CenoBoss

Follows on from this.

There are days, y'know, when I think she's ok. And days when I think she's ok but just a bit mad, a bit ditzy, maybe a bit crazy even. And then other days, like today, when I'm pretty convinced she's something that took form in one of Stephen King's worst nightmares that was too dark for him to commit to paper and somehow crawled out his head and was then made flesh by Satan himself. She becomes inscrutable and emits this tangible wave of some species of horrific darkness that's hard to describe.

Anyway.

So I'm not big on 'filing', generally, partly because it's godawfully tedious and partly because I don't like our store-room. It's a horrible little messy, cold, dusty chamber down a corridor from the main office, and apart from that, it's usually in a state of utter chaos, so I tend to leave it alone as much as possible. Also, between you and me, I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I suspect that The Boss gets up to some sort of filthy arcane black magic type shit in here; strange occurrences that lead me to believe that this closet might in fact contain a few skeletons. In short, it gives me the creeps.

But today it has an air of sanctity about it, because anything beats sitting in there with that woman right now. She is fully batshit today. I could see the veins in her head from the far side of the room, and was pretty sure that she was clenching and unclenching her fists while talking to me in a manner that I do not like to see in supposedly civilized mammals.

I arrive into the dingy little store with my armload of files, and set about trying to figure out what goes where. In theory, this room should contain a year of files; that's the legal requirement. After that they just get boxed up and removed and taken who-cares-where. The files have an eight digit reference on each, the first four of which indicate month and year and the last four of which indicate job number within a given month. Easy, right?

You know better, by now, I'm sure.

I start looking through the filing cabinets. They look like this, for indeed this is they :

You'll notice she takes the ju-ju to a higher level out here, but never mind. My main problem, my main fucking problem here, is that I can't find a single folder that relates to anything about April 2009. They start at 2006 and run to early 2009.. And the cabinets are full. So where the fuck am I supposed to file these files, which comprise most of our work in the second half of 2009? Where? Bear in mind that to get it wrong is A PAINFUL DEATH, and that seemingly, there is no way to get it right.

Ah, shite. I'm going to have to go back out there and ask her. I can actually feel my testicles shrivelling up just thinking about this, but I have no choice.

Nervously, I return and look around the door. She's still sitting there, glaring like a boxer before a fight, bashing the keyboard like a lunatic.

Here's me : "Uh, ahem. I'm... trying to file these files, as requested. But I can't seem to find where 2009 should go?..."

The Boss : "IN WITH THE REST OF 2009!"

Oh my God I think her eyeballs are actually bulging. Really bulging. She's going to sprout hair from her forehead any minute now.

Here's me : "Well, I can't seem to find the second half of 2009... I can find 2006 through to then, but there is not a single folder labelled later than about April 2009, you see..."

I say this like I'm delivering news of a terminal illness or something. Or maybe like telling a really big, angry man with a gun that I've just got his daughter pregnant.

The Boss stops mashing the keyboard and looks at me with utter contempt and coldly states -

"They do not corrugate."

Here's me : "Wha?"

The Boss barks at me : "The folders do not corrugate to the files in them. You'll just have to look through to find them."

Again, today is no today to pick a fight, I can sense. So I quietly return to the store.

Now on most occasions, I'd be the one going fucking mental right now, but today, actually, this is ok. OK, so there are three filing cabinets full of mis-labelled files. OK, I am going to have to totally deconstruct and re-construct 12 drawers of files, and re-label them, and it is going to be very boring, very tedious, but most importantly - it is going to take me several hours. Alone.

So I set to work. There's a certain joy to be had in this, once it starts to come together; out of chaos, slowly, emerges order, and in this I find satisfaction, as I sit alone in here with a good dose of heavy music blasting through my earphones, writing wee white slips of card with JAN 09 and similar and putting everything in good, proper order. I imagine this sort of pleasure wears thin pretty quickly if this is what you do every day, but for now, it's a sweet mercy; it's relaxing. Not so bad, eh? She can sit in there, banging the hell out of the keys, with nowhere to direct her anger, because she's actually sent me in here, ha ha! This is all fine, this has played right into my furry wee hands and oh mother of fucking jesus she's now standing right behind me. 

