Women's trouble

One of the women in the office has just been off for some time recuperating after a major women’s operation. She came down to talk to some of the girls down in our section:
Vicky: “...I still can’t lie on that side since my operation. I went to the doctor again yesterday. He couldn’t understand it because it’s not where they did any cutting.”
Me: “Did he check that he hadn’t left his watch behind… or his mobile?”

Office Smells

Cat came down the office to ask Becks about some trouble she was having with an Excel file:
Cat: “What can I smell?”
Becks:”I don’t know.”
Dave: “Is it a good smell or a bad smell?”
Cat: “Neither really. I was just curious what I could smell.”
Then for all the time she was crouched down between Becky and Dave she was sniffing around, her nostrils flared. Sniffing Becky’s blouse, then turning round to sniff in Dave’s direction. Sadly she left to go back to her own desk without figuring out what or who the smell was.

Healthy

For reasons known only to themselves the powers that be have installed a machine downstairs that measures weight, blood pressure, body mass index, heart rate, and few other things. It’s there for six weeks and they are encouraging people to try it each week to see if they lose any weight, fat, or height. People were queuing along the corridor and the people in charge of instructing people how to use it were telling people that it takes 5 minutes to run through the programme, so some of them will be waiting for over an hour. Of course the skiving element made a day of it. I went down with Chris and Eric, mid-dinnertime (people weren’t going to use their dinner hour to do it, if they could skive off during work time) when there was just one woman using the machine. I came out as slightly portly for my age. Eric came off really badly with a high blood pressure reading, which he put down to being really nervous of people watching him. Chris got a certificate of skinniness, but got very anxious because his blood pressure was close to being average for his age. He scared himself into thinking that your blood pressure just carries on going up as you get older. We tried to explain that low blood pressure is just as bad as high blood pressure, and that being average was good, but he wasn’t convinced.

Thanks to Biggest Loser Club for the photo.

Snow 2

Then I come in this morning, driving through snow, and find this as my first e-mail:

IS Service Desk running with Reduced Staffing Levels due to weather conditions

Snow

I was quite heartened to get this e-mail from the boss. Everyone read it thinking he was going to complain at the very end of it:

Team,

Did you know
that:

·
1684

Believed to be Britain’s coldest ever winter and when diarist
John Evelyn drove a coach and horses down the River Thames, which remained solid
for two
months.

·
1947

Snow fell every day in Britain between January 22nd and March
17th. With temperatures rarely more than a couple of degrees above
freezing, fifteen foot snowdrifts blocked roads and
railways.

·
1963

Believed to be the coldest winter for 223 years, with Britain
covered with snow from Boxing Day until early March. With so many
football matches being cancelled, the Pools Panel was invented to make up
results for unplayed
games.

·
2009

It snowed one Sunday night and the country ground to an
halt. Public transport decided not to bother, as did 1 in 5 of the
country’s workforce. However, almost everyone from the Technical
Services & Projects Section of E.ON’s Asset Information Management
Department made the effort and got themselves to work.

WELL
DONE! And with a bit more to come KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

Although he has wasted a load of time surfing the internet to find some amazing snow facts.

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 3

So before Junior came in this morning me and Becky had been discussing what we should tell Junior he smelt like today:

Becky: “Did you hear what his excuse was for smelling that way
yesterday?”
Me: “No.”
Becky: “He said that most mornings he sprays himself
with RightGuard, then a nicer smelling deodorant. Then he sprays his clothes
with it too.”
Me: “He sprays his shirt with deodorant? That’s odd.”
Becky: “But yesterday he forgot to spray his shirt…I think.”

When Junior eventually swans in after 9.30, of course everyone else is busy working away, and nobody says anything to him. We’re all pissed off at him doing half a days work, then trying to get more work out of them. They’re also pissed off because he’s done everyone’s End of Year reviews and graded us all equally as badly, saying that we’re all still developing in their role. They’ve actually been busy covering for everyone who’s been off sick, on holiday, or moved to different sections. Rant over. He dumps his coat and bag at his desk then goes over to Becky:

Junior: “Becks, will you do me a favour?”
Becky: “What is it?”
(He lifts
up his armpit)
Junior: “Would you give me a good sniff for chlorine?”

She gives him a little smile to give him the impression that he is the King of Comedy.

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.

U Pillock

Sue came down the office to ask for some help. She had a print-out with a user ID (based on the initials of the first name of the user, followed by 4 numbers) on it, but didn't know who it was from:

Sue: "Do you know how to get on that part of the portal which lets you
search for people's user IDs?"
Junior: "Yes..." (clicking on his screen) "...who are you trying to
trace?"
Sue: "This number on the bottom here...U3491."
Junior: "That's easy, that'll be..."
Me: "Go on then! Think of a name that begins with a U!"

(Thinks for a while)

Junior: "...er...Uppal?"
Me: "That's Ghurmak's surname."
Becky: "Ursula!"
Junior: "I was going to say that."
Me: "Do you know of an Ursula that works for the company?"
Once he'd typed it onto the screen it came back with no results for that
name.
Me: "It's probably a temporary user ID that IT must use for things. I'd try
them."
Becky: "Onslow, like the bloke off "Keeping up
Appearances"."
Sue: "That begins with an O."

Later the best name we could come up with was Ullyses