Thursday 14 July 2011

New starter

cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com

Going back to work after a holiday is never an easy transition.

The process is made slightly more disorientating when you walk back into the office and find eight, beaming new faces have filled the empty chairs, all with an "I'm taking your job! Ain't it great? Hurrah!" air about them.

One of those beaming, enthusiastic little faces sits down in the seat next to me.

The seat was previously occupied by my hilarious yet opinionated, finger skin biting, tempestuous yet fundamentally likable Gay Colleague. Who, by the way, has disappeared; signed off sick for the remainder of the contract with a mystery stress-induced illness. Baffled by this exchange of old to new, I'm introduced to this bright eyed, bushy tailed person as the New Me; the boy selected to take over my job when the department moves in a little over a week.

Now, given that he doesn't know me at all and has my job in his overenthusiastic little clutches, personally, I found his first question after being introduced a little...how you say... insensitive.

"So! Have you got a new job then?"

Now, let's just think about this for a minute, dear lad. You are sitting in an office full of people who, unable to relocate to the other end of the country for whatever reason, are facing redundancy and unemployment. Most, nay, all of us are still here because the alternative is a bright square of light presented by Lorraine Kelly, Loose Women and Jeremy Kyle. Not because we've got new bosses lined up, eagerly awaiting our arrival.

We may be in high spirits, but stay a while and you'll notice a direct correllation between our high spirits and the diminishing pile of E-numbers on the newly coined Office Snack Table to my right. There's a bottle of red wine under my desk, which our team won for creating the best name in yesterday's Pub Quiz style competition, held in place of a departmental meeting. In short, we're being humoured. 'Don't be silly, you're still important! You're still valued team members! Look, come to a meeting!'. We did. There were sweeties on the chairs and first on the agenda was trivia.

Back at our desks, and us leavers are busy. Observe. When our fingers aren't having the skin picked off them, they're smashing records for quickest CTRL+Tab between Guardian Jobs and a Gmail Inbox.

It crosses my mind to tell him all this, but I decide otherwise, opting for a splutter of "Well no but maybe but got a few things in the pipeline might have something well got a meeting but don't know really we'll see something will come up".

And while we wait for all that to happen, there's always free red wine.

10 comments:

Emma said...

Drink the red wine then get him to ask the question again.
I imagine he will enjoy hearing that answer.

London Lass Blog said...

He sounds v. annoying.

Jab him in the eyes.

modelofamodernmajorgeneral said...

Punch him in the throat.
Hack into his computer and change his auto-correct; substitute your boss's name with "fucker".
Take a wheel off his chair.
Sign his email account up for lots of spam.
You know, welcome him to the office; tell him it was always like that for the "newbies".....

nuttycow said...

I'm with London Lass - poke him. Over the head with a wine bottle.

Smidge said...

Open the wine, have a glass and then leave the rest of the bottle in his 'man bag' (he must have one) and subtly start wink winking at the boss about it...

Anonymous said...

When do you finish Jo?

Maybe you could mark your refusal to relocate to the grim north by finally spilling the beans on the celeb story. I know for a fact that all your blog readers agree with me on this. We had a meeting about it and everything.

modelofamodernmajorgeneral said...

hmm, my post has gone.

anyway, I suggested that you do a whole host of nasty things to him, and then explain it's a traditional welcome to your company!

Lpeg said...

I'm thinking you just need to start drinking that wine, at work. And not offer him any.

I do like em's suggestion :)

Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Open said...

em - Comment of the week. Brilliant.

Londonlass - With a stick?

Model - I get the feeling you've arranged co ordinated attacks on people before. Don't know why....

Nuttycow - I like it. Might get a bit messy though? (White wine might be better)

Smidge - You're right about the man bag. I'll keep an eye out for one. He's bound to leave it unattended at some point.

Perp - What, and ruin the air of mystery over what will one day turn out to be a complete exagerrated non event? NOT A CHANCE :D I finish on the 22nd.

Model - It's ok, my blogger comments saw fit to spam it. I have rescued it.

Lpeg - Or drink the wine then burp at him every few minutes. Yum.

modelofamodernmajorgeneral said...

oh, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Just imagine what you can get upto when you live on a ship with someone you don't like: doors removed from cabins, clingfilm over glasses, marbles hidden in their drawers (which then roll around when it's rough), cheese hidden in their air vent....

Try not to annoy ex-service people in your office :D

 

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