by Gill Sims
The other downside to the Spanx was that I was somewhat lacking in blotting paper to absorb the lashing of free booze, so I may have ended up a little tipsy. Actually, I may have ended up a lot tipsy.
I have an unpleasant recollection of sitting next to Ed and asking him if the cock and balls on the wall at my interview was a new and cunning sort of psychometric test. He looked startled and said no, no, it most certainly wasn’t. I expressed disappointment, and said I thought perhaps my handling of it had been the clincher that got me the job. Ed replied that no, what had got me the job was that I talked less hyperbolic bullshit management-speak than the other candidates, and therefore he chose me on the basis that I would be the least-annoying person to work with. I suppose there are worse reasons to be given a job.
There was dancing. If there is one thing I cannot resist when pissed, it is dancing. I danced with enthusiasm, but I fear without grace or elegance, although when considering the dancing, it is another reason to be glad I left the Spanx on, as however much I may have embarrassed myself with my moves’n’grooves, at least I did not inadvertently show my bits.
And then – oh then, the bliss! As the entertainment, there was a faded nineties boy band, who I had assumed had given up music years ago and were all working as insurance salesmen or something. But no, there they were, still touring. Admittedly, Christmas parties, however swanky, aren’t quite the same as selling out the O2, but I was very excited.
‘God, I love a bit of ironic kitsch!’ said Alan when they came on.
I was indignant at this. ‘Do not call the music of my youth “ironic kitsch”, boy!’ I declared. ‘One day you will be thrilled to see that … um –’ I struggled to think of a Cool Young Person’s Band (I insist on Radio 2 in the car), so the closest I could come up with was Ed Sheeran, and even in my inebriated state I was pretty sure Alan did not think Ed Sheeran was ‘cool’ – ‘a band you like is still touring and you get to see them live for free and almost close enough to lick!’
‘Don’t lick the band, Ellen,’ said Alan, looking alarmed, ‘I don’t think that’s allowed.’
I did not lick the band. I contented myself with singing along to each and every one of their Greatest Hits, even the ones that I didn’t realise were theirs, nineties boy bands being fairly interchangeable even in the nineties. I think I may have bonded with Lydia over the singing, as she also proved to be a fan.
It was a splendid night. The only way it could be more splendid next year would be if they got Rick Astley or Chesney Hawkes along. I got a selfie with the band. I may frame it.
Friday, 9 December
Urgh! What stupid fucker came up with the idea of having a Christmas Party on a Thursday night? That was a very bloody stupid idea. I don’t know why anyone bothered coming in today. No one got any work done and we all just shuffled around like zombies, desperately gulping tea, not entirely able to meet each other’s eyes after last night’s bonding and oversharing. I had to take some papers into Ed’s office at one point and I thought he had gone out, until I heard a snore and realised he had gone to sleep under his desk! The perks of being the boss, I suppose, though it did occur to me that maybe he wasn’t as hungover as us, he just spends most of his time asleep under his desk and that’s why he doesn’t like having to come out or go to meetings.
And then tonight I had the joy of the school Mums’ (and Sam and Julian’s) Night Out. Dear God, these nights were bad enough when you only had to attend, but it is amazing that I didn’t kill anyone in the process of organising it, between everyone insisting that their various dietary requirements were catered for (Paleo, Slimming World, potential egg allergy because sometimes omelettes make her feel a bit dodgy, no foreign food, no sauce, no food touching other food – the only person who didn’t make a fuss about the food was Helen O’Connor, who is genuinely coeliac) and getting the deposits (someone actually tried to pay in bitcoins, WTAF?).
