Jim bragging

As I mentioned before, Jim, Eric and One of the Dave’s had all had the Friday off work. When John comes in Paul greets him:

Paul: “Did you have a nice weekend John…and Friday?”
Jim: “Yes thank you. It’s nice to have a long one.”
Dan: “Bragging again Jim…about having a long one.”

Jim's day off

Jim, Eric and one of the Dave’s have all booked the Friday off. We started discussing what they might all be doing together, even though they are probably doing independent stuff. Then we moved on to Jim and his elaborate system of greeting everyone as the come through the door in the morning.

Rach: “Is there anyone he doesn’t talk to? He was telling me about going on holiday to India and bumping into someone he knows.”
Becky: “He’s always going on holiday. If you tell him where you’re going on holiday, he tells you he’s been there.”
Rach: “If you say you’ve ate shit on toast Jim’s done it first.”

We laughed. We had not heard that phrase before.

Jim’s going on holiday everybody!!

Jim is down in the canteen before us this morning. He tells the woman behind the counter, who he knows by name, that he’ll just be taking-off this time tomorrow. I turn to Eb and say “He must be the only guy in the company who everybody knows when he’s going on holiday.”
Eb responds and tells me that he should be in a different job really. He thinks he should be in show-business. He has an all-the year-round tan, from his various trips abroad and possibly tanning-beds, and he talks to everyone. Not only that, he remembers everybody’s names.

We decide he would be a good eccentric weather man:
“Today is going to be cloudy with a few scattered showers, but that doesn’t bother me because I’m off on holiday tomorrow. I will be replaced by Steve, who won’t be doing as good a job as me of course.”

Later he sees Junior down this end of the office and comes down to tell him “I’ll be by the pool this time tomorrow”.
At that moment the woman who cleans the toilets walks past and he turn s to her and says
“Hello Jenny. I’ll be by the pool this time tomorrow”.

Meanwhile George isn’t very happy at the colour of the cup of tea someone has fetched for him.
“Look at that…(shoving it under a couple of people’s noses)…watch out for the tea.”
He sees Jim in front of him.
“That’s the colour I expect my tea to come out like.”

Late Friday shenanigans

Andy and Dave continue their reign of terror on Jim, telling him that he is repeating himself all the time. With most of this end of the office going at 3.00 on Friday afternoon I could hear more of what was going on. When Jim goes out of the office to use his mobile Andy says “You know were talking about football now? Well when Jim comes back stop talking completely, so he thinks we’re talking about him…plus, if he sees were talking about football he’ll star and you won’t be able to stop him.”
They play up Mo a bit, and ask him to get them a round of drinks in, which he does.
When Jim comes back in:
Jim: “Mo’s still here look, he loves it down here.”
Mo: “We were just talking about you. I might as well be off because they’ll stop now.”
Jim: “That’s alright mate, I’m used to it by now.”
Mo goes and Andy and Dave carry on niggling away at Jim. He sneezes (quite loudly).
Dave is straight in: “You have to make a meal of things don’t you, even when you sneeze.”
Jim sees that everyone else has got a coffee and complains, then goes and fetches his own. The others tell him that he wasn’t around when Mo got the drinks in. When he got a bit het-up he also came out with: “You’ll be waking up with a crowd around you.”
Andy: “He’s getting all confrontational.”

Snow

It snowed on Friday and Eric asked how I got on going home on Friday night. He has to catch the bus and was worried about the buses being cancelled. As it happened it only snowed for a while, then turned sleety, then rained a bit, so not much snow stuck. I had left early on Friday anyway, but Eric told me that there was a mass exodus as soon as the snow started to fall. It was odd because it started off nice and sunny when I started to drive home. Then all of a sudden the sky went white and the snow started.
Eric was telling me that he had gone to the toilet before he left on Friday. Jim had followed him in and while they were peeing Jim asked him if he remembered four years ago when there was about six inches of snow fell. Eric told him he remembered that year. . Jim said that he would never forget it. Trying to be jovial while they were mid-stream.
Eric: “Why? Did you get mistaken for a snowman on the way home?” (Jim has grey/ white hair)
Jim: “No, that was the night my Dad died.”

Dropping off the coffee

Jim gets a round of drinks from the coffee machine. As he’s delivering Nige’s he just lets go of the cup before it’s on the table and it goes all over the document he’s working on. There’s a bit of a commotion and two people run off to find paper towels from the toilets. While they’re gone, Nige is trying to pick up his document carefully, because the coffee has settled like a big pool , so that if he manages to get it away from his desk it won’t wreck anything else. Jim comes back with paper towels and sees him like this.
Jim: “If I hold it up, it will still be okay to drink, if you put your head one end and I slowly tip the other end up for you.”

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.”

Orange diet

Nige has stopped coming for breakfasts in the canteen in favour of eating oranges and satsumas. Hazel brought him a big bag of them this morning, then Mel came in from, dinnertime and had a big bag of satsumas for him too. Rick saw all these and said to him:
Rick: “If you eat too many you’re going to get ill.”
Nige “They can’t do you any harm.”
Me: “They might make you go orange if you eat too many. Then you’ll look like…(thinks for a while)…Jim.”

Very mange tout

Jim has a few phrases which he comes out with, such as “Very mange tout” when someone is eating. Although, he’s even started saying it at other times. It’s some king of Del Boy (Only Fools and Horses) thing, but after a time it just gets annoying. This morning I even had to explain to Dan what mange tout is. Sadly he now wants his own catch phrase that he can get on people’s nerves with.

Andy loiters

Andy is standing against the wall, near the door next to the coffee machine, red faced.
“What’s wrong?” asks Nige.
“Jim’s out there, on his phone.” (He doesn’t like to be caught by Jim on his own, in case he engages him in some conversation or other he can’t escape from)
“You’ll be okay if he’s on his mobile.”
“Yeah, but he could be finished at any minute. I could step out there just as he hangs up, then he’ll follow me into the toilets and talk to me while I’m trying to pee.”

Someday he’ll end up wetting himself.

Andy not peeing

Andy made us laugh Thursday afternoon (the day after the England v Russia defeat). He was desperate for the toilet but he could hear that Jim was in there talking football to someone, from outside. He came back in to the office and announced “I was going to pee but Jim’s in there.”

Jim's return

Jim has been off for the week on holiday in Portugal. They all complain about him never shutting up while he’s here, but last week they were all reeling of his catch-phrases (You thought only comedians and quiz show hosts had them) while he’s been gone. They’ve also been singing his favourite song “I love it when you call..” (not sure where it’s from). He’d locked his drawers before he went, so no one could use his brown sauce or tomato ketchup on their breakfast sandwiches, until they found out that I keep sauce in my desk. So I’ve lost half a bottle of brown sauce while he’s been gone. (The previous regional office I worked in used to be stocked with brown, and tomato sauce, soy sauce, mustard, salt, pepper, vinegar. So depending on what
It had rained for the fist three days of his holiday. They had a nice time despite that, and he came back even more tanned than he went. He’s kind of a “birch” colour, if you compare him to the wood finishes in the IKEA catalogue.