Bad result

Sadly Junior’s team lost last night, so we weren’t expecting him in early. Eric had also gone to the match, but not got tanked-up before hand. He was a bit glum about it, but said that they both performed well and it could have gone either way. He did call me back and tell me about Junior getting a steward to walk him over from one stand to the other at half-time, just so they he could talk to him and have a half-time analysis.
Eric: “I don’t know how he managed to convince him to walk him over.”
Me: “They don’t do that much anyway do they, stewards.”
Eric: “He stood there like a spare part all the time Junior was talking to me, listening in to the conversation.”
Me: “How was Junior, was he completely drunk.”
Eric: “He was drunk, you could smell it on him, but he was cognisant. He could hold a conversation.”
Me: “Maybe that’s why the steward was with him, to keep an eye on him, if he smelt he’d been drinking. They were probably watching him…ear-marked him as a potential trouble maker.”

Hyper Junior

Junior has been hyper all day. He’s only doing half a day because he’s going to get tanked up in the afternoon before going to the football. Considering the kick-off is 7.45pm, that’s some drinking time they need.
He got into work just after 7.30am this morning, which is unheard of for him, then spent an hour or so messing about with the settings on his and “Quiet” Mark’s Nokia N95s, so that he could video conference in our 2.30pm meeting that he was missing out on. The tests worked and we were going to sit him in the middle of the table while the meeting was taking place. It would have been just like Charlie’s Angels. I wanted to find out if we could video it as it happened, then add a different soundtrack to it.Whatever hapened to that covert footage we had of him with his wireless headphones on that we were going to set to music? Karen thought he was buzzing so much that when we were going down for breakfast she told me not to let him buy any Red Bulls. As it happened, he was further along the queue than me, so once he’d got his sandwich he went straight for the chilled drinks cabinet and waved his Red Bull in the air in defiance before paying. I had to explain that he’d waved his Red Bull at me when she asked why I’d ignored her. It then appeared that the boss wanted to come to the meeting to see what we were up to, and to tell us some news the he had. In the end Junior reconsidered things. So by 2.30 he had either forgotten he was going to do it, or thought better of it.
He might have a good time at the football, but he missed some vital news about a fair number of promotions on the cards, which I’m not sure we should tell him about.

Lorna’s lettuce

Lorna is a strange girl. She drinks warm water instead of coffee, and comes to work with bags full of chopped up lettuce which she eats during the afternoon. For dinner today she had a lasagne from the canteen which stunk the place out, then started munching on her big bag full of lettuce. Around this time Mark is down our end of the office.
Mark: “Are you eating lettuce, Lorna?”
Lorna: “Yes. I happen to like it. I could eat it all day.”
Mark turns to Nige.
Mark: “I bet you wish you liked eating lettuce.”
(After a pause) Nige: “Do you know what I like about You?”
Nige & Mark(together): “Nothing!”

Later on Andy walks down to see what films Nige has got new, just as Mark is shouting more abuse down the office.
Nige: “I’ll sort you both out.”
Andy: “I’ve got no beef with you… I’m on your side when it comes to him.”

New recruit

There is a new recruit started on our section, to replace Eric (who got a promotion last month). I hadn’t met him till this morning. When we all went down for breakfast Karen told him that we were going to the canteen and that he should tag along if he wanted anything to eat.
“No thanks,” he said, “I had something before I came out.”
“You can have more than one breakfast…have you seen Clive?” I told him.

Eric's cookie

Eric came down the office to talk to Nige, in a pretend strop. He couldn’t really keep a straight face. As it turns out, Mark had upset Nige this morning before Eric got in and Nige had seen a packet of cookies on Mark’s desk and given them a bashing (physically, not edibley/ smashing them up in the packet). As it ends up, they were Eric’s cookies. He’d got some stuff on Mark’s desk because he was showing him the ropes for his new job.
Mark: “I watched him do it.” (he’d let him carry on, knowing they weren’t his cookies)
Steve: “They’re still edible aren’t they?… Save him having to do so much chewing.”

Nige's new nose

Nige was back this week. I asked him how he liked his new nose (I don’t think it’s any different in shape). He says he’s very happy with it, but he didn’t have a very good recovery period. He’d got an infection in the first week and felt dreadful. Some of it must have been the effects of the anaesthetic as well. For the first week he felt tired all the time and didn’t feel like doing anything.
“That’s like what Dan has.” I told him.
He’s much better now and happy that he can breathe better. He’s still having to wash out his nostrils with a salt water and bicarbonate of soda mixture.
When Mark was hassling Nige, I told Mark that he would offer him out on the car park, as long as he avoided his nose.

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.”

Missing Rach

As it turned out, Rachael didn’t show up for work this morning. Everyone was asking where she was, but she didn’t bother to phone in. Then around 2.o’clock she phoned in on someone else’s extension to ask if she could book the day off as holiday. She reckoned that she had broken her phone and couldn’t find the number to ring. For some reason she had been painting her kitchen instead of coming in to work. What was funny was that she wasn’t very happy with Dan’s text message telling her it was plain clothes day, and that she should come in dressed as Vicky Pollard. “Tell him he’s in trouble on Monday.”
Dan decided he was bored and asked if he could book the afternoon off as holiday.

Dan's short days

It was about 9.45 when Dan phoned me to tell me he was going to be late in. I told him that he already was. 9.30 is the latest he should be starting without getting prior notice. It was about 10.45 or 11.00 when he eventually turned up. He just complained that he hadn’t gone to sleep until 5.00 in the morning. More like he hadn’t gone to bed till then. What was funny was that when people started leaving at 3.00 in the afternoon, which is the earliest you can leave on flexitime, he turned round and said:
“Oh, it’s home time. That came round fast.”
“It does seem a short time from when you got in.” I told him.
He did manage to stay until 4.00. He’s going to have some time to catch up at the end of the month again.