Supervisor Steve and Sanitary Bins

You may be aware that my supervisor Steve is the funniest man ever to have walked the land. I would very much like to give him his own television show but as I am in no position to do such a thing he remains Head of Despatch at our postproduction company. Here are some of his antics in the last week or so…

On Thursday last week Mike had a bit of milk left in the bottle once he’d used the rest for his cereal so he asked Steve if he wanted to drink it as he tends to enjoy our dregs. On taking a sip Steve stated seriously, ‘God, that milk’s cold. I can feel it entering my lower colon.’ If this wasn’t amusing enough he went on to say, ‘I can feel it rushing past my appendix.’ I was laughing so hard at his deadpan expression and choice of internal organs that saliva nearly fell out of my mouth. On typing this up the hysterics began again so I’ll be sure to read this little paragraph if I’m ever feeling miserable.

The same day our other supervisor Jack had a clear up of his desk area, which inspired me to do the same as I’m a bit of a scrap-paper fiend. On sorting through my pile of paper I came across a poem I wrote about a year ago; in an attempt to get Mike’s comedic juices flowing I'd set us an exercise from the book of a comedy genius whose stand up comedy course I had attended in 2007. The task was to write a love poem written by a sanitary engineer. This is mine:

Love Poem of a Sanitary Engineer (bog fixer, sanitary bin installer/taker awayer)

How I love thee, Sanitary Bin,
Not only your outsides but all that’s within.
The glistening fluid that highlights your grey hair,
Makes me want to stand all day and stare.
I’ve never smelt a smell as sweet,
As the smell that you excrete.
And the way you overflow with love and rose stained strings,
Fills me with desire and makes my heart sing.

Personally I think this is quite good but I feel the title should be something more like Ode to Sanitary Bin. That would be more fitting and romantic.

On Friday Steve used the word gusset twice and said that you can eat pubic crabs if you feed them up enough. I won’t be accepting an invitation to dinner at his house in a hurry.

On Tuesday of this week, after eating two of the brownies I made at the weekend, he declared, ‘She’s good at brownies that go in your mouth and brownies that come out her bum.’ That man has a way with words. I’d go as far as to say he’s the Shakespeare of the 21st century.

On Wednesday however his Shakespearean reputation was in tatters when he insulted me in front of everyone in the office. He was saying that we are all ageist (he is around 50 years old and has a real age complex) and so I took it upon myself to remind him that he could be done for sexual harrassment and weightism, as he’s constantly telling Mike that he’s a fatty, so he has no legs to stand on. We were all laughing about it and having a good time. He said that he wouldn’t call Mike fat if he actually was and then these words came out of his mouth, ‘You don’t hear me saying anything about Sonia’s complexion do you?’ and rather than realising he’d gone a bit too far he continued to go on about my skin and how it makes me have low self esteem. It was word vomit central. I was so shocked I exclaimed, ‘Oh my god, Steve!’ and as I looked at my computer screen tears involuntarily started coming out of my eyes without so much as a facial crumple. I was hurt that he used something against me that he knows I struggle with. I could hear him typing an email straight after and I nearly said, ‘If you’re typing an email to me I wouldn’t waste your time,’ but I didn’t want to seem presumptious. But sure enough I got a new email alert and this is what he’d sent:Sonia - I am a fucking twat.

I didn't mean any of those comments. When I start I do not know when to stop.

You are the last person that I would ever want to hurt.

I am so sorry. Please forgive me.

A few seconds later he came over and said, ‘Did you see my email?’ to which I replied that I was not interested. He kept saying sorry over and over and then proceeded to ask me what I was having for tea. I asked him very politely, ‘Please can you just leave me alone, is that alright?’

The next morning he came straight over to me saying such things as, ‘Are we going to forget about tomorrow?’ (he meant yesterday) and, ‘Just be the bigger person here.’ I went a little bit mad and said, ‘Don’t you dare make me feel bad for something that YOU have said to me,’ and I suggested that he leave things for a while. As a man with a daughter around my age and a wife you’d think he’d know better. You’d be wrong.

Today after a frosty start we are starting to see some sunny intervals and I’m sure come next Monday I’ll be singing his praises and quoting his genius but no doubt he’ll wind me up again with his antagonistic ways some time soon.

All in a (well eight) day’s work.

(Please note that Steve has a Yorkshire accent.)

