it's going to be the right one.  And IT IS.  'We're in', I add for dramatic effect, just like in movies like War Games or The Net.  Big Boss is trying to look blase' with his rival colleague but I can tell that he's watching my every single move with great apprehension.

I get into our database, click on the Web tab, untick a couple of boxes, update HTML et voila', Robert est ton oncle et Fannie est ta tante,  the boat's off line, perdue, desaparecido, finito.  I open a new tab, double-check our website to make sure that the index has updated and of course it has, I knew that as long as I could get to the database, it would be a piece of cake.  But of course, it would be foolish to advertise this.  So I keep clicking at random, tabbing between the database and our website, a click here, another one there, type a few bits of text in one of the free text fields, delete that, scroll down a bit more, another couple of minutes of deception and that's it, I look up at Big Boss triumphantly and announce: 'IT'S DONE!'. 

The Big Boss is ecstatic.  He thanks me several times, and comments on how I have done a great job twice that day - as I had already done some interpreting at an important meeting earlier in the afternoon. I accept his praise graciously but modestly and then return to Mitch, who is positively beaming with joy - as he is, after all, the one who master-minded my semi-divine intervention.

I mentally cackle to myself, like an Evil Genius, thinking of how easy it is even for someone like me to fool The Unitiated when it comes to I.T. One click, ladies and gentlemen.  Now this is what I call 1-Click I.T. Magic.

Day 4: Sea Sick or Land Sick?

What is it with me and boat shows, that I have to be ill at some point and spend at least one night or morning puking my guts out? This time no alcohol was involved, at least not in a significant amount. I was feeling weird all day, as if I had land sickness - you know, when you feel that you are still on a boat or on a plane.  But I only spent about 20 minutes on a boat that was actually moving - this super cool tender which, I am told, is the bee's knees. Admittedly, the guy who drives it likes to crank it up to maximum speed, and it is nothing short of a miracle that I managed to remain attached to my seat rather than taking off like a pile of Post-its under a desk fan. 

Whatever caused this bout of D&V*, the bottom line is that I've eaten very little for the last couple of days, and this is A Bad Thing, because it saves The Company way too much money in food and especially drink (which everybody else is taking advantage of).  But it is also A Good Thing, because I'm sure I've already lost a few lbs.  Another week and I'll have turned into Cannes Next Top Model. Not that you'd notice, under the layers of beige and white that I am barbarically being forced to wear.
Just how many days are left to go?

* Holby City speak for diahorrea and vomiting

Day 2: The Captain Arrives

My boss and I are finally on our way back to the hotel.  The Captain will have by now arrived at the same hotel, after having been forced by The Big Boss to attend the whole show and not the two days that he was planning to get away with.

Both myself and my boss had been hoping to be able to avoid The Captain for dinner, but as we walk into the lobby, I recognise the all too familiar skinny shape coming towards us like an over-excited whippet: it's too late, he has seen us.  The look on our faces is one of utter dismay.

Day 2: Fluids Problem

My first proper day at the boat show is also the hardest as we are setting everything up before the show opens and there's a great deal of manual labour involved.  The sun is scorching and I'm wearing a vest.  By a couple of hours later the back of my shoulders is really red because I'd only put sunscreen on the front.

I don't mind the hard physical work, but the French have yet to build the toilets for the show, and I've had my last pee at 8:30 AM, and there is nowhere to go.  By about 12:30 I'm getting desperate.  I look for the toilets on the beach, and like Lawrence of Arabia, I think I'm experiencing a mirage when I see the signs for 'Toilettes' after walking for 15 minutes in the midday heat.  But when I find them, they are closed.  I curse the French, whose bladders clearly close at lunchtime too. I bet they have a law that protects toilets attendants from having to work over le dejeuner.

We eventually go and have lunch at a very chic beachside restaurant, and there I use the toilets 4 times to make sure that I can make it through the rest of the afternoon, until I get back to the hotel at 7 PM.  These are the times when I really wish I was a man.

Day 1

I like to wear comfortable clothe when I'm travelling and it's also going to be the last day I'm going to be able to wear black for a while. I've got these baggy black cotton cargo trousers I bought last year and they are now a size too big, so I have to wear a belt with them.  I choose a canvas belt which has only metal hoops - my other studded belts would warrant a visit to Guantanamo Bay, given the current climate of terror paranoia.

But the moment I step through the metal detector, it's beep-beep, so a nice middle aged woman checks me for lethal weapons.  When she asks me to take off my belt, I tell her I'm worried my trousers will fall off.  She reassures me that I'll be allowed to walk back through the metal detector AND hold my trousers up at the same time, instead of adapting the usual Jesus Christ Pose of surrender to the authorities.
Once I've walked through the metal detector again though, I am stuck because there is no way of putting my belt back on without revealing my underwear to the long queue of people behind me.  The nice woman, a nice, motherly type in her fifties, feels sorry for me and offers to help me put my belt whilst I hold my trousers.  I feel like an idiot but I  have accept, because it really is too early in the morning to show my knickers to the world.

A Not-So-Capsule Wardrobe

Trying to pack for the boat shows is an absolute nightmare.  The first problem is that at our stand I will have to be in 'uniform', which basically consists of white or burgundy shirts, with The Company's logo embroidered on them, beige or white trousers and of course, name badge.  On one hand this is A Good Thing™, because I don't have to think of what I'll be wearing during the day.  On the other hand though, wearing beige trousers, as well as making me look hideous, presents a major underwear problem.  Most of my underwear is black or dark colours, and that's going to show under beige.

The other major problem is that in the south of France it's about 28 degrees (C) at the moment.  On the few days that I'll be going into the French office, even my recent discovery of fishnet tights won't keep me cool.  So today, after a painful visit to the hairdresser, I brave the high street to find something light to pack - maybe linen trousers, as the two pairs I got from Primark last year now sport several holes chewed in by my pet rats.  Not quite the Côte D'Azur look, I think you'll agree.

Needless to say, it's a fruitless mission.  It's September so of course there is nothing summery left on the racks.  There are woolly jumpers and everything is black, or purple.  I am very tempted by a purple top (too warm) and yet another pair of black satin peep toe court shoes. I already have 6 pairs: but these have a diamante' applique' on the front and are really beautiful.  I manage not to give into temptation and I keep on trying to find The Elusive French Riviera Compliant Outfit.

In the end, however, I have to admit defeat.  There's nothing of any use.  I return home empty-handed, save for 12 pairs of knickers: 5 black, 5 white, 2 with polka dots, none in flesh colour because they are just too hideous.  Sod it, the white ones will still show under the beige trousers but who cares.  I draw the line, and I refuse, I REFUSE to diminish my sense of style in the name of The Company's terrible choice of corporate colours.

Day 5 - Epilogue

I spend my last morning of the Boat Show locked in my hotel room, in the grip of the worst stomach cramps I've ever had. If it's alcohol-related, it's a very strange reaction.  But when I finally re-emerge at lunchtime and re-join my very sympathetic boss at the stand, I find out that Sophie's been suffering from very similar symptoms which makes me think it could have been partly food-related.  Although all that champagne can't have helped.

It doesn't matter.  Finally, in the afternoon I catch a train to Milan and when I finally get there I feel like Columbus must have felt when he finally reached terra firma. I want to kiss the ground of the Stazione Centrale. I arrive at my sister's apartment and collapse on the bed, stomach still cramping, cold, wet, tired and hungover.  But at last, I am sort of almost home.