Thursday 28 January 2010

Hostility Towards The Opposition





Ah, Jesus, I'm tired.



I'm a horrible bastard when I'm tired. Y'know, when you're tired in the brain, just? When you're just worn down? When it feels and sounds and tastes like your brain is just this fucking full of white noise that's screaming at you?



Oh aye, I'm fucking Drama Central when I'm tired.



Ah. Anyway.



There's a scene in the movie Fight Club in which the narrator character remarks something to the effect of how hard it is to start a fight when you're actively looking for one. It's quite true, on any level you care to take it. People can smell it off you and nine times out of ten just decide to leave well enough alone. I was in this kind of a form all day yesterday, as a result of the scanning episode. Viewed from a certain perspective, you could say I was being a bit of a shit; I was waiting for The Boss to ask me about it, specifically waiting for her to say "Did you scan that stuff through to the accountants?" so that I could become a glorious human Vesuvius. But by three in the afternoon, it still hadn't happened; plainly she knew something was wrong, as she was staying out of my way as much as possible.

So by around this time, the atmosphere in the office was one of palpable tension. I'm starting to think, all this fucking shit yesterday - I don't know if it seems like a big deal, but this is a time-based industry and wasting time is the cardinal sin herein - every stupid question, every bit of wrong-footing; this creates more work for me. I spend about four hours of my day doing anything that approaches something productive, if that; the rest of the time I spend dealing with mentalism and acting as a peripheral equivalent of memory and processing power for The Boss's demented fucking brain - this fucks me off. It fucks me right off.

Royally.

So, yes, I derailed myself there - like I said, I'm tired - but, so, yes, I'm starting to think that she's actually fucking forgotten about it. I am ready to give her ten bells of hell over this issue and it has slipped through one of the myriad cracks in her demented fucking skull. She has wasted yet more of my rapidly dwindling mortal lifespan, made me look like an utter fucking knobhead yet a-fucking-gain, and worst of all, been as usual a cheeky bastard about the whole thing, and now when I am just dying to get into a full on fucking row, she cannot even remember the conversation we had yesterday afternoon which I want to have a row about.

So I'm pacing around the office like a total and utter arsehole caged animal, generally being even more terse and sarcastic than usual, and I'm trying to find paper to put in the photocopier. In all corners of the office there are boxes and packets and so on that look as if they should contain paper, but upon inspection all of them are found to be empty husks. So I start gathering these up, with, I now realise, rather more flourish than is strictly necessary, and start putting them all in The Boss's waste-paper basket. Yes THE fucking waste-paper basket. After a few minutes it is full, and still I continue to lift these empty cardboard boxes and empty packets and start piling them around and on top of the Boss's bin. I am vaguely aware of both that I now have her full attention, and also that I am behaving oddly.

The wastepaper basket is now full and piled up roughly four feet in height and radius with the shite I have collected from all around the office in my hunt for virgin paper. Finally, she cracks.

The Boss : "Are you in a bad mood?"

Here's me, still throwing things around her bin : "Yes."

The Boss : "Why?"

Here's me : "Because I got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning."

The Boss knows me well enough by now to know I do not normally give this kind of answer to any question, and I can perceive that she is now very on edge, but still she will not actually give me the feed line I require to get started on this. This is how I operate, in work. Possibly in life too, but if I start thinking about that right now I'm going to get into very dark territory very quickly, so I shan't.

Here's me : "Is there any fucking paper in here? Or just empty packets? Do you know where your fucking bin is? Can you see it? Do you put empty milk bottles back in the fridge? Yes, you do. Where is the fucking paper?"

The Boss, theoretically, would be within her rights to pull the I Am The Boss card round about now, but doesn't - you can speculate upon thy whys and why nots of this for yourself if you so desire because I'm not going to - instead she just quietly tells me that there's paper in the third drawer down of a desk at the far end of the room. I angrily stomp over and fetch it and ram it into the photocopier, again, yes, I am fully aware that this is utterly arsehole-ish childish behaviour.

I start (angrily) copying whatever it was, and it arrives.

"Oh, did you scan the book?"

Here's me, quietly : "Yes."

The Boss : "Did you send it through?"

Here's me : "No."

The Boss, now warming up the pilot light of her own anger : "Why not!"

Here's me : "read the fkn e-mail"

The Boss : "IT SAYS TO SCAN IT!"

Here's me : "read the fkin e-mail"

The Boss, after a brief pause : "oh"



And right then, do you know what I did?





Absolutely fuck all.





Yes, that's correct. Well what the fuck was I supposed to do? Seriously, what the fuck am I supposed to do? Stand there and scream at and belittle a person? I mean, I wouldn't say I wouldn't do that, but not unless somebody really deserves it. The Boss isn't actually what you'd call a 'bad' person, she's just a total and utter fucking arsehole; there's a difference. She is kind to children and small animals, for example; do you want me to make her cry, seriously? For fuck's sake. It wouldn't make me feel very fucking good about myself, would it now?