I have to tell you it really did scare the shit out of me.






I remove the earphones and get to my feet.

The Boss, blocking the doorway : "Did you do his insurance?"

Here's me : "Whose insurance?"

The Boss : "Ronan Keating's."

I swear on my left fucking nut : I am not making this up.

I just stare.

The Boss says the man whose name has never been Ronan Keating's actual correct name after a very long pause.

Here's me, staring back, because this woman is neither just stupid nor crazy, she is plainly both, with a smattering of pure refined evil : "Well, no. Not from in here. There is neither phone nor computer in here. In here where I have been. As you can see. As you know. So obviously. No."

The Boss, her explosive anger all the more nerve-jangling because I'm now trapped in a tiny room with her blocking the doorway : "GET IT DONE YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE THINGS LYING DO HIS INSURANCE NOW AND STOP PLAYING ABOUT IN HERE!"




To be, sadly, continued, again.

The Boss is Coming - Look Busy

I knew something was wrong quite early on today. I have a nose for these things, at this stage I think I'd have met with tragedy by now if I didn't.


There was, shall we say, an Atmosphere.


It's hard to say just why, subtle little things, but one of the main giveaways is the way The Boss types when She has a Problem. She pounds away at the keyboard will all of the aggression and total lack of any kind of grace of a very bad drunken teenage death-metal drummer. Who has maybe just been dumped by his girlfriend or something. Anyway, I detected this vibe, and not feeling really up to this today, was trying to just keep my head down and lay low. 


But no, despite not wanting trouble, trouble plainly wanted me.

The Boss : "Did you send those bills to Caroline today?"

Here's me : "What, more today?"

The Boss : "SHE ASKED YOU TO SEND THEM THIS MORNING!"

Here's me : "Uh, no, she asked me yesterday morning, and I did send them at that stage. Uh, you were copied in..."

The Boss : "SHE ASKED TODAY!"

Here's me : "I didn't get asked for any more today, honestly."

The Boss : "NO."

Boss Says No, then. I do intend to tell her right before I leave here that it's not as useful a multi-purpose word as "awayandfuckyourselfyoubatshitcrazyoldbastard". 


I wait.

The Boss, barely scaling down from the summit of Mt. Angry : "The ones she asked for yesterday!"

Here's me : "You said... nevermind."

About a year ago, I'd probably have argued this. Then I'd probably have asked her what the hell her problem was and asked her kindly that whatever the fuck it was not to take it out on me. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Such is the WAY OF PAIN.

Here's me : "I sent them yesterday?"

The Boss is obviously wrestling with some sort of blood clot in the brain. I try to look too intensely busy to be spoken to. It is very nearly the truth. It does not, however, work.

The Boss : "AND HAVE YOU PUT AWAY THOSE FILES YET!"

Here's me, looking at the files which she is indicating, which are sitting on the desk between us, totally unable to help myself : "Those files? Yeah."

The Boss : "DON'T BE SMARK WITH IT!"

Plainly the woman is actually about to have a meltdown, and also the prospect of spending a while in the store-room out back right now seems, for once, rather attractive, so I seize up the files and my iPod and head on out to the store-room, fully intending to try to make this last the rest of the day if I can.






To be continued.

English? Do you speak it?

The resolution of the scan farce has not yet happened as I haven't yet been asked "Did you get that done?", and certainly I am going to wait until I am asked, certainly, and then I am going to go fully fucking batshit.

Currently The Boss is blethering on about a booking from someone called Hercules going to Mantovani.

I can't bear to listen to much more of this shit, seriously.

Doesn't Scan

The Boss : "How many columns of scans do you have in your inbox?"

