Jumper clowns

What is it?;mid August and torrential rain. Chris is off today starting his journey to Reading for the festival.Little chance of him getting sunburnt this year.I got into the office this morning and a couple of the lads had dug out jumpers to wear over their workshirts.

Holidays in the Sun

Chris wanted to book some holiday:
Chris: “Ed, I wanted to book a holiday at the weekend. Is it okay…”
Junior: “You want to have the weekend as holiday? That’s fine, have both days off.”
Chris: “No, I want to book a holiday at the weekend for later in the year.”
Junior: “You What?”
Chris: “I want to book a Summer holiday at the weekend.”
Junior: “It’s still Winter. You can’t have a Summer holiday at the weekend.”
Chris: “I want a holiday in the Summer, and I want to book it at the weekend.”
Me: “You want to book some holiday for next financial year?...That should be fine, no one else has booked anything off so far for next year. When are you thinking of going?”
Chris: “July time probably. We went about that time last year.”
Me: “Where are you going?”
Chris: “We’re probably thinking of going to Tenerife.”
Me: “Really?...That shit-hole? Any of the other Canary Islands are better than Tenerife.”
Junior: “How dare you!...Tenerife is one of the best holiday places I’ve ever been to.”
Me: “How many places have you ever been to?”
Chris: “Actually, I remember you telling Dave that you weren’t very impressed by it.”
Me: “It’s overdeveloped, overcrowded, with black sand.”
Junior: “It’s got lovely golden beaches…hasn’t it?”
Me: “No, it’s all volcanic black sand.”
Junior: “Don’t listen to him. It’s bar, bar, nightclub, bar…all along the main street. If you go further out there’s some more dodgy places you can find if you know where you’re going.”
Me: “He’ll do you a map.”

Junior then goes on about him and his mates getting up to no good in seedy nightclubs. As usual his mate Neil gets into a fight or two.

No Overtime

For the past few weeks we have been snowed under with work. To this end Junior was asking round on Thursday if anyone would be prepared to come in to work on the Sunday. There was only Andy who reluctantly said he would do it. Junior asked his boss if he could allow them to work for time in-lieu, telling us that if we worked for four hours on Sunday we would get eight hours off another time. Sadly the boss turned him down for double time in-lieu and nobody was going to come in for a few hours on Sunday. Discussing this between ourselves we decided that he hadn’t done us any favours giving everyone rotten End of Year Reviews, and wasting time that we could have been catching up on ridiculous meet-and-greet meetings in Nottingham (which only lasted an hour before we had to drive all the way back and waste the whole day).
This week also he has lumbered Chris with some new tasks, such as helping out with Team Brief, and making Chris our lead contact for anyone unsure about where they should go for certain types of work. We were telling him that he should get Chris a badge saying “Hi I’m Chris, how may I help you?”

Junior Smells 2

Becky had been making some funny faces. Junior had been near her showing her how to do some stuff on her computer. Eventually in the quiet part of the afternoon she spoke out:

Becky: “What brand of washing powder do you use?”

Junior grins, as if he’s been waiting for something to relieve the boredom of the afternoon, and a question like this, out of the blue, was going to lead to something.

Me: “He lives with his parents, I doubt if he actually does his own
laundry.”
Junior: “Why do you ask?”
Becky: “I can smell something?”
Me:
“I can’t really smell anything much, I’m still bunged-up from my
cold.”
Junior: “What like?”
Becky: “Kind of a Chlorine sort of
smell”
Junior: “Is it a good smell or a bad smell?”
Becky: “It’s not a
shit smell…it’s a clean smell.”
Junior: “Where do you think it’s coming
from?”
Becky: “You!”
Junior: “You’re saying I smell? When do you smell
it?”
Becky: “When you stand near me. You’ve been standing near me earlier on.
It just seems to be when you’re close…”
Junior stands up and has a sniff
about.
Becky: “Like now…I got another waft of it then.”
Me: “Maybe it’s
his deodorant? What kind of aftershave have you got on today?”
Junior:
“Beckham.” (he says with a smile as if it’s great to spray himself with a scent
designed by a footballer rather than a perfumier)
Becky: “Naahh! That’s not
it…Beckham doesn’t smell like that.”
Me: “Ahh! It depends where he bought it
from. Maybe he bought it off the market. He could be wearing fake Beckham, which
could be watered down bleach, or anything.”
Junior: “It’s not.” (changing his
expression)
Needing some kind of closure on the matter he gets up and wafts
his shirt sleeve under my nose.
Me: “There is a weird smell…it’s like
aniseed.”
Chris: “Yeah!”
Me: “Does your mom put anything on your shirts
when she irons?”
Junior: “Maybe it’s my sweat reacting with something in the
shirt?”

The discussion comes to a close. I leave it a few minutes before I carry on:

Me: “In the bank on Saturday morning there was an old geezer that smelt of piss,
and we were about six feet away from him. It would be terrible if you got any
closer to him. Not a faint whiff of dry piss or anything like that, he smelt as
if he was covered in fresh urine.”
Becky: “That’s horrible.”
Me: “He was
an old bloke with white hair, one of those who’s facial hair grows virtually all
the way up to his eye sockets, stubble up to his eyes, and big
sideburns.”
Becky: “You hear that?…” (she shouts towards Junior) “You could
smell worse…You could smell of piss!”

I imagine he’ll have a shower before he comes in to work tomorrow. I’m going to sniff him to see if he’s changed his scent.

Junior Smells

In the middle of the afternoon Junior goes over to Cath’s desk and says:

Junior: “Can you smell something around here?”
Cath: “What is it?”
Junior:
“Is it you Chris? Have you let one go?”
Chris: “No!”

I couldn’t smell anything myself over my side, but couldn’t help smirking at the way he had just come out with his accusation. Junior walks up and down for a while sniffing:

Junior: “It’s Ed, you can see him smirking.”
Me: “I’m smiling at the tone you
accused Chris in.”
Junior: “Oh.”

He carries on talking to Cath for a bit, then looks over at Andy:

Junior: “I reckon it’s Andy, he’s looking guilty.”
Andy: “It’s not.”

He lets the sublect drop then, as if he's started things off to deflect suspicion from himself.

Free phone calls

The only thing that’s going on over this side of the office is the on-going saga of Becky’s new car and her missing spare key. She’s had the car for a week now and spent most of her time phoning the garage trying to find out when they are going to have her key, which they have had to order in. If she isn’t phoning the garage she is phoning her Mom or her boyfriend. We have IP telephones now, which you have to log-on to, but which follow you around whatever desk you get moved to. Becky’s desk phone rang on Wednesday afternoon:

Becky: “Who’s that ringing me?”
Steve: “Answer it and find out.”
She looks at the display on the phone:
Becky: “Oh…It’s my Dad.”

That’s one employees take on the company telephone policy.
Yesterday Chris’s dad was in hospital with internal bleeding. His mobile had no charge left, so he came over to me to explain the circumstances and asked if it would be okay to use the desk phone to ring home to see how he was and if he would be able to go and visit him straight after work.