But tonight it was finally the happy night! Despite my desperate manoeuvrings to try to sit between Sam and Cara, I ended up trapped at the other end of the table between Erica ‘No Foreign Food’ Mitchell and ‘Totally Paleo’ Julian. I tried to look polite while Erica held forth to me on what does and does not constitute a ‘Foreign Food’ (chicken tikka masala is all right, as are kebabs, because they’re ‘not really foreign’, but sushi is the Devil’s Work, because her grandpa was in the war), and Julian purring that he was getting together a group for Pilates in the Park on a Sunday morning, if I was interested, and had I ever thought about modelling, because I had a very interesting bone structure, and he could offer me an excellent deal on a one-on-one photo shoot, just me and him, if I was interested. I even managed to bite my tongue when I overhead Abigail ‘The Wrong Kind of Gluten’ Porter ordering the fish and chips for her main course, despite the glutoniumed batter, because apparently ‘that’s not actually gluten like the gluten in bread, it’s different!’, but I took some comfort that Sam was trapped too between Fiona Montague (who had once again kindly informed me that I looked ‘tired’ when I arrived and offered me the number for her ‘magical little facials lady, honestly, you wouldn’t believe how it perks the skin up’) and Darcy ‘Death by Eggs’ Chisholm, who was asking if there were eggs in every single item on the menu, and describing to Sam in great detail how difficult it is for her to avoid eggs, and how her doctor simply won’t take her seriously, just because her allergy test came back negative.
I had resolved not to drink, because clearly alcohol is evil and wrong and after last night I was Never Drinking Again, but within five minutes of sitting down I was knocking back the cheap Pinot with the best of them in a desperate attempt to numb the pain.
Finally, finally, the last cheap cracker had been pulled, the final flimsy paper crown had floated to the floor under the table, the last joke had been told while Erica snorted that she was so over all these politically correct jokes, and why shouldn’t she say ‘gollywog’ if she wants to, and it was time for the bill. Which was presented to me, as everyone looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to work out what everyone owed and then collect the money in. After the best part of a bottle of house white.
‘Are we just splitting it all equally?’ shouted Francesca Shaw, who had insisted she couldn’t drink the house wine, and so had ordered a £40 bottle of Rioja, which she had refused to share with anyone else, followed by three large Baileys, and who also happens to drive a top-of-the-range Lexus 4x4, lives in an even bigger house than Lucy Atkinson’s Perfect Mummy, and whose husband is something terribly busy and important to do with investment banking.
I mildly pointed out that I didn’t think that was terribly fair to all the people who hadn’t ordered expensive bottles of wine, or liqueurs, and was particularly unfair for those people who were driving and had been on soft drinks or water. Apparently this was quite unreasonable of me, and Francesca was stunned that she was going to have to pay extra. I finally got it all worked out, and announced how much everyone owed, when Deborah Green said helpfully, ‘Yes, but minus the deposit we already paid.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I paid the deposit last month, and that’s been taken off the bill already.’
‘Yes, but we paid a deposit, so it should be £10 less,’ insisted Deborah.
I explained again, but Erica and Abigail had also chimed in, insisting that the deposit meant everyone should be paying £10 less than the total I had given them.
The final straw was when Diana Baker looked up from tapping away at her phone and announced, ‘I’ve been working it out too, and it comes out as £2 a head less than you are charging us.’
Through gritted teeth I ground out, ‘I did say, Diana, that I was rounding it up by £2 a person, as service isn’t included, and so that will pay for the tip. As well as making it a round number, so it is easier for change.’
‘But that’s a £60 tip!’ said Eleanor Blackstone in horror. ‘Why are we leaving them a £60 tip?’
‘Well,’ I suggested, as calmly as I could, given that wh
at I really wanted to do was to smack my head repeatedly against a brick wall while screaming WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL?, ‘maybe we’re leaving them a £60 tip because they have been really quite busy with us tonight, because we’re a massive table, and they haven’t stopped bringing us drinks and coffees and running around after us all night, and so maybe THEY HAVE BASTARDING WELL EARNED IT!’
‘Yes, but £60! I mean, they are getting paid for serving us tonight!’ argued Diana.
‘Minimum wage!’ I shrieked. ‘They get the minimum wage! Do you even know how much that is?
‘I just think that maybe £1 each would be enough!’ said Eleanor. ‘I mean, if the minimum wage isn’t enough to live on, then that’s really something for the government to deal with, it isn’t actually our problem, is it? Or they should just get another job, or I don’t know, maybe take in some ironing or something?’