Here's me : "Wha?"

The Boss : "In your network."

Here's me : "Wha?"

The Boss : "In your folder?"

Here's me : "What's the question?"

The Boss : "I have seven."

Best/Worst Ever

This is probably the best/worst thing the Boss has ever said to me. I really didn't know where to look.


So in the middle of all this I finally went to see a doctor about this sleep-related problem I've had for some time. Specifically, it seems that I have fairly severe sleep apnea, which apart from the long-term health risks means that I generally feel quite tired and shitty a lot of the time, as I spend my sleeping hours trying to murder myself by asphyxiation - so anyway the doctor told me this was unusual in people who aren't overweight (I'm closer to the skinnier end of the range, hey) and took a look into my throat and reckons the problem probably lies therein. I have big tonsils and what's called a double uvula, crazy mutant freak that I am, apparently this is the root of the problem. The doctor told me that this is probably a case for surgery. Great. So anyway :

The Boss : "So what did the Doctor say?"

Here's me : "Well, apparently it's going to need surgery. Problem is in my throat, I have what's called a double uvula and for starters that's going to need surgically trimmed..."

The Boss, doubtfully : "Oovuuula?"

Here's me : "Yeah, you know that dangly bit that hangs down at the back of your throat?"

Doctor Boss, scornfully : "It's called a vulva."




-


I couldn't even speak one word in reply. Think I nearly swallowed my own tongue.

Good Craic

The Boss : "Where can I get crack data?"

I've had my suspicions for a while...

Here's me : "Wha?!"

The Boss : "Where can I get trawler crack data?"

Here's me : "Aye, whatever."

("Crawler Track data" - I'm sure you could figure that out by now)

You Don't Need A Map To Work Here (But It Helps)

The Boss : "How do I get to Lipsig?"

Here's me : "Leipzig?"

The Boss : "Yeah."

Here's me : "It's fairly central. It doesn't make much difference which port you go through, similar distance from either Hamburg or Rotterdam area."

The Boss : "Is Antwerp ok?"

Here's me : "Yeah.

The Boss : "Is Rotterdam ok?"

Here's me : "Yes. Antwerp or Rotterdam are fine."

The Boss : "Zeeburger?"

Here's me, wincing slightly : "Yes."

The Boss : "What, it's the same distance from all of them?"

Here's me, feeling my life slipping away : "Yes. Rotterdam, Antwerp, Zeebroooooge, they're all pretty close together."

The Boss : "I thought they were in different countries?"

Silence Is Golden

Ever had one of those moments in life when you walk into a room and just know in your gut that something is just not right?

Gah.

Such a moment greeted me this morning.

In a sauntered from the mist and drizzle, not exactly full of the joys but certainly in pretty reasonable form, with that "hey it's Friday!" thing going on. I smiled at The Boss and chirped "Morning!", but even as I said it I knew something was amiss.

No greeting was returned, merely an icy stare.

Ohhhh-kaaaaay then.

I stare back. I've got this general-purpose stare that I use in such circumstances, it's more or less a completely blank look, I think. The Boss cracks first :

"You haven't booked Statesville."

Minimalism works for me in these situations.

"Correct."

The Boss : "WHY NOT?"

Here's me : "Because I knew nothing about it."

The Boss : "I told you before I left here on Wednesday morning to book it!"

Here's me : "Firstly, that was yesterday. Thursday morning. Secondly, you said something about 'Lakeville', which is in Minnesota, and mentioned nothing about 'Statesville', which is in North Carolina. I did provisionally book Lakeville."

The Boss is enraged.

"I KNOW WHAT I SAID! I NEEDED THAT BOOKED AND YOU HAVEN'T DONE IT!"

Here's me : "Respectfully. Sometimes what you think you're saying and what is actually coming out of your mouth bear very little relation. Sometimes in fact.."

The Boss is now livid and screams at me to interrupt me : "GERRY!"

