Monday morning. Andy’s holiday and Junior’s hair (or lack of it)

Monday mornings are dreaded times. No one wants to come into work after a nice weekend. Some Monday mornings can be interesting though. It’s the time of the week when you can catch up with your colleagues who might have been on holiday the week before and done something exciting. It can also be the time that someone has got a new look, either they’ve bought some fantastic new fashionable clothes, or had a major hair re-style. Both of these awaited me this Monday.

Firstly, one of our new recruits, Andy, had been on a “retreat” in Norfolk. Odd, I know, but that’s what he wanted to do for his holiday. He’s older than most of the guys in the office, and into all this new age, spiritual stuff. He’s learning Tibetan and wants to travel there one day. But this week he got as far as Norfolk.

Karen came over and asked how his holiday had been. He had explained before he went away that it would be a week of meditation and quiet. He had been instructed not to take books or his Ipod with him, so he thought he was going to learn some spiritual secrets from some wise men. As it turned out, they sounded quite clever sods. It was a place of silent meditation, so they had filled the place with people who couldn’t talk to each other, so they couldn’t confer about what they thought of the place. It was mostly for people who were going to be ordained, he told us.

“Did you give up the smoking then?” I asked him.
“No. I was able to go outside and smoke. A few others smoked as well, but silently.”
“They didn’t stop you from going out then?”
“No…There was a really rough looking bloke who went out and smoked a lot, who was big built with tattoos, turned out he was a biker, but he was a nice enough chap. It’s just that you make judgments on appearance, and when you are only communicating by smiling and using facial expressions it’s very eery, especially with total strangers who you haven’t been introduced to.”
“They didn’t introduce everyone at the start?”
“No we just went straight in, in silence. Very un-nerving. Then there was the day to day business of sitting down to breakfast and not being able to ask for the butter.”
“How did you manage that then?”
“Well it was odd, but when I wanted butter it seemed to be there by my elbow. As if someone knew I wanted it.”

He did say that at the end of it all they stood by their cars and introduced each other.
Then Karen came out with the killer question, which I couldn’t help smirk at:
“Are you going to keep in touch then?”

He said he’d exchanged telephone numbers with some people. I couldn’t help thinking of them phoning one another up and just keeping quiet.

I had to wait till around nine for the next thing to brighten up the day. I was busy working, so I didn’t catch everyone who had come into the office. Chris came over and asked if I was going down for breakfast. I grabbed my money then went over to the other section of the office where Alan and Junior sit. Junior was sitting there with a virtually shaved head. I don’t know if it was a grade 1 or what, but there was very little but stubble left. We sorted out who was going down for breakfast. Chris was going to fetch Junior’s. I was shocked, and all I could manage was “Nice haircut” as I walked out the office. Waiting for the lift we had a bit of a joke about it, and I did say that he looked like Dr Evil from the “Austin Powers” films. When we came back Chris mentioned what I had said. Then the office broke out in very poor Dr Evil impressions, with people sticking their little fingers up to their lips. Junior made on that he wasn’t bothered, and even denied that he knew who Dr Evil was, insisting that he’d never seen an “Austin Powers” film.

Later on I decided I might start telling people that he had to have it done because had headlice.

In the afternoon Junior had cause to come over to see Andy, and asked him about his holiday. Junior was pressing him about what he wanted or thought he wanted to get from his experience. Then he asked if it was a cult. Did they go around kidnapping people to join? He wanted to know.
“Then shave their heads?” I had to add.

Anyway, I’m spending the evening searching the net for Dr Evil pictures, then playing about with the Photoshop.