Wow, can I procrastinate

There are many, many things at which I'm not good. Procrastination isn't one of them. I've wasted simply hours of perfectly good writing time on buggering around with settings and themes. I suspect I could do this for another twenty nine and a half days without raising a sweat.

If I ever have a word count to boast of I shall, er, confess.

In the mean time, news:

I've been promoted: as of Sunday week I shall be Senior Frustrated Novelist. The previous day will be the incumbent's swan-song. She's off to better remunerated pastures while she works on her first novel and awaits the verdict on her script draft submitted a few weeks ago and not yet outright rejected.

Apart from buggering around with themes this morning I stumbled across this sea of at least partially like minded souls, and was uplifted.

Electric blue is still the plan, but I'm also toying with Rita Hayworth-style RED. Not keen on Marilyn Blonde or Morticia Black. Any other suggestions?

Poodle head, poodle head

What am I going to do with you?

First you were Hairdo, with your implausibly blonde helmet of lacquer. Then you were pea brain; the only debate being around the size of your brain relative to that of a marrow fat pea. Some of the kiddies dubbed you Yoda, as in 'Blonde it is, stupid I am'.

Then you did something with your hair and now, well, nothing seems to fit anymore.

The first morning after the event I saw you coming down the stairs before you saw me and in that time I was able to recover my poise somewhat; you thought I was smiling with delight at your New Look. What you saw was the tail end of laughter. Shirley Temple Ringlets are not a good look on a fifty-whatever year old grandmother.

You beamed and bounced your tresses at me and announced that "this is what it looks like when I don't straighten it". And you've been going about un-straightened for weeks now. But some how it never quite looks two days running. That isn't because you can't get the curls to look exactly the same two days running is it?

I'd call you a cretin or a moron but that would be unfair, you're far dumber than that. If it makes you happy to think that we believe that you've suddenly abandoned all efforts at styling, at your age, and that those tumbling curls are works of nature and not artifice then that's all right by me.

The problem with you, Silly Jilly, is that you just aren't funny any more. If only I could convey the tone of your voice. That silky sheen over sharpness that sets my teeth on edge can't be conveyed here.

But you were out of order to me on Friday, in front of the wrong people too. Even The Handmaiden, who is perfectly capable of being offensive, looked startled and has had to spend the past couple of days making soothing noises. The Big Swinging Dick is back today and you're name is Mud, my fine lady.

Not only am I considering another job, but I'm making no secret of that fact and I'm being quite candid about the reasons I'm considering leaving. To add to it the only other person who does my job is some way down the recruitment path for another job, too.

Do you really think any one's going to enjoy being told, in front of an audience, that "its all right, dear, I'm sure they do things in your price range". What a fucking put down. You might not be bright but you've plenty of cunning and you pressed that button quite deliberately. Senior Frustrated Novelist is looking for way out for perfectly understandable reasons and I'm not far behind her in the escape tunnel.

So that's two people leaving the back office, leaving Chief Paper Shuffler beached a long way up that creek, and both your fellow managers ready to drown you in that same creek for the damage you've wrought on the shop floor.

But ... I can't go in and tell Big Swinging Dick to shove the job because we can't afford for me to be out of work and I can't tell him I'm off because I can't honestly see a way I can take that other job. I have no negotiating position whatsoever, which leaves me, until I can find a job that fits with being a mother of a young child, stuck with letting a woman with a poodle on her head trample all over me.

Don't panic

The Corporal Jones element has been in its, well, element this last couple of days as we near the end of the Big Swinging Dick's two weeks away.

As though he'd organised it we've had big wigs galore down, including area management and sectional directors. The state of things hasn't gone down well, but with out anyone to keep the warehouse under control, halloween and christmas promotions coming through en masse and a change of regular promotions happening this weekend a flock of headless chickens would have offered a picture of orderliness compared with what we've had on display in our particular barn yard.

And everyone is blaming everyone else.

I really must look further into this job I've been invited to apply for.

Smoke gets in your clothes...

Within five minutes for arriving at work today I'd drafted the opening line of this post: "Stumped up to be confronted by Yoda and the Big Swinging Dick doing a sick-making double act..."

but I mustn't be mean to the BSD. I must be NICE to the BSD because the feed back following our brace of excursions to the big smoke continues to be very very positive and a glimmer of hope might just reside there in.

I've given him serious amounts of kudos and he KNOWS it because I can do things that he can't. He can do lots of things I can't (like remember and retell really filthy jokes, but that's another story) but he lacks the polish that comes of being a senior manager within a global management consultancy who might be asked at a few hours notice to turn up in the office of some SERIOUS City of London heavy weight and interview him (or her? don't make me fucking laugh) from a position of strength or at least credibility.

It is an act but not one that everyone can pull off. I did. For years. And I still have it, too. I can't do the ducking and diving that he can, or at least I can't do it as well as he can.

The two skills are not necessarily mutually exclusive, in fact I can think of some slimy shit bags who were working my side of the fence when I was in the city who would leave him eating their slime trail any day. But I don't have it. That's why I only made it as high up the food chain and went when I did. I didn't complain then, I'm not complaining now. I don't want to have what it would have taken. Simple really.

Ours has the makings of what is known in the trade as a symbiotic relationship. But that entails me getting something out of it, too. So far all I've got is respect, but that's more than I've hitherto enjoyed.

So I'm basking in that faintly golden glow and struggling to keep the contents of my stomach in at the same time. Thank God it really is true that women can multi-task.

Mind you, this was the height of today's demands on me. Even dealing with the fact that Darryl the Dick Fiddler's formerly gorgeous older brother has totally outgrown his looks and is now of deeply weird mien. How sad. He's only a boy still. He's got an entire life to get through looking like that.