I must at this juncture advise you, the reader, that my name is not, in fact, Gerry. I remain silent and stare at the mentalist while waiting for her ears and brain to process what has just happened.

Not to be derailed, she storms over to me.

"I saw you write this down as I was saying it! GIVE ME YOUR DIARY!"

It's true. I write in a large A4 desk diary key details from pretty much every conversation I have either in the office or on the phone. It's a handy habit I got into many years ago. She seizes up my diary and flicks to yesterday, where indeed I have written what she actually said, pretty much verbatim. There is an edifying moment when her eyes widen, presumably taking in not only my attention to detail but also just how insane the instructions I have apparently failed to act on were.

So now she is sulking and refusing to talk to me. Which, if I can get past the fact that you could cut the atmosphere in here with a knife, sort of works for me.

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.

Checkpoint Total Charlie

The Boss : "Where's the checkpoint?"

Here's me : "The checkpoint?"

The Boss : "The euro checkpoint?"

Here's me : "I have no idea what you're talking about."

The Boss : "The checkpoint going from UK to euro."

Here's me : "Uh, what?"

The Boss : "Is it near the City Hall?"

Here's me, sinking into the mire : "What? What the fuck? What?"

Sometimes it feels like I'm drowning, you know.


(Turns out she was asking me "Where can I find a Euro-dispensing ATM?")

I Don't Like Mondays

I fucking hate Mondays. I really do. I hate Mondays so much it actually ruins Sundays for me because I spend the entire day pre-emptively hating Monday. This massive tsunami of loathing often causes me to get drunk on a Sunday evening thereby making my Monday morning this crawling horror of an affair, as I stagger into work feeling a pint of hammered dog snot.

Even worse, at this time of year the streets are festooned with an endless parade of gormless twats hell-bent on buying every piece of useless shit their tiny little monkey-hands can carry.

I hate Mondays and I hate Christmas and right now I hate my life and I want to die.

Along with the lurching parade of utter ass-hats trying to break my ankles with ballistic pram-pushing or grimly determined maniacs trying remove some skin from my head with the corners of their ridiculously sized umbrellas (someone is going to end up needing surgery to remove their umbrella from their intestinal tract round here, any day now), as the mass frenzy of consumerism blinds everyone to their fellow human beings, my passage through the streets of the city is further hindered by no fewer than seventy seperate attempts per minute to part me from my money. I was crossing the road earlier today and this grinning fuckwit leapt out in front of me, shook a collection jar in my face and barked "Suicide please?" at me. I came very close to saying "Yes please, how much?".

And I forgot my ipod, in my frantic dash to drag my aching frame out of the house; one of the few coping strategies for my general daily penance in here is to listen to blisteringly loud rawk as I stomp around the city like a small angry furry bullet. But today, no, there is no relief for me, as I heap suffering upon myself with some sort of masochistic frenzy.

Yes, in case it's not clear, I really do quite dislike Mondays.

The Boss : "Have you done Ronan Keating?"

Consider if you will the possible implications of this sentence.

Here's me, dully, not even questioning, just stating it : "Ronan fucking Keating."

The Boss : "Kielty."

Here's me, in a bit of a delirious haze, shaking my head sadly : "Ronan fucking Keating."

The Boss : "Gary Kielty."

Here's me : "What?"

The Boss : "Have you done him?"

Here's me : "Have I done him? What do you mean have I 'done' him? What?"

The Boss : "Have you done his rate to Setubal."

Here's me : "Yes."

The Boss : "No you didn't."

Here's me : "I bloody did. I copied you in on the e-mail."

The Boss : "You did Lisbon."

Here's me : "Ah. Yeah. There was no service into Setubal itself, it goes into Lisbon at the moment. It's pretty much the same place, they're just opposite sides of the river."

The Boss : "If Ronan Keating asked for Setubal you should..."

And some tiny part of my brain snaps.

