like raii-aiin on yer wedding day

I was having a bit of a (very) guarded chit-chat with Fluffy as to how i'd been in contact with an ancient client of ours, when one of our training managers popped his head around the door to say hello

As an offside, i just kind of mentioned to him that company 'X' was more than likely to be 'back on the books' as we say, and that he should be/would be/ought to be pretty much into being associated with our thang ...

'That's just soo ironic, when i first came to France they were just pulling out' came his reply

Ehh Quoi ? Kesispass ?

It transpires, that me be being willingly, concsiously unaware of what's going on, had just discovered that the guy has called it quits - he's going back home to blighty !!

WuckmeFackwards and stone the crows

We've just lost someone with a wealth of knowledge and experience

A huge blow to all of us

and Fluffy
could'nt
give
a flying
kfu
what an absolute arsehole

Baby it's cold outside

Fluffy is the most fourbiest , serviliest of dirtiest of bastards that i have ever, in all of my short life, have had the misfortune of working with ...

Recently, he's taken to 'informing' (upon) us the state of play as to the year on year perf, the provision for the next week and ... "Mr X and Mrs Y are starting tomorrow, have you done a+b+c .."

Really, as if we're a bunch of juvenile, greenhorn assholes
Please

I'll just gloss over his latest brainwave that we should all allocate AT LEAST one hour a day to prospect for new clients (!)

Absolutely brilliant !!

The thing is though, that he's been including all of WorldCorpIncompetent.fr in copy

As in, 'LOOK, LOOOOOOK IT'S THE OTHERS THAT ARE FKING THINGS UP, NOT MEEEEEE'

I'm just dying with impatience to be called before the 'board' (or the bored) to explain why i don't have time to do anything other than my 'normal' job

By precaution, i've had to start keeping a daily and minuted sheet of 'How i spend my days at WorldCorpSweatshop' just in case in have to go to the prud'homme

That would be a good one ;)

However, on a brighter note, my sexy headhuntress from last week has promised to help me 'more' than just career orientation ...

If one were to judge by the content of the flurry of e-mails sent out today, then it would be safe to say that Fluffy's having a bit of a nervous breakdown ... mind you, the pulsing vein thing on the side of his heed is a dead give away for starters

As it is, i'm pretty much past caring

Be-cause : i've been hitting it off recently with some pretty groovy people who could, quite possibly and realisticaly, be lending me a helping hand in getting out of this hell hole ...

Most notably, a pretty hot looking headhuntress, who i'll be sending a mail to in the next few minutes and the France/Brazil football be damned ;@)

Il est 5 heures ...

So, then, D-day minus one

The gossip machine in WorldCorp has gone into overdrive

Everyone and his dog wants to know :
Where is Fuffy?
How is it that Fuff isn't going to to the AGM ?
What's the Fuffster up to !?!

I've been fielding calls all day

Even our head trainers have been grumbling into their gruel :
Fluffalini could've shortened his week off and turned up unexpected
(me: yeah, right ... do you get to see many flying pigs in your part of the world ??)

I can't say that i'm 'dreading' two days of being in the stocks, because it's not as though i have anything to answer for

What does bug me though, is that as the 'senior representative' (pouahahhahah) of the microcosme of my bit of WC, i'm at risk of taking a bit of flak ...

If i don't want to go down with the Titanic, i'm going to have to talk to G.O.D about moving on...

Ca craint

:/

Well i wonder ...

For years now, we've been looking to move out of our offices
and this or many reasons

The rent is sky high,
The owners don't look after the premises :
No climatisation in the summer,
Bad heating in the winter and ...
flooding when it rains

Also, because we're not conforming to certain 'norms'
We make no allowances for physically challenged people
as but one example

FloweryTwats HQ tasked someone to find us a new abode
and, well, let's be honest, much unlike the goldilocks theory
or even the Midas touch in reverse
he only bumbled his way into buildings that were either
'too much this', 'not enough that'
but were certainly nowhere near
'just right'

In sum : a hare brained, wild goose chase of a waste of time

Why do i think of this ?

Because ....

I spent time today going over our sales results
(the 'why bother' is for later)
and realised that Fluffy has been on a downhill slide
and this, pretty much ever since he took over from MissusBossWoman

Then i got to thinking and came up with a few ideas :

Idea 1)
Perhaps he's just generally useless :
A bit of an old chancer
Who's managed to blag his way around thus far
But is starting to be found out

Hence the major freak-out last week

Idea 2)
He read the 'How to be a Manager for idiots' book at christmas.
But skipped the chapters covering :
'Leading by example',
'Monitoring only that which is worth mointoring',
'Setting attainable and realistic goals'

but did, however, attentively read the one about
'delegating' ...

