Mushroomhead

Totally out of the blue.

The Boss : "They're all hitting a ret.. a rest."

Here's me : "Wha?"

The Boss : "They're hitting a fuel restoration charge."

Here's me : "Who?"

The Boss : "All of them."

Here's me : "?"

The Boss : "To mushrooms"*

How much more lost than lost can I get right now?

The Boss : "To Muscat. "

Here's me : "Muscat? Oman?"

The Boss : "Musk, Moscow. Musko... Rotterdam."

This is a staggering level of bewilderfication, even for in here. I am totally clueless as to what might be taking place and the disjointed manner in which The Boss is talking is right now very reminiscent of GWB at his absolute worst.

Here's me : "Look, what are you actually talking about?"

The Boss : "Fuel surcharge. On Rotterdam."

Here's me : "What about it?"

The Boss : "From Rotterdam."

Here's me : "Wha?"

I swear I am so close to actual tears right now.

The Boss : "Is there one?"

Here's me : "I.. what?"

The Boss : "Is there a fuel surcharge from Rotterdam to Russia?"

Part of me right now wants to drive my fist right through the monitor in front of me. Right goddamn through it, y'hear me?

Here's me : "I really don't know. Possibly. Would you like me to find out?"

The Boss : "Noooooooo....... just find out where Moskva is."

Here's me : "Moscow."

The Boss : "It's in Moscow?"

Here's me : "No, it is Moscow."

The Boss : "But where's Moskva?"

(deep breath, count to ten slowly)

Here's me : "Moskva is Moscow. It's what the Russians call Moscow."

The Boss : "Why?"

Here's me : "-"

The Boss : "Anyway. What do you want for lunch?"

This last is frankly more terrifying than all of the rest of this deformed and deranged conversation, mostly because it's now 2 pm and we had lunch about half an hour ago.
* The Boss had mushroom soup. I'm starting to understand how this works, a little. If I pretend I've taken a heavy dose of LSD it all makes a certain amount of sense.

Who Am You?

They're coming thick and fast today.

The Boss : "Martin might call in this afternoon."

Here's me : "Martin who?"

The Boss : "Martin Mark."

Here's me : "Martin Mark?"

The Boss : "Mark McCloskey"

Here's me : "Who's he?"

The Boss : "Martin Doyle"

Here's me : "Wha?"

You Shot Who In The What Now?

The Boss : "Would you ring Pavel on the motorbike?"

Here's me : "Wha??"

The Boss : "Would you ring Pavel on the mobile?"

Down With This Sort of Thing

The Boss : "Where's Honkey-joke?"

Here's me : "Er... dunno, what's the punchline?"

The Boss : "Honky-jokey?"

Here's me : "Um... Honkajoki? Finland?"

The Boss : "No, it's in Denmark. I thought you knew everything."

That's a blood-boiler right there. I hear that phrase a couple of times a week, any time I don't know the answer to some nonsense question. It appears that I give the impression of being A Smartarse. This is probably because I am usually right. No, no shit, I am. I have a habit of not opening my mouth at all until I think and/or seek information, and of not just saying the first random-asspiss-thought that comes to mind, which means that in here, I'm quite often correct. This is plainly causing a lot of irritation. Perhaps I should blurt out inanities more often, in order to be accepted or something.

So anyway I go and read what's on The Boss's screen and it's "Havkajak", which is indeed in Denmark. I don't know for certain how it's pronounced but if it's enunciated "Honkey-Jokey" I'll actually fry and eat my own member.

Get That Ship On The Ink

I'm feeling rather tired, shitty and under the weather this week, which makes this kind of lunacy all the harder to deal with. The essence of this story is that I have a shipment to Nigeria being held by Customs because it contains, apparently, televisions; these cannot be moved without a licence and so it's going nowhere for now.

