Not a bad Friday

In the lift at breakfast time, coming back up to the office, Nige had held the lift for me and Chris, with a few other people in who weren’t too happy at waiting.
Nige said: “If it had been Clive, we wouldn’t have held the lift.”
“If it had been Clive, he wouldn’t have fitted in the lift.” I told him.

Alan came in happy, about 10.15. He’s managed to get his "magic pants" for playing WOW. He was up until 3.00 am playing it last night, then got up about 6.00. He looks too happy for someone who’s only had 3 hours sleep. He tells us that his daughter Freya has thrown up all over him when he dropped her off at nursery this morning, so he’s had to go home and get changed.

Ginger Steve won the Helen sweep this morning, winning about £12, so he was happy. She came in at 9.55am, if anyone is keeping track.

We had a big influx of work yesterday, so Junior rallied round and got half of the staff to come in on Sunday. Junior isn’t coming in himself mind, he reckons he’s best man at a wedding on Sunday.
This morning they realised that they hadn’t got access rights to get into the building at weekends (those who hadn’t worked on a Sunday before). So I told them to go down and see security and they would probably get them to fill in a form and get it signed by my boss. Security asked them to get their boss to send an e-mail to request their access be upgraded.
How is this for laziness? Not known as someone keen on work, the boss asked the guys to send him a request (which he is obviously just going to forward on). How lazy is it to not write a request to security and e-mail it.
Eventually, when they went back down to security, the person they had asked them to e-mail was off sick and they were unable to open his e-mails, so they got them to send them again to a different e-mail address.

Alan's "magic pants" quest

Alan is messing about on the portal, he explains that he’s selling some stuff and looking out for a bargain laptop.
“I was getting chatted up by e-mail last night.”
“Really, who by?”
“This girl on the portal who’d seen my decks for sale. She sent me this (shows me e-mail) asking if I’m into Happy Hardcore. Then she went on to tell me which club nights she goes to and where.”
“Is her photo on the portal?”
“No.”
“Have you asked her to send a photo.”
“No.”
“Why are you selling your decks after holding out for this long?”
“I’ve really got to get a laptop. The missus complains that I’m on the computer all the time in the evening.”
“And you make too much noise playing World of Warcraft?”
“No, I’m in a different room. She wants me to be in the same room, even though I’m not going to be paying her any attention.”
“Oh. I thought you had your computer in the living room and would make too much noise. I mean, each time you pull on your “Magic pants” that must make a “ping” sound.” (Karen bursts into laughter at the thought of his “magic pants”)
“I don’t actually have my “magic pants” yet. They cost a lot of gold.”

He goes on to explain that if he had a laptop he could bring it into work and sort out a Virtual Network Connection to his home PC, so that he could do his World of Warcraft trading stuff remotely while he was at work. He tells me that he’s tried it on his notepad/phone (which looks like a mini laptop, but is still basically a phone for surfing the internet), but the connection wasn’t fast enough. It sounds like his ulterior motive has given him more of an incentive to get himself a laptop than sitting next to his missus on the sofa in the evening.

“There’s this girl here on the portal advertising Ann Summers Parties.”
“You should ask her for photos.”
Then he gets her photo on the portal.
“It’s been stretched a bit, so her face looks fatter, but she has a cheeky look about her.”
“Email her and ask her about her knickers.”

Helen sweep

Occasionally when the boss is out, and Helen knows the boss is going to be out she will come in late. Even later than usual. Even pushing it to 11.30 some days. Lately we’ve grown wise to this and have started doing a sweepstake on what time she will come in. The first couple of times we did it we just wrote the times that everyone was going for on a post-it, the one closest to the time she turns up claiming the money (everyone putting in £1). It just makes the Friday morning more interesting. Plus Helen doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. We manage to control our cheering or disappointment when she walks through the door. Junior is very competitive and the one Friday he was fighting over the lift with Clive, who was trying to make her a few minutes later so he would win. That day we were watching out the window for her taxi to pull up. Another day I hadn’t been round everyone with the sweep before she arrived. There was only Andy left, and I had to explain what was going on. Junior wasn’t happy (I had won on that day) and he wanted it declaring void, because Andy hadn’t chosen a time.
Junior wasn’t too happy with me being in control of the scrap of paper, so he drew up an excel sheet ready for the next time with rows with five minute intervals from 9.30 to 11.30. So today was the first time we had used his sheet, and we had to decide what to do in the unlikely event she came in before 9.30, or after 11.30, because that’s as far as Junior’s sheet went. Also, we had to decide that the sweep was void if she either phoned in for a days holiday or phoned in sick. I tried to get them to agree to a roll-over under such circumstances to be a bit more exciting, but Junior wanted to void it.
Because we had stuck to the nearest time being the winner, and Junior had started his sheet at 9.30, he sneakily picked 9.30 so that he could have any time up to that, or even 9.35, because Chris had picked 9.40. This made him even more annoyed when she rolled in earlier than usual, for a Friday, at 9.45, making Chris the winner.

World of Warcraft

Alan comes in late. Junior says to him “Another late night on the World of Warcraft?”
Alan smiles, but says “No”, but because he’s given him a smirk Junior reckons he’s right.
They get onto talking about World of Warcraft and Alan explains his ordeal that he’s been through to get his “cloak of second sight” in World of Warcraft. Junior also plays World of Warcraft and tells us how much of a telling off his missus gives him if he spends all night on the computer playing it. Alan doesn’t get so much grief because his girlfriend plays it too.

It brings back to mind the time when Alan was off sick unexpectedly (yes it does happen) and he left a post-it note on his desk with a note scribbled on it saying how much silver or gold he needs to buy some “spell pants”. The day he came back we had to ask if he got his magic pants, and every time he mentions playing World of Warcraft I visualise him having to wear his magic pants before he can play.