Nige's fat fighting

Nige announced today that he was going to quit the slimmimg club because it costs £9 per week, although he was going to carry on weighing himself and eating the same stuff. Dan asked what went on at a meeting. Nige explained that they all going weighed then sat around discussing their diet. I suggested it might be like alcoholics annonymous, where they all sit round and talk:
"This week I passed up the chance of a chocolate cake."
Then they all drool over the missed chocolate cake:
"Mmmmmmmmmmmm...chocolate cake."

Interview results

Today we were given the results of the interviews for the latest manager jobs. I went in before Alan and Junior and was relieved to be told I hadn’t got the job. Then I was amazed when Junior came out later and told us that he had got one of the jobs, knowing how much the boss thinks he’s a prat. Then Alan came out, who we thought should get something if anyone was going to, and he had got one too. They haven’t told anyone which sections they will be managing yet though. I was quite happy thinking that we might all fail. Now I’m jealous of the money they’re going to get. I’m now bothered that they might stick Junior as my manager, which a few of us will find intolerable.
Then it was followed by a load of “congratulations manager” back slapping between my boss and the others who had come out successful. I started off saying that I’ll remember Junior as a young office-boy.
Then my boss came out with “I remember when he was Gouldie’s bitch!” towards one of the Dave’s who had also been promoted.

What's with Terry

Terry from the third floor is usually a happy, jovial kind of character, whether you’re in the mood for it or not. So this morning when he showed his face on the fourth floor early I said “Alright Terry?”
“No” he said “Everything’s crap!”. He then went on to tell me about how some geezer is hassling him for a job he can’t finish because of some missing plans.
After he’d gone Becks said “I bet you’re glad you asked him now.”

Fancy a warm one

When Mark comes down the office to get a round of drinks in for his section, the woman who cleans the coffee machine is still working on it. He sits down in Becky’s seat, opposite Dan and me and starts chatting. He has somehow got free tickets to Silverstone at the weekend. He might be able to go round in one of the F1 cars (he’s hoping). As time goes on Dan tells him that he could get the waters in while he’s waiting, which come from a separate machine. The woman has got her cleaning trolley in front of it anyway, so he can’t get to it.

Me: “Surely you don’t want the first couple of drinks, they’ll taste of bleach.”
Mark: “No I was going to get the first couple for the guys down there.”
Me: “There’ll also be those clumps of stuff that she’s dislodged, but not quite got out of the machine.”
Mark: “Yeah, the dried up globs of chocolate powder and coffee crud.”

When Becky comes back Mark jumps up to let her have her seat back. She complains that he’s made her seat all warm.
Dan: “Isn’t that a good thing?”
Me: “Not in the Summer months. In the Winter it’s nice to have your seat warmed up for you.”

IT trouble

There area a new bunch of rules for making up passwords which we have to adhere to now. Everyone has had to change their password to their computer last week. Becks came in this morning and was having trouble remembering her password and was eventually blocked-out after three goes. She phoned IT who asked her to get someone to request a “password reset” by e-mail, which I did for her. Eventually they replied with a new password, “yellow12”. I passed this on to Becks, and because they were so specific I reminded her that it was case-sensitive. She tried this 3 times and got blocked out again. I e-mailed IT back and they told her to try again with “yellow12”. It didn’t work again, so we phoned them back and explained what was happening. I had checked that she had made it all lower-case. Eventually we heard the IT guy at the next desk, to the woman we were talking to, shout over “That needs to be a capital Y”. They had e-mailed us over a password which they hadn’t made case-sensitive. We tried “Yellow12” (with a capital Y) and it was fine.

Asbestos stickers

Last week we weren’t worried about the threat of asbestos poisoning. After this e-mail though we have all been trying to find the stickers.

“Asbestos Sticker labels
Colleagues on site may have noticed that stickers have appeared in various locations around the site regarding the presence of Asbestos.
This labelling up exercise has been done following the latest asbestos survey that has been carried out to comply with the Control of Asbestos Regulations. Under these regulations, we have a duty to manage and to monitor the condition of asbestos in our buildings and to ensure it is not disturbed. The stickers have been placed on the window sills (among other locations) because the cores of the original sills, which are still in place inside the timber casing, contain low risk asbestos cement.
All asbestos on site is monitored and managed and poses no risk to site occupants. There is no cause for concern.
Thank you”

Following the e-mail we’ve all been reading up about it and all the wheezing from hay-fever has turned a bit more sinister.

Fat Fighter Nige

Nige came in with his slimmer of the week certificate again having lost 5 ½ lbs.

Rock'n'roll

One of the women from the other end of the office had bought in a load of mint flavoured rock for Karen. This was very thick, large sections of green and black striped stuff. Karen invited anyone who wanted some to have some, but there were no takers and after staring at it for the morning they decided it needed breaking up into manageable pieces. Alan picked up the thin polythene bag which held it and looked about for something to use to break it.
Karen: “She was whacking it on the floor to break it.”
Me: “Use the side of the desk…that metal part.”

After thinking for it he decided it was going to be the floor. He raised the bag up high and smashed it on the floor with a mighty whack.
The bag split wide open and the floor was showered with little tiny shards of rock and about four big chunks which stayed intact. We laughed for a good 5 minutes then tried scraping the stuff off the floor. Alan ended up using cellotape to get the little shards up. As he finished Karen said:
“Now we’ve got nothing to suck on this afternoon.”

Juniors WOW announcement

Junior came in and announced that he had quit his WOW guild last night - Nothing to do with Alan quitting his guild (apparently). He reckoned that he got home at 3.30 yesterday afternoon and there was nothing on there that he wanted to do. If he wanted to do a raid he would have to wait around until 1.00 in the morning to do it. That was taking it out of him. He moaned about Clive giving up on the WOW after a month.
Dan: “What can you expect if you’re slapping him about whenever he joins the game.”