Con Air

We received an email a short while ago from reception informing us that the air conditioning, which has been playing up lately, is being serviced by engineers at the weekend.

Here's me : "Oh, hey that's good news!"

The Boss : "Just make everything is off your desk."

Here's me : "But the air conditioning is nowhere near my desk?"

The Boss : "No, make sure everything is off your desk, all your files, all your quotes and everything, and locked in the cupboard, before the weekend."

Here's me : "Ummmm why?"

The Boss : "Because you never know who's coming in."

Here's me : "Do you think the air conditioning man might want to look through my files?"

The Boss, darkly : "You never know."

GPS Is Not Infallible

Usually when I arrive in, somewhere between just on time and ten minutes late, The Boss is already here, waiting to make some sarky comment to the effect of "Good afternoon" and look at me suspiciously when I announce there are 18 vehicles piled up on the motorway or similar (sometimes it's even true)...

...for a while now I've suspected she actually sleeps in here, perhaps inverted, clutching the air conditioning vent with her toes or similar.

But today I arrive in only a few minutes late and all is still and silent.

A few minutes later the phone rings and :

The Boss : "I'm going to be late, about 11 o'clock before I'm in."

Here's me : "Ok."

The Boss : "I've got a puncture."

Here's me : "Um, ok. How did ya manage that?"

The Boss : "I reversed over a gravestone."

???

Strongly Considering Wearing A Facemask To Work

As previously mentioned, The Boss is currently suffering from some kind of abominable lurgy, and The Boss never suffers alone.

The Boss : "*coff* I need my printer *coff* fixed."

Here's me : "Why?"

The Boss : "*coff* it's coming out all *coff* dirty *spleutch*"

Here's me : "What it actually needs, then, is cleaned."

The Boss : "How do *coff* we *achoo* clean it? *blllleeeeeuch*"

Here's me : "Open it up and clean the gunk out of it, for starters. Clean the rollers. Generally wipe the accumulated filth out of it."

The Boss is not big on cleanliness, tidyness, and so on. This can be evidenced by the empty coke cans and food wrappers that festoon her desk, or by her habit of collecting rotting fruit in her desk drawers. But bravely she decided to tackle the issue of the dirty printer - by opening the front of it, licking her finger, wiping the roller with her lurgy-bearing finger, then re-licking said finger and repeating this process until the rollers were free from fluff and toner but now covered in germ-infested saliva.

I am fully going to barf.

Put A Cork In It

The Boss : "Is there any service from Ireland to Finland?"

Here's me : "Yeah, Finnlines have a vessel from Cork to Helsinki, via Walham."

The Boss : "In England?"

Here's me : "No, Walham is in Sweden."

The Boss : "From Dublin?"

Here's me : "No, from Cork."

The Boss : "Who goes from Cork?"

Here's me : "Finnlines."

The Boss : "I thought they went from Dublin?"

Here's me : "No, they definitely go from Cork."

The Boss : "So who goes from Dublin to Finland?"

Here's me : "Um... Nobody, as far as I know?"

The Boss : "But you said Finnlines did?"

Here's me : "Wha?"

You Might Ask Yourself

It's days like this, folks, when I have to ask myself serious questions.

The Boss is loaded with the flu, genuinely loaded, and appears to be determined to spread as much suffering around as possible. I've been here but 17 minutes today and already I want to quit. I'm just sitting here having mindless instructions barked at me by someone who refuses to so much as cover their mouth when coughing or wait till they've stopped chewing before spewing out inanities, today served in a special coating of germs and food particles.

It's been turning my mind for some time, as you may know, and now it's turning my stomach too.

I find myself wondering if this is worth it, or how much more of it I can take.

On a lighter note I see my fledgling blog has acquired now seven followers. Hello, welcome, and thank you. Feel free to comment folks, to pass remarks at will or to ask questions if you so desire.

love,
Koala.

Wireless Technofail

The Boss purchased a digikal camera recently, and informed me one morning that she was having trouble getting the pictures onto her PC at home.

The Boss : "I can't get it to connect to my PC."

Here's me : "Let's see it a wee second... hmmm.. ok, what's happening when you try it?"

The Boss : "It won't connect."

Here's me : "Well, what happens when you plug it in?"

The Boss : "It won't plug in."

Here's me : "There's no USB socket on your PC at home?"

The Boss : "There is, but it's different."

Here's me : "No, definitely not - USB sockets are all the same."

The Boss : "Mine are different."

Here's me : "Nope, definitely not - USB, Universal. All the same."

The Boss : "Mine are definitely different."

I'm not gonna bother arguing this, so instead -

Here's me : "Ok, let's try it here and see."

So I plug the camera in to The Bosses work PC here, and up pops the folder full of photos.

Here's me : "Ok, do you want these copied to your PC then?"

The Boss : "Go ahead then."

So I did.

And that was all ok, until the following day.

The Boss : "Those photos aren't on my PC."

Here's me : "Did you delete them?"

The Boss : "No, they were never there."

Here's me : "But... we were looking at them on your PC yesterday?"