Boy, he must have read and re-read that one
Perhaps it's his piece of loo reading material of choice

Whatever the case,
All of it has come back to painfully bite him on the arse

Hence the major freak-out last week

Idea c)
He's a stooge :
He's been sent in to do
what the bumblefuck from IvoryTowers can't

If we're unable to relocate,
then what the hell,
let's close down

No need to move, then, as the office has now become unviable
Once closed down, HQ can offer employees the choice of :
redundancy or moving to a new office

An office at an unfeasibly long distance away from home
'What the hey, they've signed off on the mobility clause'

Perhaps i've been unwittingly carrying on as normal
and have proven that ...

Holy shit batman
We can actually do good business here !!!

Hence last weeks' mega freak-out

Hmm

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

For years, i've managed to 'abstract' from being a year older :

"Whaddya want for your bir-th-day ?"
"Nothing ...
not today ...
it's all an untruth ..
i was born on a 29th of february"

"Mais non, mais ....."

"No, really,
.. it just didn't happen"

No-one wants to be reminded that they're a year nearer to hell
(oi baint be goin' to hebben, fer shure)

Nor to think that they've wasted another godforsaken year
doing a godforsaken job that they don't want to do,
surrounded with people that they don't want to be with

Sad
but true

Anyhow, for all these years, i've done everything to avoid thinking about the year past and all the things that i should've / could've/ shouldn't have done ...

It's not as though i wake up thinking 'whooo hooo it's my birthd .. nooo don't go there, don't do it ... where the scotch'
glugglug

But it just doesn't even register anymore
I've really and truly managed to forget

until ...
last monday morning

Wherupon i arrived at work to greeted with a chorous of
"Happy birthdaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to yooooooooo"

Fluffy le perfid avait vendu la meche

"How many years old is that now ?"

and

"We would've bought a cake, but you know ... what with the number of candles that we'd've needed ... the fire brigade would've been working overtime"

Ha fuckin ha, bastards !!!!!!!!!!!

The secret is out,
by foul means

Grrrrrrrrrrrr

What a sad old start to the year :
Pete Postlethwaite, Mick Karn and Gerry Rafferty all passing on at a young age

Three people who were all part of my growing up for goodness sake

I can't help but wonder who's next on the hit list ?

I won't be tempting fate, but there are sooo many people, so many 'icons' that've all had a good innnings

Aand quite a few that kinda make me think ''how in the hell is that one still alive to tell the tale ?''

Is TwentyEleven going to be a bumper harvest for the Grim Reaper ...

God, i've been so wrapped up in 'things' that i've had no time to myself since the start of the year ...

Not a big change for me personally, even if i'm ptretty much resigned to changing jobs

When i'm arranging business lunches with my fave decideurs i often ask (less than half jokingly) if i should bring my cv with me

No shame, no gain as we could say
______________________________

A quick run down as to my daily 'shit 'n' stuff' then :

Fluffy (the boss) and Marge (Madame AccountsLadyfromHell) are still betwixt and betwined in a symbiotic 'everything is a cat.a.strophe' realtionship wherein as soon as Marge says that the sky's 'a' fallin', Fluffy has a huuuuuuuuge panic attack and scuttles, stresses the bejeebers out of everyone and subsequently twats his back, has to go for either a lie down/visit to his back doctor or *plooof* dissapears

All in all , he's as much use as a ... a .. a .. useless thing in any fucked up situation

I've worked with quite a few managers in my short life, but well .. y'know

He sure as hell couldn't manage an orgy in a brothel ...

But still, that's only my opinion

BonneàRien (the other 'Commercial' chick) is soooooooooooo useless that the key accounts that she was given on a gilded platter (by the ex MissusBossWoman, no less) has managed to fuck them all up and has lost us about 50K€ so far this year

Nobody says a thing

BoyIdiot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes him !!!!

He of the garish dress sense

Managed to be whiningly promoted/ invited to/shoved his fat ass over to another office as manager

Has settled into his role of 'MiniBigBoss' and is quite happy whiling away his days doing less than fuck all whilst getting paid for it

Me ?

Who me ?
Nahhh
Nothing really new

Just keeping my head down, underneath the parapet, plugging away
Busy signing up your average, run of the mill, god of war and nation builder
The odd Arabian prince or two
A cratefull of Leggy and lonesome french women who really should know better

Things could be worse

:)

Ahhhhh, am a maaaa-aaan of constant sorrow

The train service to Paris from Versailles used to be impecable - no delays, no cancellations no 'wrong snow' on the tracks

Since i've moved back here, i've found that things have really gone downhill dramatically.

It's a rare thing for me to arrive at the office before nine fortyfiveish aven though i still leave home at about eight twenty

Things came a bit of head this week when Fluffy, in his passive-agressive-embarrased way of doing things, said to me, "well, you know, , it's just one of the parametres that one has to take into account for when one lives in the suburbs. Perhaps you could try leaving earlier ..."

