Belated Christmas Message

Due to the fact that Nev was off from December 18th, we got a very odd Christmas message from the boss yesterday. He’s catching up with his e-mails today, which mostly means he goes round asking if anyone dealt with this or that, from three weeks ago. My memory isn’t that good. It’s also amusing to see his speedy typing going unchecked.
_____________________________________________
Sent: Thursday, December 24, 2009 8:47 AM
To: Distribution List
Subject: FW: Christmas Message

Everyone,

I wanted to take the chance to thank you all for your
hard work and efforts during 2009. I know I have only taken up my position at
the very end of the year but already from my conversations amongst the team I
can see that 2009 has been a challenging but very productive year for the
team.

We have successfully moved to a new structure designed to
make it easier for our customers to do business with us. We have also been
growing relationships and generally raising the understanding within the
business on what we do. These moves have been well received across the
business.

In addition to this we have also been successful in
winning work from across the group. Most notable is the project to support XXXX
in organising their many thousand documents.
2010 offers a number of
opportunities for us as a team.

I wish you all a safe
and merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Regards

Brainwashing II

There are a good many people in the office that have bought Nintendo DS Lites for Christmas. A lot of them are doing the Brain training. Mel, Nige’s misses, was telling us about her brain training regime, and how she had started off with a brain age of 77, then improved to twenty something. Then last night she had gone back up to 32. I told her she should stop, so that it doesn’t get any worse. She and her 4 year old son had both got DSs for Christmas. Her mom and her friend went on a day trip to Europe before Christmas and ended up in Holland, buying thirty DSs (some of them for family and friends, others to sell on Ebay). They just weren’t available in December anywhere near us.
So, she was telling us, on Christmas day the three of them were sitting in the living room, Mel doing her brain training, her son playing Mario. Nige gets up and announces “I’ll go and play with my scarf then, shall I!” (He’d apparently got his new scarf which his mother-in-law had bought him for Christmas).

In tins

Because of Christmas, everyone is still bringing in tins of biscuits and chocolates. There are tins all over the desks. George picked up a tin and looked inside. It was virtually empty. Then he sniffed it.
George: “It smells like cinnamon in there.” He announces to the office.
Dave is further down the office and a little deaf.
Dave: “What? It smells like semen in the tin?”
George: “CINNAMON!”
Dave: “I was going to say. That would be disgusting, semen in your tin.”

Brain washing

Has anyone else noticed the intense marketing of Nintendo’s Brain Training on the DS Lite? They’ve spent loads of money on Patrick Stewart from Star Trek and X-men, not to mention other big name celebrities, all aimed at older people who would not necessarily buy a games console. Praying on the idea that Alzheimer’s disease is the only thing you have to look forward to as you get older. Even at the gym there is a stand where you are invited to “check your brain age for free”, in the hope that you are going to be so worried that you are going to have to buy one to improve your score (although there’s nothing to stop you trying it out every time you go to the gym. Surely anyone with a brain can see a slick marketing campaign for something you don’t really need. If you’re that bothered, why not do a crossword? Both my good lady and her sister have insisted on having them for Christmas. The only up-side to this being that they’ve bought Star Wars Lego for it as well, for me to play on. So if my posts get more infrequent, it’s only because I’m spending too much time shooting Imperial Battle Droids.

Sad New Year

Everyone hates coming back to work in the New Year after they’ve had a bit of time off over Christmas. The seasonal festivities are always an anti-climax to months of build-up. All you’ve got to look forward to is the terrible icy weather and catching a nasty cold from your workmates.

We have to look forward to Rachael coming back to work on our department, and probably Crazy Helen too. The Helen thing hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, but where she is working now she hasn’t made the greatest of impressions, and they want rid of her.

To cap it all off, Dan’s dad died the week before Christmas. The funeral is Friday.

Post Christmas blues

It’s the time of year that makes the people that have taken off all their holiday off resentful. When Nige arrived this morning he asked Jason if he’d been in all week (except for Christmas Day and Boxing Day, which were bank holidays). He told him he had, because he’d got “no choice”.
I’m not sure if I’ve made it clear in a previous post, but Jim is not just renowned for singing throughout his working day. He also talks to everyone and anyone. The lady that cleans the toilets the security man that brings up the post, anybody he sees. In the mornings it’s a constant stream of “good mornings” as he has to speak to everyone as they come in throughout the morning. Everyone was discussing what kind of Christmas they had had. Jason moans that he’s been in here all over the holiday period, then goes on to say how many people were off sick on Friday. Then the people who were in were also coughing and sneezing everywhere, “like a doctors’ waiting room” says Jason. They carry on about how rough they’ve felt over Christmas and blame it all on the air-conditioning. Then Jim starts off :
Jim: “I was talking to this bloke the other week…who was I talking to…?”
Dave: “Everyone!”
They all have a big laugh at that.
Dave: “You walked into that one.”

