by Tim Collins
I think the game helped me to bond with my new co-workers despite Jen’s party pooping. At lunch Jo even asked me what I thought of her Hello Kitty lunchbox. I said it was nice, but she said it was hideous and that’s why she’d bought it. I think she’s one of those ironic people. Most of her purchases are ironic, as far as I can tell. If they made irony tax-deductible she’d hardly have to pay anything.
Jo should be careful because one day she’ll forget whether she’s being ironic or not. I had a similar problem when I was young. I said so many sarcastic things that my voice got stuck in sarcasm mode and wouldn’t go back to normal. It caused massive problems at my Uncle Roger’s funeral.
WEDNESDAY 6TH FEBRUARY
I was sociable again today. Jo took her headphones off, so I asked what she’d been listening to. She mentioned lots of bands I’d never heard of, but I nodded in approval as if I liked them too. She might have been making them up to take the piss out of an old fogey, but I don’t think so.
Jo asked me what music I liked, and I said Joy Division and The Smiths, as they were the coolest bands I could think of that I actually like. Jo nodded in approval and I sighed with relief.
Unfortunately, Jez overheard us and started wanging on about a busker he’d seen who was better than anyone with a record deal. Jo and I both whipped our headphones back on, terrified that Jez would produce an acoustic guitar from under his desk and treat us to a rendition of ‘No Woman No Cry’.
I got the bus back this evening. We waited for fifteen minutes and then three came along at the same time. A woman wearing a vest and tracksuit bottoms who’d been waiting with me said, ‘Always the same, isn’t it? You wait ages and then three come along at once. You’d think they’d do something about it.’
I think she was offering this as observational comedy, but it annoyed me much more than the late arrival of the buses.
‘Of course three buses always come along at once,’ I said. ‘If the first one is even slightly delayed, more and more passengers will accumulate at each stop and its progress will be further slowed as it lets them on. Meanwhile, the buses behind will have fewer passengers to pick up and they’ll catch up. The only thing they could do about it would be to make the first bus drive past without letting you on, which would make you even angrier.’
‘I know,’ said the woman. ‘Typical, isn’t it?’
THURSDAY 7TH FEBRUARY
Today I wrote a list of things that annoy me about Jen. It was all I could do to keep myself sane.
1. The way she mutters as she types so we’ll all realize she’s working hard.
2. The way she brown-noses Josh. He mentioned he was a Chelsea fan the other day and I saw her reading their Wikipedia page right afterwards. Every time he emerges from his office to make a cup of coffee, she follows him into the kitchen to tell him about some amazing work she’s done.
3. The way she works too hard. In the cardboard box factory I used to work in, I was taken aside by one of the old duffers for a quiet word about ‘making the job bad’. He said that eager newcomers always try and impress the foreman by grafting as hard as they can, but the problem is that everyone else looks bad by comparison. He told me to slow down, take as many tea breaks as I could and always take a newspaper to the toilet. It’s advice I’ve followed ever since. Jen’s ‘making the job bad’ for all of us now. As the resident old duffer, it’s my responsibility to have a word with her about it. But what if she grasses me to Josh?
4. Her abuse of the English language. The other day Jo invited her into a meeting, but she said she couldn’t go because she was ‘in the zone’. Now, if I was in a very, very good mood I might just about be able to forgive a professional baseball player who used this phrase. But Jen was filling out a spreadsheet. There’s no way you can be ‘in the zone’ while using Excel.
5. The way she glances at her phone but doesn’t answer it, forcing me to relive my most harrowing cinematic experience over and over again.
Jo spotted me writing the list and asked me what I was doing. I couldn’t be bothered lying, so I showed it to her.
Jo glanced over her shoulder and said, ‘Thank God for that. I thought it was just me.’
It turns out everyone hates Jen. While I was bitching about her with Jo, Erika the office manager came over and joined in, as did a bloke from finance called John who I’ve never spoken to. Jez even joined in after a while, which surprised me. The only person I’ve heard him speaking negatively about before was Robert Mugabe.
We had a great time slagging Jen off. I don’t know why firms spend so much money on away days. If you really want your team to bond, just wait until someone unpopular goes on holiday and then clear everyone’s diaries for a session of slating them behind their back.
After about twenty minutes, Jen came back from her ‘powwow’ with Josh and asked what we were all laughing about, so I found a video of a sneezing kitten on YouTube and pretended we were watching that. She looked at it and said, ‘That is so LOL.’ I think we got away with it.
FRIDAY 8TH FEBRUARY
I had a blocked nose, an earache and a slight headache when I woke up this morning. I tried drinking a Lemsip, but it didn’t work, so I went back to bed.
It didn’t put me in a bad mood, though, as I love being ill. Not seriously ill, of course. But I’ve always enjoyed the sort of sickness that lets you stay in bed watching crap TV for a couple of days. Unlike the planned holiday, the sick day comes with no expectations. All it takes is a particularly tasty lozenge, an especially satisfying nap or a surprisingly informative Hitler documentary and your day is already better than you thought it would be.