I didn't get into the one about how out of me, him and BonneàRien only one of us does a full days work and keeps the office in profit ...

That would be really looking for trouble kids !

So, i've decided that until the day i leave :

I'm going to throw myself
Headlong
Into what needs to be done

With no stopping

so that,
the day,

Flies buy

All behind
a firmly.
closed.
office.
door.

Enough

Say hello, wave goodbye

The new 'decennie' is well under way with only the fag-end, soggy-tailed remains of the crisis to remind us of the noughties

WorldCorp hasn't (yet) disappeared up and into it's own nether regions, BoyIdiot has seemingly settled down to his new post and has apparently rekindled his moderately stiffled addiction to the super duper mechanically rendered meat with mega fries menu

Me ?

I'm okay, still doing the bizz, still hanging on in there; but seriously starting to look for an 'adult' type job

"Hey what do you wanna do when you grow up ?"
"I wanna sit in an office all day long, hitting F2 and F3 on my computer, then go to lunch at Mc Slurry's"

And what happened to being an astronaut ?
A fireman ?
A pilot ?

There's been a bit of 'riffifi' as they say ...

BoyIdiot has been promoted

Yup !!!

The idiot one has moved up that geasy pole of WorldCorpTM

Well, if truth be held, it's somewhat hard to say if he's been promoted, moved sideways or dropped in the brown and smelly stuff

Given that he's been the deputy manager for years at our office, it's natural to assume that one day he'd be given real, life 'n' death, make it or break it, responsabilities

As of monday next, he's going to be running his own particle of the company

He didn't ask to be moved, but it's been an open secret for months that someone is leaving and it's my guess that IvoryTowers decided that they needed a buffoon to run the place into the ground

BoyIdiot had the short straw drawn for him

The rest of us are all quaking in our boots, keeping our heads down under the parapet and singing "oh oh oh what a luverly warrrrrrr"

Todays stats :

N° of e-mails that i've kind of overlooked and will reply to "later" : 20 +/-
N° of said e-mails that will probably disappear into the spam box : 19
N° of bonkers trainees sending mails to head office : 1
N° of replies from head office to bonkers trainee : 0

N° of married trainees giving me the come on : 1
N° of jail-bait trainees getting a bit too fruity :1

N° of people i'm interviewing tomorrow : 5

% of time spent playing on-line games : 80

There's a fair bit of stressedoutness going on at WorldCorp just now,what with the end of timesthe year with it's usual lot of end of year training projects to set up, last years' figures to catch up on aaaannd ...

.... and a new all-improved management checklist that Fluffy has to scrupulously fill out at the end of each month

One protocole out of many that Fluffy is having kittens about concerns non-conformity of the decor : all non WorldCorp paraphenalia is henceforth banned

Lordy,What's he going to do for Christmas decorations if he risks being sanctioned for turning the place into a tacky looking gin palace ?

This tooooooown is comin' like a ghost town ....

Cor blimey, i got into work this morning to discover that the place hadn't been unexpectedly quarantined, but transformed ...

Transformed into a fiesta of orange and black tinsel

Imagine what would've happened if Quentin Crisp had met Karl Lagerfeld :

Karl : I vant haloveen to be heppy, i vont to see happy fesses who lite up, not ze glum, gotic depresedness offf otum, i vont lite to be let to ze darkness, i vont zelebration, i vont blick to be replaceted wiff wyte

Quentin : Leave it all to me my little darlin'

And *hop* as if my magic, my humdrum corner of WorldCorp has been turned into a strange, hybrid mix, of a filthy minded Santa's grotto crossed with Dante's inferno and revisited by Babara Cartland ...

I know, very difficult to imagine, but ... that's where it's at

Phrase du jour qui tue :

"Bahhn oui ehh, je prends ma journée demain. Parce que moi, je fais partie de ceux qui on reservé leur billet pour le premier jour de 'Zis Is zit'. Une heure, cinquante quatre minutes de bonheur"

Bien entendu, ça vient du BoyIdiot

Money, its a crime...share it fairly but dont take a slice of my pie

Things are a bit heavy at work right now for different reasons

Firstly, and somewhat evidently, i'm still in the middle of my debt collecting which leaves me little time for much else

Fluffy's boss came in today for an un announced flying visit : so unannounced, that Fluffy was 'out' and i was the only body in the office (ooer, i thought)

"How's things ? What're the figures like ? What've you been upto ?"

(oooooo fuck)

" Euhhhh .... hang on, we'll check the figures together"

I got into our tracking system and hit F2 and F3 (i didn't get 'A' levels in computer programming for nothing i joke) and .....