Coca Cola sign opportunity

Don’t like publicising Coca Cola, but here is an opportunity not to miss:

Simply type your details and a brief message to your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/mum/dad/sister/brother/friend/cat et al. into a form on Coca Cola's website and it'll be included in a rotating broadcast, in lights for all to see, at Piccadilly Circus, at some point before 9pm 2 Jan.

You'll get an email to let you know when your message is scheduled to be shown, and if you can't make it into Central London in person, simply watch it as it happens online.

Messages will be moderated before being displayed too, so no rude ones please!

If you can’t get into London you can watch it on the internet. I tried putting up one saying “Clive wears pink. Clive has orientation issues. Happy New Year,” but it didn’t get past the login page.

Secret Santa Day

Another year done and dusted for the Secret Santa scheme. The best bit was one of the guys wrapping Clive’s present up in girly pink Christmas paper with fairies on. I think he should get the prize for most attention to detail. His present was one of the top few too, an elastic band gun (knowing how much Clive likes to flick elastic bands around the office. I had a go with it when Junior was being a pain in the arse, you can fire three or four in quick succession. Look at the enjoyment on Clive’s face.


I gave Dan a dancing snake/mp3 player speaker (photo to follow), which wasn’t as big as hit as I thought with him. I think that he didn’t realise what it was to start with. Then I think he got a bit embarrassed when everyone wanted a listen, and it created a bit more noise than he’d have liked.
Junior rubbished everyone’s presents, then declared that he wanted to something a bit different next year. He got a ball scratcher from Eric (no photo available). I think he was a bit disappointed. Full marks to Eric for noticing Junior’s need.

What would have been a good t-shirt

This was what I'd got up to, designing something for my Secret Santa present. It ended up being a bit too late to send off and get printed up before the deadline.
I might still decide to put it on one of the T-shirt sites like Cafepress.

Diary delivery

Dan is in before me this morning. He’s complaining that he didn’t sleep all last night. He did go to bed though (not one of those nights when he goes out all night). For some reason he’s drinking chicken cup-a soup and taking Pro-plus caffeine capsules to keep him awake this morning. He also gets a red bull from the canteen when we go down for breakfast. We noticed that they were giving out company diaries on our travels, so when they reached our floor I was prepared. As they came along they got to Nige side of the desk first. With no-one sitting in Neil’s old desk at the moment I shouted over to Nige “Don’t forget to get one for Neil.” To which they happily handed over diary number two. Then Junior was out of the office, so I made sure we had one for him. Then as they got further down the office I went down and asked if we could have another couple for the two guys who were out of the office today. They’re not bad diaries this year, nice plain black things, okay they have the company logo on every other page and a bit of company related stuff that nobody is going to read, but not bad for free. Although we do have a new bank holiday on 32nd Octember (joke).

Christmas Eve

Monday is Christmas Eve. In the past we have been able to go home early, in true Christmas Carol style. These past few years though, since we’ve been owned by a new lot, we’ve had to work a full day (leaving at 3.00 at the earliest). Now they lay on a buffet at 12.00 in the canteen, and the day often dissolves into a big mince pie/chocolate eating binge with e-mails of Christmas and End of Year quizzes being sent round. They have made it a “Dress down Day”. Not much work is usually done. The bosses however take it to be a good time to tour round the offices to talk to the staff, probably seeing how much chocolate and mince pies they can find, but it always feels like they are looking round to make sure everyone is working. I’m sure the bosses all think that they are talking to the staff, trying to give off the vibe that they are normal, human people, just like us, but it never comes out that way. I remember offices where we got bottles of Whiskey sent in by happy clients, so we would be drinking whiskey and eating mince pies all morning then go down the pub at dinnertime. You wouldn’t have any clue how you got home that evening (we would catch the bus into work, we never drunk drove).