The Boss : "No, my PC at home."

Here's me : "Er... how the hell would they have got onto your PC at home?"

The Boss : "But you said yesterday you were copying them on to my PC."




HELP.

Stupidity Welcomes Careful Drivers

Apologies for the lack of recent updates - it's been a hectic few weeks. The Boss has had a lot of time off, which first led to a lack of anything interesting to write about, and then The Boss returned and has been making my life hell ever since, and I haven't been able to get the head above water long enough to pen it down for you. There are a few anecdotes that occurred in the meantime that I shall share with you retrospectively as soon as the vein in the side of my head stops pounding like a piston in a diesel locomotive.

I thought I was maybe going to get a break today since The Boss is out on the road visiting a customer - no such luck, so far she's phoned me three times and she's only been gone for an hour. She's trying to find a particular location in the countryside and despite having been there previously numerous times is once again completely lost. She does have GPS but is basically too stupid to follow it's instructions, so instead phones me with such informations as "I'm at a Shell filling station... any idea where I go from here?".

The process of giving directions over the phone to a total fucking idiot who can neither tell me where they actually are, left from right, or what direction they're facing in - painful, in the extreme. It went like this - and indeed is still ongoing, the last phone call came in while I was mid-paragraph there.

The Boss was supposed to have rates prepared for this customer before going in to see them, but naturally, has not done it, and instead asks me to do it on her way out the door. Shortly after that :

Phone Call #1 :

The Boss : "Can you make sure you get the rates through to me before I go into see the customer?"

Here's me : "Yes."

The Boss : "When will you do them?"

Here's me : "Now."

GPS : "AT THE NEXT EXIT, TURN LEFT"

The Boss : "Will you phone me with them?"

Here's me : "Yes."

GPS : "YOU HAVE MISSED YOUR JUNCTION. AT THE NEXT EXIT TURN LEFT."

The Boss : "When?"

Here's me : "As soon as you get off the phone and let me do them?"

We hang up and around 30 seconds pass before :

Phone Call # 2 :

The Boss : "I'm outside Shellbourne Filling Station. Any idea where Mullavilly Road is from there?"

Here's me : "Hang on... " [googles it] "... ok, you're on the Tandragee Road. What direction are you facing?"

GPS : "IN THREE HUNDRED YARDS TURN RIGHT"

The Boss : "Up."

GPS : "NOW TURN RIGHT"

Here's me : "If you're not actually using the GPS could you please TURN THE GODDAMN THING OFF. I mean what direction as in North or South."

The Boss : "I don't know how to turn it off. How am I supposed to know North from South? I don't have a compass with me you know!"

Here's me : "Well you left on this road, headed South, so unless you've turned around, you're still facing South. Have you turned around?"

The Boss : "I don't think so."

Here's me : "Ok, then presumably you are still facing South. keep going for about half a mile, you'll hit a cross-roads, turn right and that's the Mullavilly Road."

OK, that shoulda been that. We hang up again. I go and look for the information regarding the rates on The Bosses bomb-site of a desk. I'm still looking when :

Phone Call #3 :

The Boss : "Do you have the rates yet?"

Here's me : "No, I'm still trying to find the information on your desk. Any idea where it is?"

The Boss : "It's maybe.. in one of the files.. under..

... no. Maybe. Just take a look."

Here's me : [sigh] "OK."

The Boss : "I'm on the Armagh Road now, where do I go from here."

A pause while I load up Google Maps again.

Here's me : "You've gone about a mile too far - turn round and head back North, about a mile, Mulavilly Road is to the left of the crossroads."

The Boss : "You said it was on the right."

Here's me (clenched teeth again): "It was on the right, but now that have turned around, it will be on the left."

The Boss : "So it's definitely this way?"

Here's me, all plosives and tension : "Well. I don't know. What way. You are facing. So I. Cannot say. For sure."

The Boss : "Down."

Here's me : "Google Maps does not show me the angle of incline of the road, could you perhaps just tell me if you've turned the car around and are now heading back the way you came?"

The Boss : "I think so."

Here's me : "You think so? You don't know whether you've just turned the car around?"

The Boss : "It doesn't look familiar."

Here's me : "But you've been here like twenty times before!"

The Boss : "But I dont' recognise it."

Here's me : "OK, OK, OK. Can you see any landmark, street name, anything that I can use to figure out where you are?"

The Boss : "There's roadworks."

Here's me : "Neither does Google Maps show me roadworks."

The Boss : "Oh wait, here it is now, Mulavilly Road."

Here's me : "Thank fuck. OK, you're sorted?"

The Boss : "Yeah. Have you done the rate yet?"

Here's me : "NO!!!"

The Boss : "I told you I needed that before I went in to the customer!"

Here's me : "I'VE BEEN ON THE CHRISTING PHONE WITH YOU SINCE THE LAST TIME YOU ASKED ME THAT!"!

The Boss : "You should have said."

I literally just let the phone fall away from my ear and clatter to the desk. For all I know she's still talking away to me down there.