Office Boobs

I’ve kept mine discreetly hidden up to now but, in the spirit of Christmas, I have decided to expose them. For those of you wishing to climb the corporate ladder, I give you these offerings which go some way in explaining why I was firmly stuck, part-time, on the bottom rung.

Office Dos

Do acquaint yourself with the mute button on your phone, before referring to the caller as ‘a real pillock’ to the PA next to you.

Here’s a really useful tip in time for the party season where you may have a stash of booze to store before the evening kicks off. To avoid the attentions of the sales department, put the bottles in a box marked, prominently with felt pen, ‘Annual Reports’. You’re then guaranteed that no one will go near them. 

Office Don'ts

Do not, after a night out celebrating your birthday at Le Gavroche, come into work the next morning with champagne still coursing through your veins. Losing one’s step on the vertiginous stairs, overlooked on all sides by glass in an open plan office and ending up flat on one’s face, is not a good look.  Handing out, like some Marie Antoinette, last night’s petit fours, brought packed in a posh gold box, can, however, mitigate the situation.

Do not mix up e-mail addresses and send the highly confidential itinerary of one director’s forthcoming visit to Israel to the other director’s, equally confidential, life coach.

Do not, under direction from your director to locate an item left behind in a hotel in Bratislava, ring him at the airport shouting excitedly down the phone, ‘Steve, I’ve found your Canali trousers’, in an open plan office.

Do not, when your director wishes to tell you, confidentially, of an office scandal which he has to deal with, frighten him by pulling him into the post room (because you know the door code) when no other rooms are available, to emerge looking shifty and possibly give cause to gossip and an even greater scandal then the one he was telling you of.

Do not, out of pique, as you were not invited, schedule your director’s Christmas dinner with his managers in everyone’s diaries for February.

Here’s one I didn’t do.

The manufacturing company I worked for was awaiting a visit from Chairman to celebrate the fact that they were voted no 2 in Europe. A bright spark arranged the printing of a special message on balloons festooned around the office for the event. The company motto was –‘Ovonet- for those who do.’
The balloons appeared with these words emblazoned on them-

Ovonet

For those who do-

No 2!

Luckily, Chairman was from Korea.

Merry Christmas, Nadolig Llawen, Froehliche Weihnachten , 圣诞节快乐
Shèngdàn jié kuàilè  to you all and thank you for reading!

Cold Calling and Warm Writing

Caught another one today.

 Ring, ring...

‘Hello, is that Mrs G?’

‘It depends, who is calling?’

‘Good evening Ma’am, this is Roger from Insurance X, I’m not here to sell you...’

‘I’m afraid Mrs G is not at home’.

‘Who am I talking to then?’

‘I’m the cleaner’.

‘You don’t sound like a cleaner’.

‘I’m a very well educated cleaner, with lots of dusting still to be done, goodbye.’

‘Ha ha ha, have a nice evening Mrs G.’

Well, at least I gave him a laugh.

I have a repertoire of personas for this type of cold call. There’s the ‘You have a problem with your computer ‘call.

‘Let me put you through to Granny, she deals with Microsoft problems, but you’ll have to speak up’.

I then, childishly, leave the phone off the hook and giggle as I hear their voice speaking louder, to no one.
I once had a heavy breather. Boy, was he unlucky to choose the loudest alto in the local choral society. Breathing in deeply to my vast pair of lungs (confirmed in X-ray by a German doctor once) I screamed my top note, fortissimo. The reverberations shook me to the core; God knows what it did to his eardrums.

Now, where was I going with this?

Oh, yes. It’s easy to speak or twitter on the phone. Writing things and thoughts down is altogether another matter.

If you say something daft and other people remind you of it, you can always plead ‘I don’t remember saying that exactly. I must have been pissed?’

But if you write it down, it’s there for eternity.

Sometimes, what might seem witty, pertinent and deep after a few glasses of wine turns out to be clichéd and shallow in the cold light of morning. I was astounded to learn that Phillip Pullman, amongst others, rewrote his entire trilogy, having changed his mind overnight.

It’s not easy to express and expose yourself, to other people, in your writing. You sit there, tense, waiting for ‘The Verdict’ .Lapses of grammar or spelling are OK because they can easily be corrected, but if your work fails to connect, then the criticism can cut to the quick. Words need to elicit warmth from the reader; warmth of meaning, warmth of expression.

Comedy/memoirs/stories, all kinds of writing,need to connect with and engage the reader.

If not, like strangers calling with falsehoods and a clichéd script that oozes insincerity, they just leave you cold.