‘OH MY FUCKING GOD! It’s £1, Eleanor! One FUCKING POUND! You are spending three weeks in the Bahamas over Christmas WITH YOUR FULL-TIME NANNY along, and you are quibbling about a £1 or £2 tip? And also, if we make it £1 each, then no one will have the exact change and everyone will be wanting £1 back and then it will all take FOR FUCKING EVER AND I WANT TO GO HOME! WE ARE LEAVING £2 EACH FOR THE TIP, OK?’
We left £2 each for the tip.
Sam said afterwards it reminded him of the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs, only instead of waiting for the heist to go wrong and people to start dying one by one throughout the film, he thought I was just going to murder everyone there at once. Possibly just with the power of my extremely withering glare.
I don’t think anyone else will ask me to organise the Mums’ Christmas Night Out again. Oh bollocks, and I still have to get the teacher present money off the tight bastards.
Monday, 12 December
I have been noticing something at work that I never really noticed before – whenever Lydia, who is the only woman in our office with children (or rather the only one admitting to having children), leaves early or comes in late due to something child-related, everyone chunters and mutters and grumbles about it. Lydia seems a nice person, she pulls her weight, she gets her part of projects completed on time, she doesn’t seem to be a slacker, but there is somehow this implication that by taking a morning or afternoon off here and there, she is somehow not doing her bit, that she is shirking her workload in favour of parenting. And yet should one of the men in the office leave to go and do something child-related, far from people viewing him as a workshy bastard, he is positively lauded as Dad of the Year for going to a Nativity or an assembly.
I’ve never really noticed it before, I suppose because I was the one dashing out to the Christmas concerts and sports days and open afternoons and no one really says anything to Lydia’s face about how they resent her taking time off to be there for her children, but there is a definite undercurrent of irritation about how dare she try to be a mother and work as well. And I now recognise some of the barbed comments that are flung Lydia’s way, because I’ve been on the receiving end of them myself, but without the context of the remarks made behind Lydia’s back, I hadn’t really realised how much this annoyed people. And it’s not even just the men. Gaby from HR made snide remarks when she ‘popped in’ to the office and found Lydia not there ‘again’ (I’m pretty sure Gaby is a Grade A bitch anyway, though).
And yet, Lydia isn’t actually taking any more time off than she is due. She doesn’t stay late, like Alan does, and she doesn’t come in early like James does most days, so he can avoid the school run and leave it to his poor wife, but she isn’t taking the piss. People just assume that now she is a mother, she can’t properly combine working – and doing her job well – with parenting. When I announced that I wouldn’t be here this Friday afternoon because I had a dentist appointment (school Christmas Concert), everyone said, ‘Oh, you poor thing! I hate the dentist, I hope it’s not too painful!’ and didn’t question it any further. Alan went so far as to say that if I hadn’t finished the stuff I was working on for the new project by the time I had to leave on Friday, it could easily wait till next week.
By contrast, when Lydia came in to a 10.30 a.m. meeting this morning at exactly 10.30 a.m., having arranged to come in late so she could go to her children’s Christmas Concert (I want to go to her school, where the concert must only last an hour! Ours drags on forever, with endless verses of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Sodding Reindeer’. I swear there are more verses each year. I think they just make up new ones and add them on to fuck with our minds), Alan remarked nastily, ‘Good of you to join us, Lydia. Of course, it would have been helpful if you had been in earlier so you could have given me the figures I needed for the Hunter project before this meeting, but I suppose that can’t be helped.’
Lydia, rather marvellously, simply shrugged and said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Alan. I sent you those figures on Friday, but it must have been after you’d left. Didn’t you leave at 2 p.m.? Anyway, if you check your inbox, they should be there.’
I felt terrible for Lydia, though, because even as she said that, and Alan muttered something that sounded rather like a grudging, ‘Oh, yeah. There they are. Um, thanks,’ I could see a slight flush on her cheeks and set to her jaw as she justified herself yet again, and I thought maybe I should just tell Alan to shut the fuck up and stop being a dick, but then I chickened out, because I haven’t been there long enough to start telling people things like that, and also, because I am a coward as well as a liar and didn’t want to overly draw attention to myself on the whole subject of women and children, I simply said nothing and settled for silently hating myself instead, while coming up with cutting ripostes to Alan in my head. I did try to give Lydia a sympathetic smile, but I think it might have come out wrong, because she just gave me a rather odd scared look in return.
