Blokes being Blokey

I had to come home early today from the salt mine because there was a danger I was going to stab someone.  On my own team.

I love everyone on my team dearly (apart from the Freaky Developer on the end who is just fucking weird) and they are huge fun to work with but they are all blokes and blokes in the workplace can do your head in.  Hence the following list of Annoying Bloke Things that Blokes do in the Workplace.

Stare at the phone when it rings as if it is a piece of glowing Kryptonite.  Er - hello, we're supposed to be offering technical support so that means answering the phone.  Don't look at me - I'm too busy propping up a multimillion pound turnover system single handedly and I don't talk to users who want a new fucking mouse mat.

Eat crisps as if amplified down a megaphone. And then pick your teeth.

Wander off to lunch but don't actually tell anyone that you've gone for lunch so when someone finally answers the phone to a user we have no idea where you are or what time you'll be back.

Take the piss out of the users first and foremost

Take an hour for lunch and then come back and piss about on the internet for another half an hour.

Talk to your wife/girlfriend in some stupid squeaky voice like the rest of us can't hear you. Typically the conversations ends with "Love you, bye, love you".  Then you put the receiver down, scratch your nuts and have a good cough.

When you have a cold produce the loudest and wettest sneezes possible so the entire room gets sprayed.  Oh and keep sniffing phlegm down the back of your throat because that's really attractive.

Insist I check your spelling/grammar even though you're just writing out a PostIt note.

Forget to bring your office keys to work and then pretend you've left them in the car.  Even worse - sneak mine off my desk so I think I've lost the plot.

Go the to the newsagents and not ask anyone did they want anything.  You tight arsed get.

Maintain your desk tidiness level at "Fuck me. someone has let off a hand grenade in a Slinky factory" level.  When you can't get any more crap on the desk spread it around on any other flat surface you can reach.  Oh and stockpile any cardboard boxes you can for at least six months - about enough to start a homeless commune in the car park.

Borrow my scissors and not put them back.  Wankers.

Not the "C" Word Please

No, no, no - not already.  The annual frenzy leading up to a certain event on the 25th of December is already kicking in.  I hate it, loathe it, despise it.  If I could spend C*****mas D** in a coma I'd willing pay Michael Jackson's doctor for the drugs.   

FECK OFF SANTA

"But how can you not like Christmas - it's for the children?" I am asked every year.  Listen, I've only one child.  She's unwrapped everything within half an hour, then eats a mountain of chocolate, doesn't like Brussel sprouts, roast potatoes or Christmas pudding so our Yuletide is over by about 10.30am.  I might splurge on a box of After Eights but that's as festive as we get.

There are a number of other reasons why I hate the run up to and including the 12 days of Christmas.  Number one:  it's cold.  I don't move about much in the cold.  I believe winter activity should be restricted to sitting on the sofa with a huge pan of Scouse on the stove watching Scrum V.  One should be not outdoors trudging around Brent Cross car park or wandering about a garden centre looking for a smelly tree that is going to moult over your rugs.

Fakery.  Why send a greetings card to someone you haven't seen for eight years expressing the desire that they don't experience a fatality or arson attack in the next fortnight?  And, you're only buying gifts for people because they are anticipating a gift from you.  You might as well gift-wrap a cabbage for each of them so they've got "something to open".

Christmas bollocks at work.  Stuff your Secret Santa and no, I am not going to the works' party because IT'S FULL OF PEOPLE FROM WORK.  If I want to spend my time talking to some dicksplash 20 year old salesperson I'll ring my local estate agent for a chat.

God/Jesus nonsense.  I was brought up in an Irish Catholic household and once had to play Herod in a nativity play.  That marked my retirement from organised religion.

Shite festive music on the radio.  As soon as John Lennon kicks in I switch off.  Feck off with your Plastic Ono band.  And someone shoot Noddy Holder while they're at it.

What to do about Mother.  This is an annual family game where my two siblings and I feign death about six weeks before the event so there is absolutely no discussion between us about "What Mother is Doing" in the hope that none of us gets landed with her.  It's worked for the last few years and I've learned to live with the guilt by completely blotting it all out.