.... fuck me blind, i thought: Fluffster has billed the equivalent of one training course at a rebate, BoyEejit is on minus figures, BonneARien has billed half as much as Fluffy

Right now, i'm the only one who's almost keeping our corner of WorldCorp a-float...

oooo double fuck, i'm thinking

'Hmmm' said the flaxen haired emissary from IvoryTowers

'And your own projection for the month ? '

'Bahhhn .. we're halfway through, we've got a day's less trade than last year ... i'm aiming to add on another 50K€"

"Hmmm" says Rapunzel, ominously "D'you have anything in the pipeline ?"

"In fact, actually ...."

" In fact, actually ....."
_______________

A quick flash back to my week so far

Two very early starts and late finishes : yesterday out interviewing people, back to the office at about two in the afternoon, financial proposal made out (which was just a formality as the deal had already been done and dusted) and invoiced at the same time

Today (which was, at first glance, easy peasy) : a quick hit with three interviews, a feedback session and an exposé as to how WorldCorp (me) could intervene - i finished up seeing a group of head honchos who wanted to know if/how we/i could 'invent' something just for them .... euhh ... *scritt scritt scritt* :'oui', i stupidly replied ...

Back to the office this afternoon, only to find another offer to tender waiting for me (noooooooooooooooo, fuck meeeeeeeeeeeee), this time for a major retailer - why do these people ask for me by name ?

My 50K€ is already there

Next monday i should get a result from the biggie (90K€)

Stone the crows and *fuck me sideways, as they say ...

WorldCorp has gone into full blown flu alert of the pig/chicken/donkey variety

Today, we were delivered with three dozen, highly conspicuous and hospitaly looking, white disposal bins for ditching used and scummy old snot rags

As far as i know, nobody has actually gone down with the plague, but it seems that the powers that be in VeryTwotsfromRio (IvoryTowers) are playing it safe and have invested our end-of-year bonus in Armageddon army surplus stuff

We're still waiting for the special hand wash cream that must be kept upon our person 'at all time', under pain of ostracism or at worst, tea making duty until quarantine has been decreed over

Aaaaand, we're all going to have our own private stock of face masks : my demand for a ÜS special forces GBW model (in air force camoflage colours) has so far recieved a stony silence from the HR department

It's also been deemed inacceptable to indulge in the highly suspect ritual of doing the 'bises' in the morning (the idiot one'll be snookered there, then) whereas the idea of shaking hands being strictly verboten has yet to be taken up

Interestingly enough, no word has been said about being vaccinated - neither up the nose nor in any other bodily cavity

Hopefully FluffyTheBoss won't be deputised for that ungreatful chore, although BoyIdiot could very well volonteer for the very suspect pleasure

We're pretty much set for the sky to fall on our heads

*Or any ways, i says :p

Much to my chagrin, i'm having to work with Marge, the accounts lady from hell

Incidently, Marge is a smoker
Well, not really a 'smoker' as such, it's more like; she lights up a ciggy, takes one hoover sized puff and it's all gone : yes really !

Less than a minute later and her nicotine fix is ... euhh... well .. fixed

Anyhow, i'm smack bang in the middle of hastling my bad debt clients and am doing my best to alert the buggers that we need paying.

I generally scan the whole file, send it by e-mail then phone the Shylock who holds the purse strings

Marge is pas du tout d'accord with this way of doing things : she finds it toooooooooooooo slow : 'I'll phone 'em, tell 'em to pay up or else'

As avowedly undiplomatic and non psychologique as she admits to being, she just can't get her head around the idea, that if we manage to get the dosh in without getting peoples' backs up, we just might be able to get the bills paid and retain the client

Sparks is a flyin'

And i really must find a new job

The beautiful weather is still holding out - to think that autumn has officialy started and yet we're still hitting the mid twenties in the afternoons in Paname

I really hope it lasts through to the weekend

I scraped through, just in time, with the call to tender which i've been slogging over for the last week or so (fingers, toes and legs crossed for the outcome)

So although i can see some light, i'm now playing catch up with other, sometimes irate, clients that i've had to ignore these past few days

Not to mention Marge who keeps hastling me about my nonpayers ...

Aaaand Fluffy who's having to do some real work, without any input from the absent BoyIdiot

I'm well aware that BoyIdiot, for all of his faults, can sometimes be the laziest of lazy bastards to have ever lived

Even so, this week he has really upped the anté big time and taken the idea of absolute nothingness to somewhere where even Lao Tzu wouldn't be wanting to go

The telephones could be ringing themselves into a frenzy, WorldCorp could be going up in flames or a troop of Playmates, wearing nothing other than gummy smiles, could come charging through the corridor ... whatever ... the IdiotOne would still be standing by the coffee machine, nursing his goblet of ice tea

Evidently and to no avail, i've made remarks about being the only monkey in the place, shaking the tree and picking up nuts ...

He's of on his hols as from next week - probably to stay at home and watch was happening on his ceiling

I'm very seriously, really seriously, thinking about hiding half a kilo of raw prawns somewhere behind his filing cabinet ...