And Jack the Lad is getting all hairy, which is slightly icky. I'm developing a crush on Carl "shocking" Hot But Dim, and the worst of it is that The Paper Shuffler in Chief fancies him too. I might need a lie down and some serious medication. Carl suggested that I needed to "chill, smoke something". Perhaps he's not as dim as most people suggest.

Blah, blah. More of the same. Bolshie Book Worm took over in the afternoon. Senior Frustrated Novelist was my side kick.

Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here. Dismal customers, plenty of WAFIs about.

Summer started three days ago but it probably won't last long. It will, after all, be September before the end of the week. Today we had the first and probably final barbecue of the year. How sad is that. Loads of lovely beer (oh, didn't I mention I'd fallen off the wagon and landed with a hell of a thud?). How did I leave that bit out? How naughty of me.

Apart from the bread and the meat the ingredients were all picked from the garden in which we cooked and ate, as required. That's something. Nowt fresher than the spuds the offspring grubbed, the 'rots she pulled, the beans she plucked.

Genius. My clothes stink of smoke, of course. Small price to pay. Now two evening shifts and a morning shift and an evening shift and ... I can't see any writing being done between now and next Sunday. Not even in my head.

Shit.

Bad Girl (sack me please)

I could do with doing something else. My job bores me witless. I know someone has to do it. Some people are born to do it. My immediate supervisor simply adores her job which is a glorified and slightly better paid version of my job. She's one of those people who lives to work. Her job and employer are just about the sum total of her life now her kids have left secondary school.

She's been at her kitchen table drafting Christmas schedules this week. She's happier than a pig in shit counting in boxes of pen and rationing paper clips.

If there were a better job in this town, if I weren't too poor to run a car, if I had indefinite leave to remain and could actually apply for a permanent post rather than a fixed term post then I would. If I could ditch the shit bag husband and the mountains of crap he insists on having in our tiny house... If. What a great big word.

Well today wasn't a day like most days. The Big Swinging Dick and I went off on another tour of the county. We left early so that BSD could get in a little shopping (a belated birthday present for the Handmaiden being required). He was in good form, and as this was our second "date" we were a little more relaxed in the company of one another. He's amazingly comfortable talking about the difficulties in his marriage, but also intriguingly expectant that he and Mrs BSD will be together in retirement OopNorth.

Probably what ever is going on between he BSD and the HM, if indeed anything is going on, is nothing more than an elegant bit of R&R. But most people are convinced that theirs is one long and unremitting shag fest or that nothing s going on but the BSD is nevertheless totally in thrall to the Hand Maiden's pert rear end.

Any hoo, we nattered about this and that, found common ground in despising Dubya and reluctantly agreeing that in certain lights such as the current one Reagan doesn't look so bad. Neither of us is terribly keen on God Botherers of any faith or denomination and look on in despair at the contortions Homo Sapiens Sapiens tends to perform over a turn of phrase or the meaning of a word, and the resultant mess that always ensues.

Apart from one short outburst on the motorway his leaden foot was kept under control and there were, obviously since I'm typing this out, no mishaps. The meeting itself went as smoothly as expected. Since we were there to deliver chastisement rather than dismissal and the girl herself has been proactive in getting the help she so clearly and desperately stands in need of the atmosphere was lighter and we all ended up hoping the best for one another.

On the way out of town I confided child care problems to BSD (looming this Sat., pm when we're both expected to be working) and he's agreed that the offspring can sit upstairs and run (for that is what the little bossy boots will undoubtedly do) the staff canteen. The staff currently think Pea Brain a tough task master. They've not seen anything yet.

My Feral Pig isn't the least bit grateful that I've sorted things out but I have my own special form of revenge for that in store. I've been keeping an eye on my calendar and I am going to be absolutely full of PMT right about Sunday evening.

I had to say something because I failed yet again to get myself sacked from my dismal job. I failed to send off an order yesterday evening which ought in my book be sackable offence. No such fucking luck. In fact no one said a word.

Must try harder next time. Perhaps if I emptied the safe? No, that won't work. I just want to be sacked, not shipped off to prison.

Any suggestions for where the middle ground might lie?

Evidence that I, too, am a moron

Apart from making the marriage from hell?

Further evidence necessary?

Dead end job: hateful colleagues, stupid customers, lousy pay, patronising management, decrepit infrastructure.

What in God's name possessed me to volunteer to Give Up Three Days Of My Fortnight Of Annual Leave In August To Be Trained In Yet Another Aspect Of My Dead End Job.

What an IDIOT!

Poor sod

One of our least popular employees is on his way out. He's off to another employer, one we know to be a lot tougher than us and we all confidently expect him to fall flat on his face. He's fat and hopeless, he's fussy, fixates on all the wrong things, and utterly useless at anything he's ever asked to do (or he takes far to long to do a good job).

Recently he's been responsible for a section and making a complete hash of it. I know that this is true. So does my boss.

I heard her today, discussing him with someone at her own level and in the presence of someone else at my level [we're rather hierarchical here]. Blah, blah, blah, how she's worked that section behind him and can't wait to see the back of him, he was given that section by the GM as an opportunity to prove himself. He's failed. Good ridance.

Later this evening I was called out to a pricing problem. A customer had produced two items believing them to be 'on offer'. Since she'd paid for goods we didn't need to hold people up. She and I walked back into the relevant section and there was the shelf talker promoting the the offer. Except that the offer expired exactly one month ago.

I honoured it as I should and felt sheepish for the rest of the night. We're all human. We all make mistakes.