Basically, the woman is out of her depth, but it's just the particular cocktail that this makes when combined with certain other attributes. 'Stupid' people can be more dangerous than 'bad' people sometimes - actually, stupid people are regularly fucking lethal. Even very smart 'bad' people at least won't act outside of their own self-interest so therefore the way to deal with them is already mapped out for you - dealing with people who are offensively fucking stupid is nigh-on-im-fucking-possible, as anyone who's ever somehow gotten into an argument with a fundie or a hardcore racist or some other kind of dicksplat-made-flesh will know. Agh, what the fuck am I gibbering about now? I don't know, and it's late and I'm tired.

If you could call my not stabbing her in both eyes right there and then a good deed, then you could invoke the cliché that it did most certainly fucking not go unpunished. 





To be continued.

22 comments:

  1. *hugs* :( x

    ReplyDelete
  2. *applauds*

    Good for you. I know what it can be like. Someday down the road, you will be proud of yourself--let her be her own downfall.

    And maybe buy yourself a fucking new shiny rubber, just to show her who's really the boss here. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Noooooooooo!

    You are a pillar of self restraint. I would have blown for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "dicksplat-made-flesh" - oh God love you SK - so perfectly descriptive...
    Hope you got some much needed rest...it's almost the weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dicksplat? I love you. You already know this.

    But, like the poster says: find a place that makes you happy and go there.

    Friday already . . .

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh goodness... how proud you must be of you restraint! I don't think I'd have been able to hold back. Maybe not full on screaming until her head exploded, but some condescending quiet chat about how "reading an email properly can be very cost effective..."

    Ah well, I take my hat off to you!

    ReplyDelete
  7. What you need is a serious vacation. Two weeks in Ibiza or something, incommunicado. But before you board the plane, make a quick call to the Head Office and ask them about something basic at your office. Something that should be possible to do in 30 seconds. And then get on the plane and enjoy two weeks. And see what sort of pile of shit you're left in when you get back. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jeez but the Animals were the ugliest, geekiest, twurpiest band of the sixties. Great song though. How did that flat-footed munchkin fit such a great soul voice inside him??

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ouch mate. I think I'd have killed her. You have my respect.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You write good when you're tired.

    ReplyDelete
  11. If only because I'm going to see them tonight, I think TCV are very appropriate too:

    Them Crooked Vultures - Warsaw, Or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up

    ReplyDelete
  12. You got it spot on.

    That final "Oh." may have been the commencement of the start of the beginning of the planting of the tiniest seed of awareness in her addled brain. And next time - just maybe - she might take a breath and re-read something before lobbing the metaphorical hand-grenade in your direction.

    Yeah, I know, "maybe".

    Bonne chance.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Did she sit in a meek silence for the rest of the day or was it business as usual after that? Maybe she's summoning the gumption to apologise (for the first time?) for fucking things up.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hugs back.

    Oh dear. Did I actually both invent and use in a blog entry the word "dicksplat" last night? Yes it seems that I did.

    No, me being reasonable in no way inspired her to be reasonable in return. It all got worse the following day. And appears to be worse yet today. I'll tell you all about it later.

    Eric Burdon got his voice the old-fashioned way, by selling his soul to the devil. I played on the same bill as The Animals at a festival in 2001. Trufax.

    ReplyDelete
  15. You know this blog is going to make the greatest resignation letter in history.

    ReplyDelete
  16. It all your fault really-it was obvious from the start that the paper was in the third draw. Go and lie down in a dark room with a wet towel on your head.
    Wonderful stuff.You're keeping us all sane!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I know EXACTLY how you feel. The trouble is the longer the time between the insane act and the realisation from the boss , the more restrained your raction has to be.

    At this moment I'm trying to decide how to handle a situation regarding a co worker without saying " tell her to stop seagulling around me , let me do my fucking job without her trying to tell me how , because quite frankly I have more IQ points in my little finger nail than she does in her entire body.
    Unless you have a problem witht he way I'm doing things i do not tkae layout advice from a person who is incapable of resizing text when she has fucking cut and fucking pasted it. have you seen the weekly newsletter she sends out?"

    if she tries to re arrange my workspace once more I will go postal

    I worry that one day I'm going to hear a news story about a Belfast shipping firm that ends witht he line " .........before turning the shotgun on himself"

    Hang in there

    Z

    ReplyDelete
  18. Good on you for keeping (sort of) your cool. I think supressed rage makes you mentally tough. Bulletproof like kevlar.

    Just kidding. It makes you irritable and joyless, but at least you didn't look like a twat.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hang on, a bit more info about you playing on the same bill as The Animals wouldn't go amiss.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Edward - twas at the Willow Festival in Peterborough, 2003. Is about all I can remember, actually ;)

    ReplyDelete
  21. You need to write a screenplay based on this blog. It would make millions. If they can make a decent movie out of whatever blog 'Julie and Julia' was based on, then this is certainly a good idea.

    It would just have to be rated 'R' (in the US rating system) for excessive use of the word "fuck".

    ReplyDelete