Office Troll

Bug Attack

Every now and then I forget of where I am - that I am stuck in the outskirts of town, in a dreary campus, surrounded by fields and hills but flanked by a busy dual carriageway permanently blocked up with traffic.

I also occasionally forget about the wild beasts that infest this place: not just the students, but the insects, too. I was brutally reminded of my plight yesterday, when I decided to spend half an hour of my lunch break sitting outside one of the campus 'cafes'. The only seats available were these kind of very basic benches built around some of the trees. Within seconds, I felt something crawling up my back, under my top. I kept trying to brush them off but more would come. Then I realised I was pretty much being attacked by ladybirds; even my handbag was covered in them. A seat became free on one of the 'proper' benches so I moved: but there was a spider on the back of the seat. I made my way towards some steps instead, sat down, but I was attacked again, this time by tiny green flying bugs.

And that was it. I was defeated. I took my cup of tea and my newspapers and made my way back towards the safety of my office, where the pests are human-sized.

More Wardrobe Malfunctions

I had another wardrobe malfunction yesterday.

I have a dress I really like but which, unfortunately, is very low cut. The dress came with its own black slip, presumably because a fashion graduate intern at some stage realised that the garment was pretty much unwearable to those outside the sex industry without some sort of modesty aid. Anyway, the slip is not actually a very well cut one, but all the others I own were in the washing and so I put that on, under the dress, and off I went to work.

Well, within minutes of arriving in the office I realised that the slip kept...well, slipping, and my cleavage was conspicuosly spilling out of the dress. I cannot tell you how uncomfortable I felt all day; one thing is to flash a bit of flesh when you're out and about, or when you're trying to get someone to do something for you (yes I admit to that). But in the workplace it's a fine line between looking good and looking like the office tramp.

Thankfully, I had a black scarf tied around my neck, the sort of chiffon scarf that French women wear in their own inimitable way. Well I had to tie it in a bow under my neck with the resulting effect of looking like an easter egg - hardly a triumph of style, but in the absence of a full islamic abaya, that really had to do.

Oh, and of course, I had to spend most of the day avoiding The Builder.

In Search of Inspiration

I've now been at The Institute for nearly 10 months, and it's clear from the dwindling numbers of my posts that the place is certainly not providing me with much inspiration. Nothing worthy of mention ever seems to happen here; it's rarely terrible but equally, there is never anything particularly funny going on. I have pretty much given up trying to find an 'angle'.

So what am I going to do? I am not prepared to shut Office Troll down after years of hard work. Besides, I am not planning to be here forever, so what happens if my next employer turns out to be another Captain? Or Smaug II: Revenge of the Moron?

The only solution I can think of is to just post about everything else. Boobs always seem to be popular; fetish footwear may also stimulate a decent amount of interest.

If you have any suggestions, post a comment below.

My Summer of Squalor

August is the quietest month of the year at The Institute. The academics all go off for several weeks to places like France and Cornwall. The rest of the staff all seem to have children, so they also disappear. And so I have been left pretty much on my own, save for a couple of stray colleagues, wondering along these corridors of doom, staring blankly at the trees outside my window, dreaming of the time when I worked in the middle of the city and saw life around me (as well as lots of tramps, if you remember my old posts).

This campus is slowly killing me. It's so dull and depressing that I don't even stray away from my building anymore: I fear that the dreariness might overwhelm me and I might be found dead of boredom, covered in dust, bits of foliage and old copies of The Guardian.

Occasionally, I drag myself to a nearby "cafe" (please note the quotes). I make my way through herds of squealy Japanese girls who seem to take delight in queuing from the wrong side of the counter while I try to make myself look incospicous to the blatant stares of workers from the local water company sporting high-visibility jackets. And then, every time I try to sit there in peace with my salad and a book, a very aggressive, annoying, stubborn WASP always arrives and start attacking me and my food. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Just how much does this place suck, that you get chased by wasps even when you are indoors?

I can't bear it for much longer. I need to get the hell out of here...

Writer's Block

Hi folks. I'm sorry for the lack of updates recently. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that not much worth writing about happens in this wretched place. The people here don't seem to actually do anything, not even anything particularly obnoxious. And if they do, how would I know - we're all scattered around the building in our little shoebox offices, staring into space. I even miss Smaug.

Last time I posted, I was telling you about the preparation for my boss's 50th birthday. Well, wasn't that a disappointment! It started well, and I could see that he was rather touched by the gesture - and impressed by the personalised gifts, the Clash soundtrack and the home-baked goodies that myself and two other colleagues had produced in his honour.

Unfortunately, the party was quickly hijacked by this crazy old academic that my line manager had somehow decided to invite at the last minute. This man is the original Nutty Professor. Tall, spindly legged, crazy grey hair all over the place, about 105 years old and with holes in his shirts, apparently he's a real legend in the Institute and of aristocratic origins. Whatever. None of this mattered when he decided to turn the party into an impromptu meeting, ranting away at how the placed had changed since the 'good old days', clearly using his opportunity to vent all that could be vented to my boss.

