You Are Entering : The Boss Zone

The Boss is going out today to deliver some Christmas gifts to customers. The on-going process of organizing this quite frankly melts my fucking head. It's this kind of token, corporate gesture that ultimately nobody gives all that much of a shit about, but a right-thinking person could have the whole process organized in about twenty minutes or so. The Company says : Give 30 bottles of wine to customers. You take your list of clients, and issue 30 bottles of wine amongst the people you have done most business with. Simple, yes? No, of course it fucking isn't.

For weeks now, The Boss has been deciding, un-deciding, re-deciding and generally dithering over this. We could have just bought the thirty bottles of wine direct from a wholesaler, thrown them into some gift bags and left them in the boot of The Boss's car, but NO, that would obviously be TOO FUCKING EASY. At this stage I'm frankly just utterly fucking sick of hearing about it; stop changing your bloody mind twice a day and it'll all be easy for the love of all that is holy woman!

Instead, in the interests of saving the company about £3 and losing a day or three due to sheer buggering about, the wine was got from a supermarket in the city centre that is inaccessible by car and led to The Boss then going into the shop with a suitcase (with the Koala in tow) and then wheeling the suitcase of wine across the city to the office; if you were in D****s Stores a couple of weeks ago when a crazy lady with a suitcase full of wine got stopped by the security guards amidst the ringing of alarms (the checkout attendant, obviously under the great pressure that a first meeting with The Boss can generate, forgot to take the security tags off some of the wine) while a bemused and embarassed marsupial stood nearby wishing the ground would open up and swallow him, that was us.

Anyway, today is delivery day; I rather helpfully planned out The Boss's route last night, taking into account various factors, and left on her desk last night maps and directions from each point to the next. She announced that Google Maps' chosen routes were foolish; I cannot be bothered to argue this at this stage. I offered to help take the wine to her car last night, which went something like this :

Here's me : "Why don't we put all the wine in your boot tonight, then you can just head straight out to the customers from the house tomorrow?"

The Boss : "I don't want to do that."

Here's me : "Why? It makes more sense then coming in here first then going back the other way?"

The Boss : "I don't want to leave it in the car overnight."

Here's me : "So when you get home tonight, take it out of the car and put it in the house?"

The Boss : "That's too complicated."

Here's me : *sheesh*

Anyway, so The Boss arrives in here this morning at 9 AM in a state of total and utter panic, and Panic brings out the Very Worst in The Boss - she warbles :

The Boss : "Right, I need to get moving right now or I won't get round everyone! Help me take the wine to the car!"

Here's me, leaping up from my chair "Right! Where are you parked?"

The Boss : "Right outside!"

Here's me, seizing up armfuls of wine : "Alrighty then!"

The Boss : "No wait!"

Here's me, setting down armfuls of wine : "Why!?!?"

The Boss : "I need to run through some things with you first!"

Here's me, sitting back down : "Oh jesus."

The next half an hour consisted of one long monologue from The Boss, in which she started to tell me about god knows how many different things but never got more than one or two sentences into each before interrupting herself with the next item, a la -

The Boss : "I need you to phone him and ast* him when his containers will be back on quay..."

Here's me : "Wait, phone who?"

The Boss : "..phone Raster, Rast.. Restoration charges, there will be restoration charges. It's going to Adelaide, Papua New Guinea... from Lakeville. Lake Worth. Fort Worth. Phone..." - and, quite terrifyingly, instructs me to phone myself - "and revert. Restore. There'll be... wait, have you... have you... can you pick me up a jiffy bag?"

Here's me, staring on like I'm watching a car crash : "Uh... a jiffy bag?"

The Boss : "Yes, get me a jiffy bag, and send it out."

Here's me : "Uh, send it out? To who? Containing what?"

The Boss : "I need to get a jiffy bag to send out an envelope."

I don't even want to know.

The Boss : "And phone Lassie. Lanzarote."

I actually even know what that means, I've been dealing with a lady called Lyndsay Lazotti recently, but The Boss then, I mean FUCKING SERIOUSLY, phones someone, I know not whom, and leaves a message on their voicemail presumably, FOR ME TO CALL HER. I'm watching this with mounting horror from my side of the office. This is no car crash, this is a goddamn train-wreck. This is a high speed train carrying raw sewage that has broken free of the tracks and is now ploughing down the hillside towards a small farming village.

At around half nine my nerves were twanging like banjo strings, so I stood up and said "Look, if this is going to take you a while to, uh, organize your thoughts, I'm just going to grab a coffee, ok?"

The Boss : "NO! I NEED TO GET MOVING RIGHT NOW I'M ALREADY LATE DON'T GO ANYWHERE!"

Here's me, cracking up : "Well ALFUCKINGRIGHT THEN."

"Right now" of course being "almost an hour later", anyway, The Boss finally managed to get up and move towards the door, left and came back because she had forgotten the directions I printed out last night, left again, came back again because she had forgotten her "Phone Book" - yes, she keeps her phone numbers in a book, yes, I've told her that one of the many functions of the mobile phone is that it will store these for her - and finally now at around half ten in the morning has managed to get out the door and on the road.

But in the midst of all this chaos, this strife, there is VICTORY :

"...and call Thurston. Roy. Thurston Moore. No, Stefan. In Antwerp. Hamburg. New York! Thurston in New York!" she almost screams in the apparent triumph of having been able to scrape together a quorum of neurons - "Call New York, and find out what they want to do about this call tomorrow!"

Oh yes. I shall indeed.


THERE IS HOPE!






* The Boss cannot pronounce the word "ask", it comes out "ast". Bugs the shit out of me. I'm petty like that.