Eric’s family

I asked Eric what he was up to on his day off (Friday). He told me that he was doing the rounds of seeing the extended family before Christmas. The ones he was seeing on Friday lived fairly close, but then he started to tell me about the others that he’d got to get round.
Eric: “You know all families have relatives that they try to avoid or hide away. Well the ones I’ve got see next week live in Cardiff. You know that programme with Mrs Bucket in “Keeping up appearances?”
Me: “Oh, yes?”
Eric: “Well that family that she tries to have nothing to do with, with that character Unslow?”
Me: “Oh yes.”
Eric: “Well my aunt and uncle near Cardiff are just like that .They don’t have the scrapped car on the front lawn, but they dress in rags and are as common as anything. The last time I went, my aunty is registered as disabled and the doctor goes round regularly to look her over, the last time I went to visit the doctor was round, examining her in the front room. I walked in, her husband had told me to go through, and she was there being examined. She said “Hello Eric. Come and have a seat.” All the while the doctor was finishing examining her. We go and see them once a year at Christmas, give them a Christmas card, and that’s it until the next year.”

Secret Santa/ Shrek mugs in Sainsburys

I sent an e-mail saying that if anyone has got Clive for Secret Santa, Sainsburys had got these fantastic mugs, which come with marshmallows and some chocolate drink. Only £5:

I’d used this photo from Ebay to show them, and stated “Photo for illustration purposes only, I didn’t buy one.”
I heard Eric and one of the Steve’s going “He has, he’s bought one really.”

Frosty morning

This morning I had to spend 10 minutes de-icing my car before I could get in to drive to work. There was a clear sky overhead, but a bank of cloud rising from the horizon, which in the semi-darkness looked like the place where I live had grown mountains overnight, and I was driving towards them everywhere I turned.
Then I witness one of the most foolish sights of the winter. Some motorists are lazy and don’t like de-icing their cars. Some just clear a little letterbox shape that they can just see out of and hope that the chilling wind will clear the rest as they drive along. This morning though I saw the laziest. I was driving along on the main road when I saw a vehicle approaching in the side street to my left. He stopped at the give-way lines at the bottom of his road and opened up his driver’s door. At this stage I realised that he hadn’t cleared the frost off his doors, and the only way he could see to the side was by opening his door. This seems okay for turning left, but what was he going to do if he wanted to turn right? Was he going to open up both doors, and enter the road with his doors open? How about when he gets into traffic and he can’t open his doors because there are cars in the lanes either side? Can I get this put in the Darwin Awards? Or does it have to be printed in a newspaper?

Christmas good will

Eb brings me over a cup of coffee when he comes in. It’s nice that some of them have been well trained.
I ask him how his weekend was. He says it was fine. He never lets anyone know what he’s been up to. I try to get more out of him:
Me: “Have you finished all your Christmas shopping yet?”
Eb: “I don’t do Christmas shopping.”
Me: “No? None at all?”
Eb: “I write Christmas cards, but don’t do Christmas shopping.”
Me: “What? Not even for your little niece?” (I once bumped into him in Morrisons and he had his little niece with him)
Eb: “No, I leave all that to the misses.”
Me: “I see. Your misses does the shopping. Not a bad attitude at all. I might try that for next year…So if I come in with a black eye, you’ll know I’ve suggested it to Janey.”
(He walks off laughing)

More Secret Santa ideas

Some of the section are still on the look out for for things to buy for the Secret Santa (I’m very smug now that I’ve got mine), but I’m still passing on ideas that I’ve seen.
One of my favourites is sadly out of stock at the Urban Outfitters site:






Then I found this the other day:

Now you can get your goldfish working for you, rather than just sponging off you.

Secret Santa 2

We also found these while we were looking for Secret Santa ideas:
take a look at the others:
tennis
equalizer

Secret Santa

While I was off sick for a few days they decided they wanted to do the Secret Santa thing that Rach started off a few years ago. She, and the rest of the female staff that used to work on our section, have now moved on to other sections or left, so I thought that we wouldn’t be bothering this year. Junior decided to resurrect it though, while I was away.
I’ve been looking on the internet for some ideas and someone’s in for a surprise for their Secret Santa this year:

http://www.edible.com/shop/browse.php?cmd=showproduct&productId=9

Although one of the Steve’s reckoned that you wouldn’t get the proper taste of the ants because they’d be covered in chocolate. The year before last I managed to pull my own name out of the hat, kept it quiet, and bought myself a nice bottle of rum. They found out on the day of opening, because they all guess (or own up) to who bought what. So it ends up not being that much of a Secret Santa. Junior always tries to trick people into saying who they’ve got to buy for. Having organised it this time round, in the absence of any ladies, you would have thought he would have figured out a way of marking the back of the bits of paper so that he could tell who was picking who.