Wednesday, 14 December
Oh, happy days! I had no sooner walked in the door from work – I hadn’t even taken my shoes off – when Jane presented me with her Christmas list. I had been feeling smugly smug that she had stopped nagging me about having an Instagram account, and was pleased that clearly all my stern lectures about growing up too fast, enjoying what was left of her childhood, and of course, the dangers of STRANGERS ON THE INTERNET being able to see her photos and so find her, murder her and leave her dismembered body in a bin-bag in a skip (OK, I maybe glossed over a few of these details in my bijou Stranger Danger rant), had finally sunk in and she had decided to just wait until she is thirteen. However, her list read:
My own Instagram account
YouTube channel
GoPro HERO camera
GoPro Drone
Tripod
Laptop with video editing software
I took one look at it and handed it back, with a single word.
‘No.’
‘OMG, like WHY NOT?’ said a furious Jane.
‘OMG, like, for a start, because I’ve told you not to say “OMG” or use “like” for, like, every, like, second, like, word, because it’s, like, really, like, annoying! And also because I have told you that you are not having an Instagram account until you are old enough, and since you don’t seem to have included a time machine on your list, you are still NOT OLD ENOUGH! So, hence, NO to the social media accounts, and also NO to the several thousand pounds worth of electronics, for a similar reason, BECAUSE YOU ARE ELEVEN!’
‘AAAARRRRRRGH!’ raged Jane. ‘Don’t try to be funny. It’s so pathetic when you try to be funny. And it’s awful when you try and pretend to be talking like me. It just makes you sound like a sad freak. You are not impressing anyone. And it is SO UNFAIR that you won’t let me on Instagram. I can’t believe I am the ONLY PERSON IN MY CLASS WHO DOESN’T HAVE AN ACCOUNT!’
‘That’s not true, darling. Sophie doesn’t have one either.’
‘Only because you have brainwashed Sam into not letting her have one and convinced him that Insta is full of paedophiles. That’s like TWO lives you’ve ruined, Mother. I hope you’re like pleased with yo
urself!’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Jane. Stop exaggerating. Freddy Dawkins isn’t on Instagram either, and nor is Daisy Cooper.’
‘OMG! OMG! THAT is who you are making me be like! Freddy Dawkins has NO FRIENDS because he’s probably going to be a serial killer and so no one would even like FOLLOW his Insta because it would only be weird shit like DEAD ANIMALS or something, and Daisy Cooper doesn’t even like have a TV because her mum doesn’t even like believe in electronics because she like thinks the rays will fry your brain, and so Daisy doesn’t even have like any friends because she hasn’t even HEARD of like Zoella, and like her mum makes her wear clothes out of DEAD PEOPLE’S SHOPS! IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO TO ME NEXT? WILL YOU MAKE ME DRESS OUT OF DEAD PEOPLE’S SHOPS? PROBABLY IN CLOTHES THAT BELONGED TO PEOPLE FREDDY DAWKINS KILLED, BECAUSE YOU HATE ME?’ screamed Jane. She has not had a good paddy for a while, and evidently had been saving the rage for one good blowout.
‘Jane, I really wish you wouldn’t swear.’
‘YOU SWEAR! YOU ARE SUCH A HYPOCRITE! And you’re never here anyway. You have abandoned me to be a latchkey child in favour of YOUR career and now you won’t even let ME try to have a career of MY own!’
‘Jane, you’re eleven. You don’t need to be thinking about pursuing a career yet. And what are these dead people’s shops you are ranting about?’ I enquired, attempting to gloss over my own hypocritically bad language and general bad examples.
‘You know. The dead people’s shops on the High Street that you always make us look in, so you can buy second-hand books. And they always smell funny, and have loads of dead people’s clothes and DVDs, even though who even buys DVDs anymore?’
‘Do you mean the charity shops?’ I said, confused.
‘Yes! The dead people’s shops!’
‘They’re really not, you know. You can get some very good bargains in them. Well, I hear you can. There are urban myths of people who find vintage Chanel handbags in perfect condition for a fiver, but in truth I’ve never found anything that doesn’t look a bit like …’