"Stop! Fucking stop already! Stop with this Ronan Keating shit! His names not even fucking Keating! KIELTY! KI-EL-TY! GARY FUCKING KIEL-FUCKING-TY! And I haven't given him a rate to Setubal because there's no fucking boat going to fucking Setubal! It goes to Lisbon! Setubal is practically in fucking Lisbon! Look at the fucking map!"

The Boss is utterly unruffled by my fit of pique.

"Not necessarily."

I am sort of bulging in the eyes now, possibly panting slightly, certainly red in the face.

"What the fuck do you mean 'not necessarily'?"

The Boss : "It isn't always."

Here's me : "What, so Setubal is right next door to Lisbon Mondays through Fridays but then buggers off to the Algarve for the weekends, what the fuck are you saying?!?"

The Boss : "Ronan Keating says..."

Here's me : "STOP IT! STOP CALLING HIM RONAN BLOODY KEATING! WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING HIM RONAN BLOODY KEATING?!? WHY?!?"

The Boss, with uncharacteristic perception and calm : "Do you have a hangover?"

I stop, take a deep breath and compose myself.

Here's me : "Yes. Yes I do."

The Boss : "I thought you did."

The Boss holds up a tenner.

"Go to the shop and get bacon sandwiches."

So sensible and reasonable is this suggestion that I am utterly taken aback; totally and utterly derailed.

I have now had a bacon sandwich and the urge to beat myself to death with the telephone receiver has subsided. Somewhat, anyway. It's the little things in life that make or break us.

The Boss, staring at the map : "Is Lisboa near Lisbon?"

...it's the little things.

Lawnmower Boss

Right, here's the deal. We have one of those photocopier/printer/scanner/fax machine jobs that plugs into a network point in here. Because the whole building is on a shared network of some kind, occasionally something happens that leads to, for reasons I don't really understand, the scanner function not being able to see the network. It appears to happen just randomly sometimes and I have neither any clue as to why nor any inclination to try and figure it out. I'm pretty sure no-one is actively trying to hack the photocopier, at least.

So anyway I went for a smoke, and upon my return am greeted with hostility and accusation, thusly :

The Boss : "Are you turning the photocopier off whenever you go out?"

Here's me : "What?"

The Boss : "Are you messing about?"

Here's me : (sigh) "What are you talking about? What? Just what can it possibly be?"

The Boss : "Every time you go out the scanner stops working."

Here's me, slowly, deliberately. I'm chewing this idea over in my mind : "Every time I go out, the scanner stops working. You think that the scanner stopping working is somehow linked to me leaving the room. That is what you're saying to me, right?"

The Boss, verging on manic : "Are you doing something to it!?"

Here's me, steadily ascending in volume, steadily losing my grip : "Yes! Yes I am! I have this... little... fucking... fucking remote control button, in my pocket, and every time I go for a cigarette I push it so the scanner stops working! Ha! HA HA!"

The Boss : "Well if it's not you what is it?"

Here's me : "Well fuck me, you've got me there. You're like Sherlock Bloody Holmes, ruling out the impossible first. Brilliant."

The Boss, possibly realising that this is epic lunacy, retreats somewhat : "Well have you any idea what the problem might be?"

Here's me : "I think... and it's just a theory... that someone in the conference room is using a machine for whatever, and whenever it gets turned on, for some reason it either hogs that network point, or it's an IP address thing, and somehow boots our scanner off the network, so it can't see our shared drive anymore when we try to scan. But I don't know for sure, ok? It's just a thought."

The Boss sits down at her desk and telephones reception, and more or less screams "Koala says your conference machine is disappearing our scanner!"

I am holding my head in both hands, trying not to hyperventilate.

The Boss replaces the telephone handset and turns to me once more.

"They want us to send theme a description of the problem by e-mail so they can forward it to the IT guy."

Here's me : "No sweat, I'll do that now."

The Boss : "No, I want to do it."

