Cold

The Friday before it snowed was cold. It had been cold all week anyway, but Friday was the day that everyone was complaining. Some the staff come in, knowing it had been cold all week, dressed for a holiday in the tropics, no jumpers, yet one of them had come prepared with a thermometer.They started off complaining about the cold and put their thermometer on the desk, watching it go from 21 to 20 degrees. Then the others started asking what the temperature was now, every 20 minutes.

I knew that the 6th floor had had trouble with the heating earlier on in the year, so went upstairs to ask if anyone had still got the little electric heaters which they all had under their desks when the heating did pack-up on their floor. Luckily one of the guys had kept one back and agreed to let me borrow it. They were all a bit surprised when I came down with the heater. Then plugged it in by the main complainer. Then they watched as the thermometer went back up again.

I'd like to know if they sit about in shorts and tee-shirt at home with the heating on full at the weekends.

New Year

There’s been a lot of sick people about the office, with colds and flu about. I’ve had two weeks off with a nasty dose. When I got back in at the start of this week Junior had got a cold, which he said had been bad for a few weeks, but he’d managed to drag himself in. On Monday it had got a bit much for him and he went to his doctors, who gave him antibiotics. With New Year approaching I said to him:

Me: “What? You can’t drink any alcohol over New Year then?”
Junior: “I can
can’t I? I asked the doctor if there was anything I had to be
careful about,…could I still drive? and so on.”
Me: “Yes, you can still drink
with antibiotics. I had you going for a while though.”

The boss is temporarily sitting near us this week:

Boss: “Can’t wait for the Hogmanay Show tonight.”
Junior: “’ You stopping in
then?”
Boss: “You have to at my age…Which member of staff are you seeing
tonight?”

Cold Start

The boss comes in this morning and comments on the cold weather:

Boss: “We need it though.”
Me: “Why do we need it?”
Boss: “To kill all the
rats…You know they say that you’re never more than six feet away from a
rat.”

(We look around, we’re on the fourth floor, we give Junior a second look - he has a rat type face)

Boss: “There’s been a big increase in the rat population recently. They have to
keep eating to maintain their body fat, or else they die.”

He certainly knows a lot about rats. He goes on to tell us about the rat problem at his previous house which he found out was due to his neighbour feeding them.

Me: “So why aren’t there so many birds around this year?”
Boss: “Don’t know.
Do you know why?”
Me: “No.”
Boss: “I thought you were trying to catch me
out…I’ll certainly find out for you though.”
Me: “weren’t there fewer bees
about this year as well?”
Boss: “Bees?”
Me: “Yes bees.”
Boss: “I don’t
know.”
Me: “I’d heard that if the bees die off, then it’s only two years
before man becomes extinct.”
Boss: “That’s not something Dave told you is
it?”
Me: “No, that was a proper expert on the TV.”

Hazel's Health

Hazel was coughing and sniffing all of Monday morning, complaining that she had a terrible headache. Towards the end of the morning she was asking if she could have the afternoon off as a half day flexi-day because she didn’t think she could work for the afternoon with her symptoms getting worse. Junior was happy to let her use up her flexi-time in this way, but I asked her if she wanted to have it off as sick. It was obvious to me that if she was that ill she wouldn’t be coming back for a couple of days. Junior asked her:

“Are you really that bad that you need to go off sick?”

as if she was malingering. I know the bosses have tried to stop people having so much time absent, but when it gets to flu season people should be coming in to work infecting everyone else.
Glen’s section had a similar problem with one geezer who had taken a lot of time off work and they had put him on, what they call capability. This meant he couldn’t have any more time off work in a certain period. He got sick, but had to come into work. For a few weeks he was having massive coughing fits which made everyone’s stomach turn as he was coughing up so much crap. Everyone else around him was catching it and going off sick for weeks at a time. I think that they eventually saw sense and told him to have some time off sick, but by then, with the air-conditioning working it’s magic, it had took a hold on the office and was spreading like dominoes from one end of the office to the other.
So Hazel goes off sick at dinnertime on Monday, for us to find out when she phones in sick on Tuesday that she has a chest infection and a possible lung problem, after Junior had tried to get her to take the time as flexitime.