Friday 19 February 2010

Catch 22




Yeah. Jesus. The United States Customs & Border Protection Agency honestly do not fuck about, when it gets down to it. There is not really very much of the whole give-and-take with them. They are, I must advise, Quite Fucking Serious People.


So I spent most of today trying to complete a number of documents to their requirements. I don't really enjoy this sort of shit; I wasn't born into this world with the soul of a clerk, and I don't really get a hard-on from being shouted at, therefore Me and They do not mix all that well.


Anyway. I'll spare you the unutterably fucking boring details, but suffice to say I'm having a diseased dog's rancid cock of a day. I think, I hope, that I have finally got these manifold documents into some sort of condition whereby I won't end up in Guantanamo or wherever it is They put people that make mistakes on official documents, and I am now missing only one vital piece of information.

Here's me : "What's our contract number?"

The Boss : "You should have it."

Here's me, tetchy : "If you recall, you wouldn't tell me it, because after three and a half years, you still don't trust me."

The Boss, slightly cowed : "I'll look it up"

Some time passes, during which I work my bollocks off in a state that is honestly rapidly approaching abject terror while she watches Meatloaf videos on Youtube with the sound off - true story - anyway - an hour later the threat of late delivery of documents looms over me like a starry stripey eagle with rabies -

Here's me : "Did you find that contract number? I can't send these documents until I have it and the deadline is approaching in terms of minutes."

This is my life.

The Boss : "I told you it."

Here's me, rising : "You did not."

The Boss : "I did so. I said it out loud."

And it's ending one minute at a time.


In the middle of an hour of random mutterings, questions, bizarre expletives, I actually believe she probably did say it, too, in the midst of this, but seriously, in the middle of this lunatic stream of conciousness, I am expected to both recognise and remember a particular four-digit-number, bearing in mind The Boss has not really grasped the concept of "tone of voice" as it relates to "context of conversation"? Get fucked, hey? What do you reckon?

Here's me : "I must have missed it. Can you tell me again?"

The Boss : "I TOLD YOU ALREADY!"

Here's me : "And yet I do not know. Please tell me."

The Boss : "I'M NOT TELLING YOU AGAIN!"

Here's me : "Very well. They will fine us a huge amount if I don't submit this before open-of-business at Houston."

The Boss : "YOU ARE WASTING MY TIME!"

Here's me, with an internal fucking rupture happening : "If you don't tell me this reference right now we are fucked."

The Boss : "YOU HAVE ACCESS TO THE SAME INFORMATION AS ME!"

Boom.

Here's me : "I COULD SAY THE SAME FUCKING THING EVERY TIME YOU ASK ME FOR A SPEC OR AN EXCHANGE RATE OR DIMENSIONS OR THE MEANING OF A GODDAMN WORD I MEAN I swear to fuck information? Inforfuckingmation? The fucking google is available on your fucking computer just as fucking much as on mine and I spend half of my fucking life trying to fucking help you out and now I ask for one goddamn fucking number and it's a problem? This is FUCKED! Our relationship is FUCKED! WE ARE FUCKED! THIS IS A FUCKING FUCK UP! WE ARE A FUCKING UNEQUAL YOLK, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

And now she is not talking to me, again, and the atmosphere in here is absolutely fucking stinking, but I have to go to England on business once again in the morning so she can frankly just fucking sit there and stew.


See y'all when I get back.



FUCK.

22 comments:

  1. *hugs*.

    *hugs and beer and pictures of pretty naked ladies. or guys if you're into that.*

    Best of luck in England.

    ReplyDelete
  2. She watches Meatloaf videos? It just gets scarier!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ever tempted to show this blog to your superiors?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Soooo... did she give you the number in the end, or is everything going to go to shit in your absence? I do hope it's the latter!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ka-Boom!! Doesn't seem to be particularly cathartic tho :-S

    ReplyDelete
  6. I got the number in the end, yes. Who knows what I'll return to, I wouldn't even try to speculate anymore.

    No anon, never. Not even remotely. I don't actually dislike the woman, as hard as that might be to get the head around... and nobody likes a tell-tale, ever.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The sexual tension is unbearable. It's like Moonlighting all over again.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jesus.

    Before I head off the airport here, I'm just having a quick argument with TB about how I am able to supply information that she needs despite her having told me not to store this information. This is every bit as mental and continuing-Catch-22 as it sounds.

    ReplyDelete
  9. All aboard the bus to Nervous Breakdown City! :-)

    I love this blog. I am hooked. It is the most engrossing, on-going drama I have ever read on the net. The tension is absolutly unbearable and every line is drenched in the sour bollock sweat of fraught, coffee-jangled, dystopian madness.

    Suffer for your art, Koala! Suffer and gibber and scream like Kafka or like Van Gogh. Without the train-wreck that is your life, there would be no creativity.

    ReplyDelete
  10. "Fraught, coffee-jangled, dystopian madness" is a sublime description of a bad day at work. I might make a little poster of it to pin to my partition wall on bad days, as a warning to any who dare approach...

    ReplyDelete
  11. Watching Meat Loaf isn't a bad thing (one of the best singers around personally), but with the sound off? Buh... Now there's a lot of artists that would be better muted (I point directly at almost every song in the charts and every "artist" on X Factor and the like), there's very few mainstream acts that are honestly worth listening to... but that's just screwed up to the nth degree.

    But even if you don't actually dislike her... how you've kept from trying to insert her head into the floppy drive I have no clue. (I'm assuming she's the type to have yet to upgraded to USB slots and the like here, or attempted to, but demanded that she has to keep the floppy drive for anything "important" that needs backing up).

    - Prana

    ReplyDelete
  12. enjoy your boss detox in england

    how is this firm run higher up the ladder? they must have no idea what she is like. she really should be out of a job. imagine if you had a normal doing her job, how much better the company would do.

    i'd love, LOVE to temp in your office for a week, with both of you there. you woldn't have to pay me. in fact if you ever need a temp for one week, you could auction off the slot on this blog i'll bet!

    ReplyDelete
  13. frankie the first20 February 2010 at 21:58

    'I'm having a diseased dog's rancid cock of a day' I laughed so hard I dropped my scone on my keypad and when my husbend gets home he'll cream me! That was awful are you still in the uk I'll send you a G&T

    ReplyDelete
  14. LOL @Joanne I wasn't going to say but now you mention it.... ;)

    ReplyDelete
  15. @anonymous - I've been thinking the same thing! I was thinking of going to Belfast and signing up with a temping agency ansd insisting that I was only capable of working in shipping offices. I'd so love to buy Koala a pint. I reckon I could last in that office until, ooh, at least lunchtime on my first day.

    ReplyDelete
  16. @S- you do ever write anything that DOESN'T make you sound like a stalker?

    ReplyDelete
  17. boss not talking to you? wow....that sounds just wonderful....so jealous...

    ReplyDelete
  18. oh and well done on your nominations for the IBA's! woo hoo! I'm getting the plane down from Dublin, you should come!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Cheers all - and thanks Manuel, I'm considering heading down also so I'll keep you posted on that one! :D

    ReplyDelete
  20. Wow... agree with all the compliments, this is the stuff blogging was invented for, and if it's not, it should have been. Best read ever! (in other words)

    Hope England's good for ya!

    ReplyDelete