I could happily just leave it at that but The Boss has just plonked herself in front of my desk and starting reading ten pages of Nigerian Import Regulations aloud at me; this is painful in so many ways. For starters, The Boss reading aloud sounds a little like a drunken alphabet falling down a flight of stairs. Following the information is completely out of the question, I'm just trying to get through listening without ramming my head violently against the desk.

Sounds like this, in real-time. The original document did contain punctuation.

"Import licences are not recommended no required but a shipment no a system of pre-shipment inspection is in operation all imports must accompany must be accompanied by a manufacturers certificate confirming no controlling no confirming the standards used in the production of the goods following imports are banned maize sorghum millet wheat flour vegetable oils gypsum mosquitos repellents tyres gaming machine used clothing fridges air conditioning compressors cement vehicles more than eight years old printed fabrics must have pre-inspection before vessel is on the water..."

Here's me : "Look... ah... could you just print me off a copy of this and I'll read it later?" (When I've finished stabbing myself in the head with a pen)

"...no, there's no water in the printer"

What the fuck?

The Non-Appliance Of...

So during that last episode while lingering in The Bosses territory, I noticed that at the end of every e-mail she is typing out the full e-mail signature, which is in this format :


Best Regards,

Silent Koala


Ridiculous Bastard Shipping Ltd.
None of Your Business Centre
Futility House
1 Nowhere Street
Dublin
BT1 1AA
Telephone: xxxxxxxxxxx
Fax: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx



All business of the Company is transacted under the Standard Trading Conditions of the International Freight Association (IFA STC) that restrict or exclude the Company’s liability, a current edition of which is available upon request.






For real!

I was momentarily tempted to advise that it is not actually necessary to manually type this at the end of each e-mail, but... I don't want to 'blind her with science', y'see.

A Little Knowledge May Be Lethal

The Boss : "I think someone's been into my computer."

I seriously doubt it. There are only two of us working here and the chances of anyone wanting to 'hack' into your computer when you only use the thing as a typewriter and a handy block to stick post-it notes too - it seems unlikely.

Here's me : "Ahh.... hmmm... what makes you think that?"

The Boss : "It's running very slowly."

Here's me : "Give me a second, I'll come and take a look."

The Boss : "No just tell me how to fix it."

Here's me : "Well I don't know until I look at it, do I?"

The Boss : "But I don't want you to fix it for me. I want you to tell me how to do it."

Anyone who works in I.T. will probably share this immense feeling of pain that such statements engender. I sometimes wonder if the people who do this kind of thing ever take the same attitude, say, when they take their car to the mechanics. No I will not 'just tell you how' to do it, not unless you are prepared to first go on at least the most basic of PC-use courses. It is not an electronic typewriter. Kindly back the fuck off.

So anyway I danders over and has a look. I would imagine that the machine is indeed running quite slowly, as there are FIFTY-SIX incidences of Outlook running.

Here's me : "Aye, listen, you're running Outlook fifty-six times. When you want to go into it, just click on it along the bottom, as opposed to opening it from the menu again."

So I close them all with two quick clicks of the mouse, naturally.

The Boss : "You did it again! Don't just do it, tell me how you did it!"

Unbelievably, she is actually angry with me now.

Here's me : "Look, you were running Outlook fifty-six times. I just closed them."

The Boss: "But how did you do it?"

Here's me : "I right-clicked on it and hit 'close'?"

The Boss : "You're just trying to blind me with science."

Here's me, incredulously : "Wha?"

The Boss : "Don't be smart with me!"

Here's me, getting annoyed now too : "Look! You opened Outlook fifty-six times, so the machine was running slow! Just don't do it! I can't explain to you how to 'fix' it if you're not even prepared to learn how to work the bloody thing at all!"

The Boss : "Koala!"

The boss labours under the illusion that saying my name in a sharp tone somehow draws my plainly out-of-order behaviour to my attention and makes me fall into place like a good little soldier.

Deep breath.

Here's me : "Look, there's nothing wrong with it, you were just clicking in the wrong place, click here instead, that's all."

The Boss : "So does this mean someone's been in my computer?"