The expense.  We've a disposable income which appears to be shrinking month on month.  But somehow the retail world thinks I have a bottomless pit of money to spend on food, alcohol, decorations, gifts, petrol, the Royal Mail, clothing, tableware...  I haven't Sainsbury, honestly.  An acquaintance of mine every year puts a thousand pound of debt on her credit card at Christmas and then spends 12 months paying it off - Loonbag.  Like I said, we have a splurge on some after dinner mints and I might get a bag of satsumas in.

Yeah, I know I'm a miserable git this time of the year but you get used to it.  Just don't mention the event to me and I'll be fine.  Just ask me what the Ospreys/Scarlets result was from last night was instead.

Ffena Ffag Ffree?

Oh yeah, day 17 on the Champix - day 7 ffag ffree.

This Champix is bloody weird.  Last Saturday night something clicked in my head and the desire to smoke died an instant death.  So this is my seventh day of not smoking.  I even got through an entire working week without impaling a user on their own keyboard or, more successfully, punching the freaky programmer that we employ to produce fuck-all-in-six-months who winds me up just by breathing in and out.

Feeling Perky

I no longer wake up with a face like a pink screwed up paper bag.  The pills make me feel a bit sick but as long as I wash them down with a bit of water and a couple of Asda Smartprice bourbon biscuits (23p) I can cope with it.  The shop adjacent to where I work has reported a massive loss in revenue.  I can't remember my pin number because I haven't been to the Hole-in-the-Wall in over a week.  And the chickens think I'm dead because I'm not hanging about the back step for half the day flicking ash on their heads.

There are lots of warnings about Champix and some very nasty side effects including mood swings and even depression.  I appear to be having an exceptional experience in that I am feeling like a pig in shit and bouncing up and down like Tigger.  I love being a non-smoker, I love the money I'm not spending and I know Cariad & Angus are very proud of me.

And possibly something very good happening on the career front next week.  Should I wear a suit?

Day 10 - Gagging but Getting There

I bought a pack of 20 fags on Friday night and I still haven't finished them! 

The Champix has really kicked in and I am choking, retching, gagging whenever I attempt to inhale.  Like a complete fool I timed my adoption of Champix to co-incide with Wales advancing through the stages of the rugby world cup and as a Scouser would say - "Me nerves are shot". 

Watching Wales yesterday sent me out the back door a few times for a nerve-calming fag.  Eyes watering, coughing and trying not to puke on the chickens' heads I really had to work hard at getting half way down a fag.  I felt like an utter NOB.  Then Wales lost the game and I felt even worse.

I am hoping this does not induce Pavlov dog type behaviour.  Next time Wales run out on the pitch will I be feeling sick with watery eyeballs?  Oh hold on, that's what normally happens during a Welsh game.

Stupid Smoking Stuff I've Done that is Making me Pack in the Ffags

Smoking makes you stupid.  Reflecting on my smoking career here are some reasons why I am attempting to give up FAGS.

I have set fire to my hair on numerous occasions. 

One of my prized possessions is a Liberty ashtray.

It has been known for me to buy FAGs on my credit card because I'm skint but I need FAGS

When I announce to my colleagues at work that "I'm off to check the spooler in the warehouse" this means I am actually going for a FAG.  They must think "the spooler" needs some serious maintenance.

On too many occasions while pissed I have attempted to light a FAG with my USB stick.

I once threw a FAG end out of the car window straight into the face of a passing cyclist.

If I have to toss up between spending the money in my purse on something for lunch or buying FAGS then the FAGS win.

I once served a salad to guests with a FAG end in it.

As soon as I go round to someone else's house they get an ashtray out from under the sink.

I will even smoke outside while it's snowing.

The bleeding obvious - Ekky.  Nuff said.

I start on the Champix this weekend.  Apparently I am going to feel queasy, have nightmares and possibly have a complete mental breakdown.  Got to be better than setting fire to your hair with your USB stick.

Ffen Attempts to get off the Ffags

Yet another attempt to get off the fags starting in the next few days.  I will attempt to write something witty and urbane while being off my face on Champix and suffering from extreme nicotine withdrawal.