The only bit I don’t like is phoning in sick. I heard myself putting on a fake-sounding voice as I left a message on Josh’s machine today. I was genuinely ill, but my hammy bunged-up tone made it sound like I was lying. I can only hope that, one day, civilization advances enough for us to accept that our voices don’t really change much when we’re ill and we can all speak normally when we call in sick.
SATURDAY 9TH FEBRUARY
I felt much better this morning, which was annoying. I was hoping to drag my illness out for a few more days. Unfortunately, I had no choice but to plough through my to-do list, starting with ordering the garden decking. I selected some online and clicked the ‘purchase’ button. For some reason, last time I used this website I decided against storing my card details. I wonder what I was scared of. Hackers sprucing up the shrubbery?
I had to root around for my debit card and enter my details all over again, including the three-digit number that’s so completely and utterly secret it’s written on the back of the card. Then I clicked on ‘purchase’, but had to fill in all my details again because I’d neglected to type in my phone number, which was apparently a ‘required field’. I clicked on ‘purchase’ for a third time, but this time nothing happened because my wireless connection had gone down.
I tried turning the computer off and on again, then I tried turning the router off and on again, then I tried turning my printer off and on again, just in case that was something to do with it. I looked around the flat, desperately trying to find something else to turn off and on again. Maybe the fridge was somehow involved.
There was nothing else for it. I was going to have to call a helpline. No doubt someone whose voice hadn’t yet broken would sneer at me for missing something glaringly obvious, but I had no choice. I fished the manual out of a drawer and looked for the helpline number. The only thing that was given was a website address, which is very useful when your Internet access has gone down.
I typed the Web address into my phone and waited as it slowly brought up the page. There was still no number, but there was a ‘contact us’ link. I must have especially fat fingers, because it took me about ten attempts to click on it.
I then had to scroll through endless pages of frequently asked questions and online help request forms until I eventually found a phone number. Then I had to navigate through a confusing series of op
tions on their automated service before I was finally allowed to speak to an actual human.
I braced myself for the condescension. But guess what? The fault was at their end, not mine. They reset the connection and it all started working again. I’d been made to feel like a grunting Luddite for wanting to use something as primitive as a telephone. And yet it was the only way I could have solved the problem.
SUNDAY 10TH FEBRUARY
I bought a magazine from the newsagent’s this morning, and as I was walking home an insert about a wine company fell out into a muddy puddle. I ignored it and continued down the street, as any sane person would have done. Unfortunately, a woman with straggly brown hair darted towards me, accused me of littering and demanded that I pick it up. I explained to her that I hadn’t known anything about the insert until it fell out, so I couldn’t possibly be guilty. Maybe she’d like to address her complaint to the newsagent, the sales director of the magazine or the media agency who recommended that the wine company book an unbound insert rather than a full-page ad like civilized human beings. Of all the people whose decisions led to that insert floating on the puddle, I was the least responsible. Unfortunately, the woman insisted that I pick up the filthy bit of paper and fling it into a bin.
I was then forced to tramp up and down the high street looking for somewhere to wash my hands. Am I imagining this or did there used to be things called public toilets? When did they take them away? Why did no one complain? Were we all too ashamed about our bodily functions?
Well, it’s too late now. If you want to urinate in public now, you have to sneak into a phone box and pretend to talk into the receiver as a suspicious trickle of liquid runs out below.
I didn’t even have that option as I looked for somewhere to wash my hands. I was forced to go into a coffee shop and ask if I could use their toilets. They said they could only give out the door code if I bought something, so I had to spend three quid on a mocha just for the privilege of washing the mud off my hands. This sort of experience is the real reason that print journalism is dying. It’s nothing to do with the Internet.
MONDAY 11TH FEBRUARY
Josh came over to my desk this morning to check if I was feeling better. His tone was sympathetic but I could tell he was looking for evidence that I’d been skiving. I did a couple of unconvincing sniffles to help my case.
He asked how I was getting on with the time-logging website, which is worrying. I’ve already put a total of six hours down on it. What more does he want?
I can tell the little bastard is using that website to monitor my entire life. This is fascism! This is the thought police! It’s all turning into 1984! The novel rather than the year, that is. If everything turned into the year I watched Police Academy and got off with a girl who looked like Cyndi Lauper, I wouldn’t be complaining.
I’ve ordered my decking now. I even stored my details in the website so I wouldn’t have to go through all the punishment for missing out required fields again. Although it did mean that I had to sign up to the website, which was also very stressful. Above the password box it said, ‘You can choose any combination of numbers and letters between six and sixteen characters long – get creative!’
What utterly shitty advice. Don’t get creative. It’s a password, not a Turner Prize-winning installation. Use it as an outlet for your artistic urges and you’ll never get into your account again.
