Work, or as I like to call it, “the disappointingly shallow well of blogging material,” has thus far proved to be a disappointingly shallow well of blogging material. I’m already halfway through my career and it has only supplied a few isolated tragicomic moments, many of which I’ve had to forsake in order to maintain the illusion that I am a mature and employable person. Even the obligatory night out failed to provide much “banter”. Over a period of two hours I listened to three versions of a story about how someone I don’t know pulled someone else I don’t know’s sister, who I also don’t know.
In my Portakabin dungeon there are process and mechanical engineers. Process may be a collection of grotesques managed by the Chemical Brothers (Ed and Tom Chemical) from Rock Profile, but mechanical are something else; a living, breathing illustration of the development of balding in human males, who express their personality through their KARAZEE ringtones. (I express mine by changing my computer background weekly.) They are slackers to boot, turning up around nine and going home just after four, leaving their department unmanned.
On one such occasion and elderly gentleman walked in, surveyed the vacant desks to his right and announced “I can never get a mechanical man when I need one.” Everything in me was dying to burst out “That’s what she said!” It took all my effort not to, because that is a “joke” a 15 year old would make, not a high-flying professional like I am supposed to be.
The stationery midget, who is actually just short, does not like me, or is generally unfriendly. I seem to have irked her further still by giving her the impression I am some kind of bluenose. I only asked for a highlighter that is “any colour except green” because I already had a green one, but she was like, “an orange one then,” and gave me a disapproving look.
In any case, I think that highlighters and especially Tipp-Ex are bad for my health. After a busy afternoon spent passively inhaling both of the above I started to feel rather woozy. I made a mistake in the drawing I was working on and instinctively thought “Control Z”. My fingers got as far as the keyboard before I realised I was doing the drawing by hand.
I think the most important thing I have learned so far is how it would be possible to cause complete anarchy. Don’t go round smashing things up; instead, put “Fault Reported” and “Engineer has been called” signs on everything. Not that I have any plans to create such chaos any time soon, as I am feeling quite calm. I am constantly amazed by how little anger I feel at being forced to spell the word “tee”, as in T-junction, T-E-E.
In short, I would describe work in the same way war has been described: long periods of boredom punctuated by short bursts of intense fear. My daily activities are summarised by the pie chart below. It would be easy to start thinking that this isn’t where I belong, that I should be out there (wherever that is) doing something with my life, but then came the moment I realised I had become one of them: when discussing his never ending surge simulation, one of my colleagues remarked that the pressure had reached a ridiculous 5 million bar. Everyone laughed, and then I joked “Gauge or absolute?” There was an awkward silence while they wondered whether to laugh politely or fire me on the spot. It was during those three long seconds that I knew that this is what it’s come to.
But if I may be serious for about eight words, having a job is better than being unemployed. It is therefore crucial that I don’t allow my crushing shyness to cause me to find myself out of a job in August. For that reason I should really pull my finger out. That, and the fact that petrol is £1.10 a litre.
DISCLAIMER: If you are reading this over my shoulder in the office please assume I have used gross exaggeration and the persons portrayed are caricatures. Otherwise you may take this entirely at face value.