I was fuming. It was bad enough that we had to host the soiree' in one of the meeting rooms, with the result that we were all trapped behind a massive boardroom-style table, making it impossible to properly mingle. But as the Nutty Professor ranted away, gradually people started sitting down around the table, to the sound of my iPod blasting away the Clash and the Dead Kennedies, with the incongrous effect you can only imagine.

Oh, and just as the last straw, my sugar cookies were practically ignored, even if they were perfect. They all scoffed the Welsh cakes instead. The philistines! I had even gone through the trouble of icing them and decorating them.

So that was my last attempt to bond with these people. I am done. It's all in vain, they are not human. From now on, my reports will be from the perspective of a human being surrounded by aliens.

Print Jobs

My boss often forwards me emails with attachments for me to print. But I don't think he was paying much attention when he forwarded me something this morning, and asked me to print the content of a link. Only thing, the link was to a video. Nothing dubious, just some boring speech.

This has happened before when there are links involved; he just doesn't read the emails properly. What I find particularly amusinig is the reply that he gives to the sender: 'Thanks X/Y/Z, this looks really interesting, I'll check it out' - when he clearly hasn't even bothered clicking on the link...

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.

The Party That Never Was

I've had a few horribly busy week at The Institute and, as you can imagine, socialising with the workies has been low indeed on my list of priorities. But alas, last week it was Annual General Meeting time - a 2-day affair, in the name of which hundreds of trees are pulped every year to provide 'The Papers'. Lucky me: I was the one who had to photocopy them approximately 143 times, and then again, and again, because the muppets kept losing them. Still, copying the papers was not the worst job: having to actually read them would have definitely killed me. But I digress.

Every year, on the first evening of AGM Day 1, The Institute holds a reception at a nearby stately home and all staff and trustees are invited. Well, as you might remember from my days at The Company, I have never cared much for corporate 'fun', even when we were shipped to Monaco for the occasion; however this time my level of enthusiasm at the prospect was below zero. The poor workies, however, were buzzing with excitement. They told me epic tales of free drinks flowing like at Nero's household, and of my boss being so drunk that his wife had to stop him from making a speech. Debauchery, decadence, you name it, it was pretty much guaranteed.

You should have seen their faces, then, when they got there and realised that they would be lucky to get just one free drink out of it. As usual, these events suck: not only there was no Champagne, Prosecco or even Cava, but just wine (a drink that just doesn't numb the pain for me) but the food was crap too, the usual soggy mess of quiches and sandwiches and not a single piece of serving cutlery, either, so that people were having to help themselves with their bare hands. We would have had better service at the Institute's canteen.

And then....this is it. There were no embarrassing incidents, no cringy moments, no drunken boss mooning the Chairman. Nothing. Just boredom. When I finally managed to leave, I thought longingly about the days at The Company, when at least I had the guarantee that someone would do something spectacularly stupid, or annoying, or even both.

I missed my morons.

Bigmouth (almost) strikes again

I very nearly made another terrible faux-pas the other day - possibly the worst in my 5 months here.

I was talking to Wilma, one of the administators in the Office Services department, thanking her profusely for helping me with a massive photocopying job that I really couldn't have handled by myself. She said that it was no problem at all, it was her job to help with photocopying. But I just have to turn on the drama of a few notches even when it's not stricly necessary. 'Oh but you don't understand', I carried on, 'Without your help I would have probably jumped out of that window by now' - and as I was saying that, I was pointing at the window behind her, which is only a short height from a paved patio area at the back of the canteen. 'But with my luck - ' I went on and then froze; I was going to add that jumping from the window wouldn't have killed me but rather I would have ended up in a wheelchair. I only stopped just in time, just a tiny nanosecond before blurting out my 'hilarious' comment, as I realised, to my horror, that sitting opposite Wilma was Barbara, who was working at the computer from the comfort of her WHEELCHAIR.

I mumbled something about 'not hurting myself very much' if jumping from that height, and then made a hasty retreat.

Phew.

Ooops!

I've been at The Institute for about 5 months now, and it's proving increasingly difficult to keep out of trouble. I keep putting my foot in it, managing to offend people whenever I attempt to make polite conversation.

A few weeks ago, after reading another vivid account of life at the Everest Base Camp, I asked my boss if he had ever been to Nepal. He said he hadn't but that he'd really like to visit. So I told him, enthusiastically: 'oh you should go and climb Everest then!'. His tone changed and he replied, in a rather sombre tone: 'Climb Everest... I can't even climb the stairs'.

Then I remembered: he has some problem with one of his knees, which causes his characteristic shuffling walk. Some days he virtually limps. Balls.

I made a quick retreat to my office.