Last week at work was just one of those weeks that I SO don�t want to have to repeat. It had flashes of stuff which might have been considered interesting, had they not been utterly, utterly boring. My boss was on holiday last week so she�d given me a whole load of projects to work on before she went and, of course, I gave her my assurances that they would all be done by the time she got back (today!). They were all pretty much do-able but I had reckoned without the many and varied forces against me the whole damn week.
Forces that drove me to a string of twelve-hour working days and weeping with frustration in the car on the way home. Forces that caused me to look more and more like the late great Paula Yates with every passing day. By Wednesday I had forty-seven coats of mascara on and had abandoned stocking-wearing as too time consuming. Thursday, I tried to distract onlookers from my ghostly pallor and unwashed hair by wearing lots of jangly jewellery and sequinned shoes. Friday � I gave up. I wore a flowery cocktail dress to work, drank two pots of coffee before lunchtime, sat on the lap of BBBM�s son (for a little cuddle) and had a really big ice-cream for lunch as I didn�t have time to go out and get a sandwich and the ice-cream van turned up at the office just as I was about to faint with hunger.
I didn�t puke in my handbag at ALL but I did stagger around the house several nights in a row, kicking off my work shoes and pouring whisky down my neck with equal skill and speed. We lived on takeaways for the whole week (which is just as well as we�ve had no gas since Wednesday night, but that�s a different story!).
The main reason for my slide into gibbering wreckdom was a Senior Marketing Exec who really needs to be doing nothing more taxing with her working day than saying "D�you want fries with that?� Instead she is charged with producing our company magazine. If (and it�s a BIG if), she were able to draw a picture of some men hunting a deer with spears, by dipping a pointed stick in her own pooh and daubing the walls of her office, she would JUST attain the journalistic skills of the early cave dwellers (ie not a great deal of attention to the written word per se, but at least we�d know what she was trying to convey). Sadly, I do believe the stick/pooh/office wall combo would prove too much for her.
This singular lack of talent/skill/knowledge of English does nothing to dampen her firmly held belief that she is God�s gift to industry journalism.
I had been charged, in boss lady�s absence, to "proof" the articles she was producing. As I understand it, "proofing,� means checking for typos, grammatical slip-ups and factual inaccuracies. At least, I�m pretty sure it�s not the same as "radical re-write to prevent us being the laughing stock of the industry". My daughters (including the seven-year-old) could write more incisive commentary.
When I questioned her on it, she said she had better things to do than "worry about a few typos" and told me not to concern myself with it. I outrank her. I�ve been with the company for four years. I know my industry. And, despite all evidence to the contrary �round these parts, I can write proper grown up English writing. That�s why I get lumbered with loads of projects that involve enormous written reports.
I proofed corrected her articles in red pen. With notes in the margin. Mercifully for her I resisted the urge to give her a grade. I emailed Boss Lady. I expressed my "grave concern" at the standard of written work being produced by somebody who purports to have ten years marketing experience and made a recommendation that her work be proofed at first draft stage, ie LONG before it gets anywhere near the bloody typesetters. Then I went and said the same thing to Toast.
I submitted my own article � an interview with two clients � to Toast, who said it was "excellent". I copied it to Boss Lady and emailed it to the stupid marketing tart with a note saying, "Toast has already OK�d this, no need to edit".
Then I switched my computer off and went home COS I�M ON HOLIDAY FOR TWO WEEKS!
How cool is THAT!
I really really truly cannot remember the last time I had two whole weeks off work.
Mind you, it hasn�t started particularly well. Saturday was Lovely Slavey�s birthday so we were invited round for a wee party. During the day I�d had to take a bed round to the dump and pick up a new one from my parents. I�d done the grocery shopping and had been out in the front garden, shifting concrete blocks and playing at being a builder. One of my main duties was to check each concrete block for spiders as Pete (our BIGGEST builder) is terrified of them and screams like a big girl whenever he sees one. It would be comical if it weren�t so tragic. I can carry two concrete blocks. BF can carry three. Pete can carry four and can THROW THEM IN THE AIR if he thinks a spider has crawled down his back or is in his hair or might be about to do either of those things. Building sites are dangerous places, boys and girls. There is a real and present danger that you will be hit on the head by a flying concrete block or trampled underfoot by a large screaming girlie builder shrieking "Fucking Hell! Fucking Hell! That one was as big as a TRANCH-LEE-UR!"
I was very kind and checked each block, brushing off not only spiders but also woodlice, earwigs and anything else with too many legs and an exo-skellington.
It was incredibly hot on Saturday so, as I was wearing a vest, I went to find some kind of sun protection. There was a big bottle of factor 15 in the bathroom. I couldn�t remember buying it (especially as we haven�t been anywhere good on holiday for YEARS), but I still slathered it on. On my arms, my back, my chest, my face. I burn easily. These things are important.
Had a quick shower before going round to Slavey�s house. Scoffed a load of lovely family scoff, drank huge amounts of JD as I had to drink, not only for me but also for Slavey (who is pregnant) and for Michelle (who has just had a baby). It was the least I could do.
About 9 o�clock, I started to feel a bit itchy. By 10, I was scratching in a most unladylike manner. Scratching my face, my arms, my neck. By the time we got home, I was running to the shower, begging BF to help because I was "ITCHY! REALLY ITCHY!"
Ladies and gentlemen. Suntan lotion has an expiry date. It has an expiry date FOR A REASON. The reason being, once it reaches its expiry date (and especially 18 months AFTER that date has passed), it will still protect you from sunburn, but will also give you a vicious and all-encompassing itchy rash all over your body and will cause your face to swell up, be red hot and feel like someone has stapled slabs of medium rare steak to it.
The puffy purple eye-bags caused even Hywel Bennett (he was just passing, get over it), to wince and go "Fucking hell, Stepfie, you look rough!"
Several (like, 40!) applications of eye gel and the swelling had gone down enough for me to look in the mirror without crying but, get THIS, the face which looked back at me was my Married Face! How weird is that! I was about 20 lbs heavier towards the end of my marriage and, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that the extra weight didn�t really suit me. The residual rough-as-a-bear�s-arse-ness from the Week That Satan Made, mixed with the big puff-head and the rash and the Hair by Bart all combined into a great big I AM NOT LEAVING THE FUCKING HOUSE!
Well, not til it was dark anyway!
Most of the swelling�s gone down now but I�m still itchy as hell, despite a couple of pints of Piriton.
One of the neighbour�s has complained about the noise from our building works so we�ve had Environmental Health round today. They were as nice as pie and do seem to appreciate that it isn�t really possible to use a digger and dump truck silently ferchristsake! We have agreed not to do any (noisy) work on Sundays or after 1pm on Saturdays so we hope that will shut the woman up. The thing is, the weather�s really been against us for the beginning part of the build so we�ve had to condense the noisy bit into a really short space of time. With any luck, all the digging and concrete lifting and noisy bastard-ness will be over by the end of this week. That�s the trouble with living in a nice quiet (ie 90% retired people) street. The bastards are in all day, with nothing better to do than twitch their net curtains and tut-tut.
As we aren�t actually going on holiday anywhere (did I mention that I�ve got TWO WEEKS OFF!!!!!), I�d welcome suggestions of nice days out. Preferably within a couple of hours drive of the south coast. Of course, if the weather picks up a little bit I�m just gonna go to the beach every day.
Hmmm. Think I�d better get me some new suntan lotion!
later
s
x
PS There�s loads of new pictures to upload to the other diary, but I haven�t got time to do it now. Will let you know when there�s something new over there.
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