In the meantime I've got a pack to finish.

Why Do Racists Like Me?

I grew up in Liverpool where everyone is an immigrant.  And even if you were born in Liverpool I can guarantee that a generation or two back your family was just trotting down the gang plank at a landing stage.  Try and find someone in Liverpool with an Anglo Saxon surname, they must have moved up from "Down South".

Growing up in a city full of people all different colours and creeds makes you pretty open-minded. And living in London for over 20 years enforces the basic fact that people are just people.  You get nice people and you get nasty people wherever you go.  I really hope I am bringing my daughter up to have the same open mind.

I hate the BNP with a passion.  I hate the fact that the bastards only push their sordid leaflets through my letterbox overnight and won't show their faces during daylight.  If I ever encountered a member strolling up my path I would chase him/her down the street with a very blunt instrument.  I hate the EDL.  I hate the sweeping statements folk make about people coming into this country blah, blah, blah.  SHUT THE FUCK UP, they’ve been coming for hundreds of years you twats.

But I do find it amusing at the remarks some of my fellow human beings make to me in the assumption that because I've got a white face I must believe in the same crap they do.  I've had some absolute outrageous statements addressed to me and rather than get angry I have to pity the pathetic, ignorant human being and then go round the back and have a good laugh.  A collation of my favourites below:

This is a cracker from last week in Asda at the checkout.  Operator to me: "Do you want some carrier bags?"  Me, "No, I've brought my own thanks".  Operator: "Not like those Asians, they use tonnes of them".  Asians use tonnes of plazzy carrier bags do they?  Blimey, I thought those friends of mine were completely normal, but apparently not.  They're plastic bag fiends ram-raiding supermarket check-outs like packs of wild dogs.  Meanwhile at home they're packed to the rafters with purloined Asda carrier bags.
 
Once, while having my hair cut by a female dullard she asked me where I lived.  So I replied "Oh not far, XXXXX Road".  She replied "It's a nice street that, there's no blacks or Indians in it.  Are you married?"  Felt like responding "Yes to a HUGE Nigerian, but I'm only Wife No 3". We'd only just moved in so maybe I should have told her I was Irish/Welsh while my husband is a Scot - that would have probably freaked her out too.

At a doctor's appointment I was attending because of a rather nasty chest infection he peered at my notes and said "You've a history of TB in the family.  You’re probably Irish are you?”  I said "Yeah, I am partly but it wasn't the dirty Irish Catholic side that were spitting up blood, it was the Welsh lot.  Do you want to make any other wild assumptions while I'm here?"

At a bus stop waiting for transport into Luton a really sweet little old lady was chatting to me to pass the time.  She said "These buses - they're full of Muslims these days".  Fuck me, Muslims must have run out of magic carpets and are marauding up and down on public transport!  No doubt on their way to stock up on colossal amounts of free carrier bags.

When I was still living in London some twat in a pub said to me "Ealing's full of fucking Polish".  Mmmm... yes, they came to join the RAF during WWII and made an enormous contribution to the Battle of Britain.  That's why there's a fucking big Polish War Memorial on the A40 as our way of saying THANK YOU. 

When a briefcase went missing at an office I was working at (not my current place of work - happily that's like the United Nations) the Office Manager said to me, "Should we ask the cleaner if he took it - he's black?”  I nearly went over the back of my chair.

Stood in an Oxford Chinese takeaway  at the counter with a (no longer) friend she's on her mobile talking loudly to someone we're meeting later:  "I'm with Ffen in the Chinky".  'Chinky', I nearly died of embarrassment.

Another ex-colleague very casually mentioned "I'm driving to see a customer in Bradford tomorrow.  It's full of Pakis".  I looked at him and thought "Most of them are from Bangladesh actually and what's more 99.9% of them will think you're a cunt".

My personal favourite didn't happen to me but to a Jamaican friend of mine who also happens to be around 6' 5":  "Ooo, do you play basketball then?”  He replied "No, I'm training to be a jump jockey".

I still have a problem with most things Mancunian though.