8am and I am in my office door. I bend my arm backwards and wave my fingers to my darling. Bye honey, I mouth, as he keeps walking. He purses his lips in a kiss, so subtle that only I pick up on it. Deer’s and rabbits and kittens and puppies, would be able to see it too, of course. Angels and goblins and gypsies and vagabonds, too. Anything so pure and innocent and free of spirit. The lambs, I laugh to myself. In my head, anyway, I like the non-confomists. I turn towards the lift and push the button.
The first person I saw was Mingey Van Wart, with her first lady bouffant hair and her Donna Reed floral chiffon dress, the hem of which was swishing around her knees, as the orchestra fired up with good morning music, as she pulled off her scarf and shook her hair, as though in a shampoo advert. The violins soared with her pursed lips and sensual expression. Then she opened her mouth and spoke and that ugly voice made a sound, and the music stopped, like a stylus being pushed across a vinyl record.
“Good morning,” she said. The “Good” came out all right, but the “morning” kind of like a Texan swallowing their tongue. It is the moment where the deer and bunny scene freezes and then shatters to the ground in a million glass fragments. The angel falls from the sky and the vagabond throws himself under the next fast moving vehicle. It’s a discordant twang in the harmony of my morning. Gang kechang ban!
I shook my head and wanted to laugh. I mumbled something at her like nails and blackboards, or Jesus I forgot that fowl tone of yours, or that’s made me skip my second coffee, or get ye to the speech therapist forth with, or please don't ever speak directly to me, but all she heard was “Good,” croak, clear of the throat, “morning.”
No nonsense Mini Mouse was in, but she takes up so little oxygen.
“Good morning,” said Mini Mouse.
I like Mini Mouse, she is no nonsense, down to earth, no shit, knows her stuff, I’d have her on my team any day, but then, she is a fellow finance person and not a wafly poffly touchy feely HR rabity yabbiter.
“Morning Min,” I said.
“Good morning Christian.”
“Lovely day it is too.”
Mini smiles. I smile. We nod conspiratorially, or maybe it is only me who is be conspiring and Min is just saying good morning and getting her job done? Do you ever wonder if you are nuts and that everybody around you are the sane ones? I know, it is a frightening thought, all those annoying people, who you think are morons, turn out to be the sane ones and it is you who is the person you consider everyone else to be? It is not them, it is you. I know, it is like waking up in the padded room in the straight jacket not remembering what had happened before that point. Sometimes I have mirco flashes of that, it gives me chills, then it makes me laugh. (If only I could be that interesting)
I'm writing my journal, quick as a flash. The sun beyond my office window glows behind the morning blind, in the very essence of lovely, fresh day, where infinite possibilities are on offer. What did I do last night? What happened this morning? And hour on my journal every morning gets it written so easily. No one is here to see me, no one cares what I do, as long as I don't fart, or slag them off, or tell everyone of them they are just sad cows.
There is peace in the gypsy village, the natives are quiet and there is an air of peace and loveliness. I think it is the stillness of the morning that I love so much.
Mr Flatline marches in next. I can, actually, feel all of the beige on our floor do a shimmy in solidarity. Every yawn in the world suddenly feels like it has a purpose and a hero. There is a certain vibrancy in the air that is killed stone dead instantly.
Then the rest of HR turned up like a gaggle of geese. Suddenly, it sounded like a bucket of wheat had been thrown into the middle of the office, rabbit rabbit, rabbit, rabbit. I could hear Mingey Van Wart massacring her vowels over everybody else. She laughs like someone getting a huge fright, or having a nervous breakdown.
“Oh thut really shuts me,” screeches Sibella Nasty. Loud and harsh.
Fran, Andrea R, Grittil, May Pang, Spanky McGee, all chatting away, like year 12 assembly, and almost as smart. Apparently the Ginger Super Model is interstate.
Actually, its May O’Donald, she married an Aussie. She’s my favourite, sparkly-eyed and full of life and doesn’t really give a shit about her fellow HR’ers.
9.01. I’m waiting for the text from F saying she is working from home, as our boss Paddington is somewhere OS. She told me yesterday, about Paddington and not taking the day off, so I knew a day off was on the cards today. When the boss is away and all that.
I thought I heard the Fffff, fffff. Fffff, fffff. Fffff, fffff. Fffff, fffff, but when I looked around there was nobody there. It was, perhaps, the ghost of polyester rubbing future.
The “not coming in” text came at 9.22am, as expected. Sorry, I am not going to make it in today. No reason. No excuse. There’s my girl. (I wondered if she stays home and masturbates? I guess I shouldn’t judge others by myself?)
I slipped my head phones on for a while, but really, I can't hear my phone, or hear the enemy approach, so I slid them off again. It's not what "they'd" call professional, I feel. The noise of the cattle yard is suddenly obvious, but it soon just fades away again into background white noise.
Mid morning, for whatever reason I have no idea, Mingey Van Wart screams out, in a tone that could strip paint from a wall, “That’s a little harsh!” (Look at me Tourettes?)
The irony just keeps coming. The whole world is turning ironic, which wouldn’t be so bad, I don’t think. We just need to get really stoned, or drunk, and then living ironically could be really cool.
She followed this by exclaiming, “There you go, you are poaching everyone.”
Then she laughed as though she was having another breakdown.
(It is funny writing this in real time)
I instantly picture the entire HR team up to their necks in a giant pan of boiling water, and, I have to say, it bought a smile to my face. Neck to knees, I don’t want to see any more flesh than that, hair caps, big glasses, safety goggles, I’m not really sure why. Steam rising up, a froth forming on the surface of the water, bubbles, like fart bubbles, escaping from underneath each and everyone of them.
