I wonder how much money I'm losing this company

I've lost the fucking shredder. I know, I know. I've had it all of one week, and already I've lost it. Seriously.

Well he's certainly good looking enough for it

The other day an incident arose which necessitated the arrangement of a bank cheque. (Ok, so i fucked up.)

It was for no small amount either, which left me wondering how I was going to arrange it. I didn't have to wonder for long however, since the boss immediately got out his wallet and counted out greenback after greenback. I was impressed, to say the least.

So... does he have a "cash in hand" job on the side like Belle de Jour? All the signs are pointing to yes...

What the fuck is PC Load Letter?

Today, the stationery man delivered me some new stationery. Yes, yes, it was very exciting. It was a shredder. You know, the paper kind, which sits over your bin and shreds pieces of paper into unreadable* strips of paper. Natch, I need to try it out straight away. I have some paper on hand (confidential documents, darling- no, no, you can’t look) that has been waiting around specifically for the shredder to arrive. I plug in the shredder and turn it on. I put in the first piece of paper.

It gets stuck. I switch the shredder to reverse and most of the paper comes out. Some paper doesn’t come out. I flick the switch a few times. It’s jammed.

For about half an hour, I sit on the floor with the shredder, trying to remove the stuck pieces of paper with a paperclip. I am unsuccessful. Finally, I shame-facedly ask for help (having broken yet another piece of office equipment.) All the boys clamour to prove their manliness by being able to fix the shredder. None of them are manly enough.

After the regrettable laminator incident, I am not brave enough to tell the stationery man about the shredder. I scurry past him across to infrastructure to borrow a screwdriver. It’s too big. I try pressing all the buttons at once, scrunching my eyes real tight and hoping like hell that when I open them it will be fixed. Nothing seems to work.

As a last resort, I take the shredder over to infrastructure, and one of the boys labours over it, painstakingly removing the teensiest scraps of paper with a very tiny, slim screwdriver. He blows into it a few times. He hands it back and it is unjammed. He rocks and I promise him that I won’t jam it again.

I take the shredder back to desk to complete my shredding. I feed a piece of paper through. It jams.


*Not technically true, as I have known someone to go through the shredder and stick a whole piece of A4 paper back together after they accidentally shredded it.

a lesson in time wasting

So I buy myself a cookie and tell myself that I’m not to eat it until 3pm. I don’t purchase the cookie because I’m hungry- oh no. I purchase it so that I can kill some time at 3pm. And give myself something to look forward to.

It takes me a whole 5 minutes to eat the cookie, and I consider it to be time well spent.

And.... I’m bored, again.

Subtle differences

Not Working (v.)- sitting around and doing nothing all day.

Working (v.)- sitting around and doing nothing all day, but having to make it look like you are doing something. Oh, and also you receive some sort of compensation, most commonly of the monetary variety.

No wonder he hasn't asked me to do any filing...

I should have known, really. The signs were all there:

(a) He has good skin
(b) He wears bright shirts
(c) He lives in a trendy part of town
(d) He plays SingStar

It was just the accent that threw me. *sigh*

Oh! The weight of responsibility...

So, I'm house sitting this weekend. There are, naturally, some associated benefits- such as having the whole house to myself for an ENTIRE 4 days! (Not to mention that it also comes with a fridge with a free bottle of sav blanc, a very comfortable bed and a bathroom with a spa.)

So I get home from work on Friday to start my wonderfully solitary weekend... and set the alarm off. I speedily click the button on my keys and the alarm turns off- but not before the house-owner has been alerted. She gives me a worried call and I try to assert myself as a responsible person, lest she tell me to get out of her house right now and arranges another house-sitter. "Yes, yes, I can do it. Please. I won't set off the alarm ever again. I promise."

I hang up the phone and go to feed the cat. She didn't run in when I put the food out so I go to look for her- she's stuck up on a fence somewhere. And she won't come down.... Why am I so vividly reminded of my second day at work where I broke the laminator??

I've left the cat up there- what more can I do? Do you think I should buy a new one? (It worked with the laminator...)

It must be the weather. Yes... yes, that's it.

Old work
Boss: Jemima, I'm going to have to get your mobile number off you so I can call you when you're not in the office
Me: Uhhh... actually... no.

New work
Me (to new boss): Here, do you need my mobile number? Call me for... anything.... anytime...