I used my mother’s maiden name as my password, like I always do. The site told me this was ‘very weak’. Thanks for that, website. I wanted you to remember my details, not evaluate my password-devising skills. Is there anything else you’d like to criticize while you’re at it? Perhaps you’ve been spying on me through the webcam and you think my shirt doesn’t go with my trousers. Jumped-up little cyber bastard.
TUESDAY 12TH FEBRUARY
Josh asked me how my workload was today. Like the snooping little Stasi officer doesn’t already know. I told him it was moderate and he said he’d like me to come along to a ‘chemistry meeting’ with a client called TC Waste Solutions, who are apparently the second-biggest industrial bin suppliers in the south-east. Whoop bloody whoop.
He said that if we impress them, they’ll give us their business, which will make up for the loss of the Donaldson Sweepers account. Then he said it was the sort of account we could ‘have fun with’.
What does that even mean? How can working on something like that possibly be the same as having fun? Maybe ‘fun’ is one of those words that’s changed its meaning now. Maybe it means the opposite of what it once did, like ‘bad’ and ‘wicked’. It would certainly explain fun pubs.
WEDNESDAY 13TH FEBRUARY
I was woken up at seven this morning by the doorbell. It threw me into a panic. Was it the police? Had they finally worked out who stole that Lion bar from WHSmith in 1978? I threw myself out of bed, desperately fighting my pins and needles to drag my jeans on. I rushed to the front door, fumbled around for my key and opened it to see a deserted driveway and a card that read, ‘We called to deliver a package, but you were out.’ No I wasn’t. It’s seven in the morning, my curtains are closed and the horrified cries of a middle-aged man trying to get dressed were ringing out. Don’t pretend you thought I was out.
How do these delivery men manage to leave their cards and disappear so quickly after ringing your bell? Are they somehow bending the laws of time and space? Forget the Large Hadron Collider, it’s delivery men we should be studying. If we can work out how they operate we might be able to unlock the very secrets of the universe.
I glanced at Jo’s screen as I was walking past her desk today, and saw she was looking at a website called Pitchfork.
I sneaked a look at the site when I got back to my desk. It turns out this is the place she gets all those obscure bands from. I followed a few links, listened to a couple of albums and before I knew it I was doing something cool again for the first time in about twenty years.
I even managed to casually drop the names of the bands to Jo later on, and she seemed impressed.
It’s so easy to be cool now. In my day, you’d have to read an inky music paper, walk down to a dingy record shop, hand a tenner over to the sneering staff, carry a massive slab of vinyl home and lift it carefully on to your turntable. Now all you have to do is click your mouse and you’re a hipster.
THURSDAY 14TH FEBRUARY
This is embarrassing. There was a card on my chair when I got into work this morning. I was so surprised I had to go into the toilets to open it. Inside was a Hello Kitty Valentine’s card which read, ‘Love from ?’
No need for the question mark. It’s obvious who put it there. But was Jo sending it ironically? She must have been, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it with her. What if I told her it was a good joke, and she was actually being serious? I’d be throwing away my first genuine chance of something happening since the separation.
But she can’t have been serious, can she? She must be twenty years younger than me. She probably didn’t even exist on my eighteenth birthday. Not that she missed anything. I should have waited until the following Saturday for the party. I don’t know why I expected anyone to turn up on a Tuesday.
Whenever Jo looked over at me for the rest of the day, I turned back to my screen. I couldn’t say anything. I wasn’t even good at this stuff when I was the right age for it.
I need to take my mind off all this right now. I think I’ll start my Sopranos box set. HBO will make everything all right.
FRIDAY 15TH FEBRUARY
I’ve got my first meeting with TC Waste Solutions on Monday, so I spent all of today reading their website. It was so boring I had to reward myself with a game of Scrabble every time I finished a paragraph. They do everything from small pedal bins to industrial waste compactors and I had to read about the lot.
I spent quite a lot of time wondering what would make someone set up a business like this in the first place. What sort of life experience would drive you to something so boring?
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nbsp; On the bus home I found that I could name almost every type of bin we drove past. I need to stop filling my head with all this crap. Sooner or later I’m going to force out something important.
I’m like a pathetic teenager. A girl sends me a Valentine’s Day card as an obvious joke and I spend all evening fretting about whether she was serious. Of course she wasn’t serious. She’s never serious about anything.
But what if she meant it? It’s clearly up to me to make the next move, but what am I supposed to do? I can’t get my best friend to tell her I fancy her because I’m not at school any more and I don’t have a best friend. I can’t wait for the DJ to play ‘Careless Whisper’ because we’re not in nightclub and it’s not the eighties. I can’t even ask for her number because I sit next to her every day.
I think you’re supposed to ask someone on a date these days. But there’s no way I can make myself do that. Surely there’s some sort of Facebook button you can click that does all that for you now.
I need to stop thinking about it and get some sleep. I’ve arranged the redelivery of my decking for tomorrow and I’ll need to run the race of my life to reach the front door before the delivery man pisses off.
SATURDAY 16TH FEBRUARY