I’d be on the tiled edge throwing my rope in for May Pang, who’d kick the other’s away from the rope, as they swarmed, with the strength of a kick boxer.
Of course Spanky, Spanky McGee, my newly dedicated HR girl, who is supposed to be performing all of my HR function, to free me up to do other things, has dropped the ball at the last minute and it has all been handed back to me. But of course, first week blues and all that. I should have seen that coming. So, I have been lumbered with a pile of incomplete work, contracts, which, actually, makes her help to me less than useless. In effect, she has caused me more work, as it all needs to be completed now, yesterday.
I just knew the promise of help was too good to be true.
Spanky. What can I say about Spanky? She is the junior member of the team. She’s just learning, wet behind the ears and all, so I go easy on her. There are things I could say about her, but it would be unfair, she needs to be nurtured and encouraged, she’ll spend many years with blood under her fingernails and a bitch stripe on each shoulder, as an HR epaulet. But not yet. Not thus far. She’s just starting out. Her venerability is still obvious, her insecurities not laminated over and protected.
Welcome to the jungle.
10.31. “So Andy?” Nasty suddenly calls out. And I just know her yap is going to progress steadily from there.
Don’t start Nasty, don’t start. You’ve been good thus far this morning. Of course, she may have been in meetings, as I am not sure I have seen her dough face thus far. Nasty ain’t fat, but she is pale, with a complexion the colour of dough.
All in black today? Mourning the loss of her credibility, quite possibly? No HR chick has ever been self deprecating.
OMG! The Ginger Super Model was just having a big birthday, fortunately that is not something one tends to comment on. Just as fucking well. I would have said she was turning 50, if not, I would have gone up from there. She just turned 30. 30? She looks like somebodies lovely old aunt, or somebodies grandmother. 30? I don’t believe it.
But what do I care, my favourite is coming over to see me. Ben Cavendish. Sigh. Cutie Pie Ben, with his thick brown hair, his stubble chin and his impish grin. He makes me feel all warm and moist. I’m sure I leak a little precum whenever I see him. He has an audit to collect for and he doesn't want to disturb me, just give him access to my files and he'll be happy to do the searching himself. I told you he was lovely.
And Nasty prattled on all afternoon, I’m sure she would talk in her sleep. I’d put my headphones on, but I was waiting for Ben to call.
Ben arrived around 4pm calling me sir and smiling. He is soooo lovely, he really is. I set him up on his computer without touching him, or anything. It was hard but I managed.
Ben left around 5pm. It crossed my mind to sniff his seat after he'd gone, that made me laugh to myself. I left work after 5.30pm, I took longer than I wanted to balance my reports. I had to take all of the terminations out, (That HR should have, but surprise, surprise didn't. "Oh didn't we do that?") I must have forgotten to send them to (name of person) last fortnight. I had to ascertain who they were first. Damn!
We walked Buddy to the park, but there was some sort of big bbq thing going on in the off-leash clearing of the grounds of the commission flats, there were people, and music, and a stage, and I am sure bands, and bbqs and stalls and did I say lots of people, kind of your Big Day Out meets your festival. Buddy was still keen to be let off his lead and he took some convincing other wise. We headed to Woollies.
It was a sunny afternoon, lovely really.
We ate chicken fillets in some sort of sauce, it was kind of red in colour, but I don’t believe it was tomato based, more your Moroccan spice pallet, if I had to say, at a guess, and zucchinis in another kind of red sauce, which I am pretty sure was tomato based. Nice they both were too.
I cleaned the kitchen, so as not to leave a mess over night. Sam so fulfils his duty at night, every night, cooking us both dinner, but, you know, I let mine slide to the next morning, sometimes to the day after. You can’t just let dinner slide until the next day, now can you? How slack am I? Letting the side down really? I feel bad. I’m trying to reform, I’m trying to complete my chore, using the expression that pads out all of my PDRs, since I stared doing PDRs, in a timely manner.
I stewed apple, as I’d had the fruit, the raw ingredients, apples and pears, since the weekend and they was starting to go off, the pears, not the apples, and I’d run out a day, or so, a go, of the fruit mush, we call stewed fruit, that I put on my muesli every morning. Muesli full of sugar, they say now. Once muesli was healthy for you, but not, apparently, any more.
We watched The Good Wife. I do love the Good Wife. It finished for the year on an anticlimactic cliffhanger. Alicia closed the door on the investigator who, seemingly, floats her boat, or who she’d, seemingly, let paddle her canoe, if it wasn’t for all of the rest of the fucken baggage she has going on in her life… and we’re supposed to wait until next season to see what happens? Big breath. (Low, serious tone) Don’t you just hate that?
I went to bed at 11pm. Nan Sam went to bed earlier than I. He’s an early off to bed person, I’ve always been a late go to bed person. If I go to bed when he goes to bed, I wake up at 5am. And now I hear that long sleep shortens your life. What is that? When will they make up their minds on this stuff? The experts. I thought eggs raised you cholesterol, but apparently they don’t now? But what about all the people who didn’t eat eggs, back when they thought they raised your cholesterol? What about them? And what about all the egg farmers who lost money, because so many less people bought their eggs? What about them? And now all the 8 hours a night people, and there are a lot of them, so many of them, we’ve been told since we were kids, they are now all going to die younger because the “experts” told them that 8, 9 hours sleep per night was good for you and now it seems that “they” were wrong, the experts. What can we all believe?
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