Your Panic Is Not My Emergency

Ah, it's a fucking great line, but I wish it was true. 







OK. So I arrived into work this morning and discovered, pleasingly, that the office facility has installed an espresso machine. I availed myself of this facility and proceeded up to my office, at the outside I was an absolute of 25 minutes late. 


The Boss was in a bit of a mood. Not with me, but obviously under pressure. I sat down and commenced to work ferociously, and about ten minutes into this was interrupted.

The Boss : "26035428"

Here's me : "Brilliant."

The Boss : "Well?"

Here's me : "Well.. fuck... what?"

Yes, well-spotted, I have a very very slight hangover. Don't fucking judge me. I've had a lot of coffee too, so actually, just get the fuck out of my face you fucking fucknut.

The Boss : "Fill in the blanks."

Here's me : "Wha? You fill in the blanks."

The Boss : "The blanks in the accounts."

Here's me, getting it : "Ah. Remind me of what two six whatever actually is, would ye?"

The Boss : "Jude. Nigel."

Listen, I am resident in this crazy mental country now, I speako del fucking lingo at this stage, truly to fuck.

Here's me : "Yes. I know it now. OK. What's the problem?"

The Boss : "You need to bring the accounts up to date."

Alright, so here is what is happening here - The Boss has been going through the handwritten accounts ledger and has found some job from the past in which the accounts of profits and loss do not look complete, and she is asking me to rectify this. 

Here's me : "No sweat."

The Boss : "Now."

Here's me : "No."

The Boss, escalating slightly : "I need it done now."

Here's me : "I'm right in the middle of something here. It's urgent."

This is no lie.

The Boss, making ein Critical Error : "NOW. I was supposed to have these figures sent by yesterday and I need this done now."

Further info - ok, I had no idea she was working on figures for HEAD OFFICE, and there is this old kind of maxim in this time-sensitive industry involving the concept of how if you have fucked up by a whole day you can surely wait another five minutes for my help.


So I finish my current business and she's by now wound up to a very high number of revs per minute, but is not actually being directly nasty to me and besides I'm too wrecked, tired and shitty feeling lately to be overly sensitive about this kind of shit. So I announced that, having finished my urgent tasks, I am going to once again avail myself of a fine doppio and also smoke a feg. This goes down every bit as badly as you would imagine it might, but nonetheless, this coffee is quite fucking delicious and I fully intend to drink what we quantify here as "a fucking shitload" of it.


I carry out the next step in my masterplan, i.e. I have a double espresso and a fucking cigarette, and then I return with the intention of submitting myself to being a slave of The Boss's insane whim for an hour or so before proceeding with the serious business of  being an insane capitalist wanker for fun and profit. Whom's fun and whom's profit, exactly, remains to be determined, but I'm hardly alone in that sort of existential discomfort, so let us proceed unhindered.


So I sez, give me the job number again, and I'll fix it all up. And she does, and I do. However.


As I am sitting working on these figures, I become aware of the fact that The Boss is staring at me, watching me closely as she spoons yoghurt into her mouth, checking that I am actually Doing What She Has Demanded.


Anyway, I study the entry in question, and it's a big mess of scrawls and pencil lines (some of these scrawls are mine, ok) and so I  go the storeroom, which in my huffy mood last week I totally sorted out, and find the relevant file and set about making it accountable-for in the ledger.


Now, what unfolds before your eyes next is a cunning smoke-and-mirrors trick, and you must watch closely.

Here's me, coy : "Do you have a rubber?"

The Boss, scaling it like Richter : "I GAVE YOU A RUBBER WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT?"

Here's me, smug : "I threw it in the fucking bin."

The Boss is at Defcon 4 : "WHY!?!?!?!?"

Here's me : "Because you drew all over the fucking thing and broke it in half."

The Boss : "SO HOW HAVE YOU BEEN KEEPING YOUR ACCOUNTS UP TO DATE?!?"

Here's me, getting into it : "I haven't."

She actually threw the empty yoghurt pot behind her. Seriously. It hit the wall right over and behind the much-maligned Bin. I meant to check but I forgot, but there's probably yoghurt on the wall.

The Boss : "WELL GET THEM ALL SORTED, NOW!"

(keep it in your mind. she is referring to sorting the accounts which she is supposed to sort and which she was supposed to have sorted by yesterday)


Here's me, happy, having fun : "I would bring the accounts up to date.. But I haven't got a fucking rubber."


The Boss rummages for a few seconds, then whips something out and hurls it in my direction.




My mind spins. It spins. It becomes relativity; it becomes the Large Hadron Collider;  it becomes Schrödinger's cat; I am become unto Dave Bowman, I am Koalavatarotron, destroyer of worlds and bars;












It lands a few feet in front of me.








I stare at it for a while, and then I make a move, and pick it up.




It cannot be.




Yet... it is.




Yes it is.
































It is my Shiny New Fucking Rubber.






















I examine it for a moment with mixed feelings. It is somewhat frayed around the edges and so on but otherwise in much better condition than I expected.






Until I turn it over and see that she has actually, actually, actually, taken my Shiny New Fucking Rubber, and taken a pen, and has written her name, in ink, thus staking her claim, marking her territory, no seriously fuck me how old are we both, she has actually written her fucking name on the back of what-used-to-be-shiny-new-fucking-rubber. Her name, her first name, she has actually inscribed it in large blue ink block capitals upon MY FUCKING SHINY NEW FUCKING RUBBER.

Thou shalt reap the whirlwind of my vengeance.