Here's me : "Oh fuckkkkkkk...."

The Boss : "Well?"

Here's me : "Well what?"

The Boss : "What should I say to them?"

Here's me : "Just let me send them the e-mail."

The Boss : "NO."

OH MY FUCKING GOD WHY MUST YOU BE SUCH AN ARSEHOLE.

Here's me : "Riiiiiight. OK. Tell them, uh... that we recently installed a new printer and scanner unit that connects via network point six"

The Boss, typing, speaking aloud : "INSTALLED.PRINT.SCANNER.CONNECTS.TO.SIX.NETWORKS."

Here's me : "Oh, gawd, no, I mean it connects to network point number six. The point in the wall."

The Boss : "CONNECTS.TO.NETWORK.FIREWALL."

Worth mentioning, The Boss writes all her e-mails like this, in block capitals with no pronouns in sight; they pretty much all read like war-time telegrams. I'm serious, fuck Neo, if The Boss had been plugged into The Matrix the machines would have released the humans and slunk off to be subservient but untroubled pocket calculators and iPods instead.

Here's me, pretty much giving up : "And... at various points through the day, randomly, the machine can't see the network. Not the firewall. Forget the firewall. The network."

The Boss : "RANDOM. MACHINE. CAN'T. SEE. FIREWALL. FIREWORKS. um NETWORKS."

.

..

...

Here's me : "Just so, yes."

Glint in my eye.

Here's me, and I'm not joking when I say I deserve a fucking Oscar for how I deliver this : "You should let him know it happens every time I leave the room, too. In case it's anything to do with my phone."

If I can get a hold of the response from the IT guy I'll certainly share it with you.

Moonbeam

The Boss : "Have you got Baker Taker Milly Moon?"

OK. I can take a wild stab in the dark at this - I'm guessing it refers to Baker Tilly Mooney Moore, our accountants. As to what the question itself means, your guess is as good as mine I'm sure.

Here's me : "Have I got them? What do you mean have I got them? Have I got their number, is that what you're asking me?"

The Boss : "Have you seen them? Seen it?"

Here's me, slowly : "Uh, what? Have I seen the accountants? Um, yes. During the last audit, I think?"

The Boss : "I'm going to see it tonight."

Here's me : "What? You're going to see the accountants?"

The Boss : "The moon."

Here's me : "What?"

The Boss : "It's... full moon... tonight. Going to see it."

Here's me : "Are you on something?"

The Boss : "New Moon. I'm going to see New Moon in the cinema tonight."

I Mean What.The.Fuck

The Boss : "Give me Ken's email."

Here's me : "Ken who?"

The Boss : "Ken... key.. Keating."

Here's me : "Who is Ken Keating?"

Is this shit getting as old for you, the reader, as it is for me?

The Boss : "Ronan Keating."

Here's me : "Ronan fucking Keating is the fucking singer from fucking Boyzone. Please. Sort your head out."

The Boss : "Gary Kielty."

Here's me : "Fuck. My. Life."

The Boss : "Read me out his e-mail?"

Here's me : "What, I mean fucking what??"

The Boss : "Read me out Gary Kielty's e-mail."

Here's me, probably spitting : "What? What? I don't even have an e-mail from Gary Kielty! Who the fuck is Gary Fucking Kielty?"

The Boss : "I'll forward it to you."

Just what the fuck. What the fuck. What the fucking fuck.

So, I Can Leave At 9.20 Today?

There are few things as likely to strike dread into the heart of the average office worker as walking into the office of a morning to see The Boss rummaging around at your desk. This was the sight that greeted me this morning.

Here's me : "Something I can help you with?"

The Boss : "I can't find your Russian rate."

Here's me : "What Russian rate?"

The Boss : "To Alexandria."

Here's me : "Probably because Alexandria is in Egypt?"

The Boss : "No, a rate for Alexander."

Here's me : "What rate for Alexander?"

The Boss : "Peter."

Here's me : "Wha? Who is Peter?"

The Boss : "St. Petersburg."

Here's me, broken already at the start of the working day : "It's in the file. Under 'St. Petersburg', oddly enough."

The Boss, frantic : "Well I need to send it to Alexander! And I promised I'd have it through before the end of the day! Now get it sorted! If he doesn't get it by the end of the day we're in trouble!"

Here's me : "Please. Get a hold of yourself. It is ten past nine. I think I can probably fax that piece of paper before five thirty this evening, in fact, almost certainly, I am going to manage to do that."

The Boss : "But the day's already half over!"

Dick! Mary! Jim! Jesus!

The Boss : "Phone Richard."

Here's me : "Richard who?"

The Boss, disgusted : "You had a meeting with her last month, do you not pay attention to anything?"

Here's me, a bit slow today : "I had a meeting with a woman called Richard last month?"

The Boss : "Richard Mary."

Here's me : "I had a meeting with a woman called Richard Mary last month? I'm sure I would have remembered this..."

The Boss, hostile : "Fax Mary!"

Here's me : "Fax yourself! What the fax are you talking about?"

The Boss : "There's an e-mail here from Mary for you."*

* The Boss still hasn't grasped the notion that when an e-mail is sent, to both of us, I can see it too - there are many of these, we have a general e-mail address for the office, and she insists upon telling me about each and every one of them. It's a tangent, yes, but I'm just getting it off my chest, ok?

Post-Modern

I've just collected the post from reception and handed it to The Boss. It's worth mentioning, as a complete aside, that The Boss does not trust me to open the mail by myself. I mean, I can see why. Obviously.

Anyway.

The Boss, head down in the post : "Head office are getting very stingy with the haulage."

Here's me : "Uh, what?"

The Boss : "There's no haulage on this."

Here's me : "On what?"

The Boss : "This stamp."

Here's me : "Uh, you lost me round about 'head office'?"

The Boss : "There's no haulage on this envelope."

Here's me : "Are you telling me there's no postage on the envelope?"

The Boss : "That's what I said."

I need another holiday already.

How Many Waiters To The Dollar?

The Boss : "How many diners do you get?"

Here's me : "Is this a joke? Are you sure you're telling it right?"

The Boss : "Don't be funny."

Here's me : "OK."

The Boss : "So?"

Here's me : "What?"

The Boss : "How many diners do you get to the pound?"

The penny should have dropped for me by now, but I'm very tired.

Here's me : "I wish. Just for once. That I knew. What in the flying blue fuck you were talking about."

The Boss : "How many Arabby Diners?"

Here's me : "Wha?"

The Boss : "Durham?"

Here's me : "Wha?"

I'll spare you the rest of this exchange but it turns out the question I was being asked was "What is the exchange rate of (United Arab Emirates Dirhams) to Pounds Sterling". For fuck's sake, like.

Abby Normal

The Boss : "Abbydabby?"

Here's me : "Abu Dhabi?"

The Boss : "No, dabs?"

Here's me : "...oh for fuck's sake. What?"

The Boss : "Have we any?"

Here's me : "Wha?"

The Boss : "For the phone."

Here's me : "Wha?"

The Boss : "Have we any phone wipes?"

Here's me : "Seriously. What is 'abbydabby'? And how does this relate to phone wipes?"

The Boss : "I've sneezed on my phone and I need some wee... abbydabby... thingy... phone wipes. I couldn't remember the word."

What's In A Name?

The Boss : "Who's Clive Owen?"

Here's me, knowing it's not the right answer : "An actor."

The Boss : "No, Clive James."

Here's me : "Australian bloke on the TV."

The Boss : "No, Clive Alexander."

Here's me : "WHO already, WHO??"

The Boss : "Nelson Alexander."

If this mind was a building, it would be condemned.

p.s. I have no fucking idea who Nelson Alexander is, either.