Steve, Mike and Jack

Hot Cross Nuns

Some time ago, shortly after I began my Facebook ban (it was Saturday 4th April if you like specifics) I spent an hour in the company of a bearded fellow who made me and a couple of his chums some breakfast before pootling off to Bristol leaving us to our own devices. Prior to departing he divulged a piece of information, that in a few months he would be driving to Mongolia. It was an interesting titbit but I thought nothing more of it. Later that day as I dined in Pizza Express with his last remaining friend, who told me of his travels in America and his plan to move to Canada one day, I realised I haven’t actually done a lot with my life, well, where being nomadic is concerned. And yet I consider myself to be a free-spirited sort of person. I remember when I applied to go to uni a friend said they were surprised as they saw me more as a wanderer. I feel I’ve let my inner wanderer down. These thoughts flickered through my mind for the remainder of the meal but all was forgotten once we left and started watching Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

The next day as I walked from my flat to Primark on Oxford Street (doing this on a weekend just shows my state of mind at the time) I spent the entire time working out how I could get to Mongolia in terms of saving up and getting rid of all my crap. I’m not sure I could pay someone to take on my collection of dance-based DVDs and Britney Spears videos. I was working myself into quite an internal frenzy and got a bit of a headache as a result. Never before in my life have I ever thought about Mongolia (apart from when I went through a phase at the age of 14 when I called everyone ‘Mongolian monkfish’ – always been a fan of alliteration) let alone going there which just shows how easily influenced I am, and yet here I was mentally preparing to ‘do one’. That night sleeping was somewhat problematic.

Monday morning came and with it the confirmation that things always feel better in the morning - the urge to go to Mongolia had worn off. After a few hours in the workplace I was on the Internet looking for orphanages in Mongolia that I could help out at. Things may feel better in the morning but they soon sneak up on you after lunch.

Tuesday saw me abandoning Mongolia once more deciding instead that I should move to New Zealand and so I did a bit of visa research. It looks like I’m probably not skilled enough to live there permanently so I’ll have to do a plumbing course or some such thing that I’ve heard guarantees you a place in Antipodean hearts. By the afternoon I was seething due to my ‘training’ being used as an excuse for certain people to give me all the work they can’t be bothered to do themselves. And yes it only means having to watch DVDs all day but I’m learning nothing apart from how to make a dog behave (watch Dog Whisperer for more info) and that one of our clients deal purely in films starring Shelley Winters; that particular day involved her being incestuous with her sons. Lovely.

When I came back upstairs my supervisor Steve had sent me some links for farm jobs as I had been telling him the week before, in another bid for escape, that I was thinking about becoming a farm hand. When 6pm rolled around I called a lady from one of the adverts who was looking for a live-in fence painter/dog looker afterer but I think she was looking for someone a bit more foreign accent rather than merely a Portuguese surname. The position was immediate which didn’t work for me as I’d have to give a month’s notice at work. A couple of hours later and I had a voicemail from the same woman saying she’d been across to see her neighbour who was looking for someone to muck out horses and be a mother’s helper. I’m scared of horses and ‘Mother’s Helper’ is the title of a Point Horror book so I took it as a sign that it probably wasn’t the job for me if staying alive was something I wanted to do. She sounded somewhat hesitant when leaving the voice message as she’d spoken to a English Sonia earlier in the evening and yet had to suffer overexcited Australian Sonia on my answer machine. I’m under the impression she’s probably pleased I didn’t call her back.

I explained my farm based and general agitation situation to my flatmate Halley telling her my nose constantly hurts from London pollution and that I’m in exactly the same position I was in when I first moved to London nearly three years ago: in a low paid runner’s wage job and sharing a bedroom. I told her that the only thing keeping me in London was choir. This tickled her I think and she went on to suggest that I join a convent that has a choir, like in Sister Act. I told her I may as well do that given I’m practically already living the life of a nun. A few years back I decided I wanted to become a Buddhist monk in whatever country it is that Buddhist monks come from. I really should have known this information given the decision I was thinking about making, however I didn’t feel ready to shave my head so that didn’t happen.

A couple of nights later I found out my sightseeing chum Rob has decided to pack in his job and move back to our hometown to save money to go travelling and I thought maybe this is a sign, as I had been considering a moving home and saving money for travelling.

The nun option cropped up again on Easter weekend. Victoria Thompson and I had gone to visit our chum Phillippa Quinn in Cambridge for her birthday. Over dinner Phillippa’s mum suggested I become a nun due to my unnervingly brilliant knowledge of Bible stories, which was highlighted when P.Q gave us an Easter Quiz. I informed them that in primary school I got 100% in my Scripture exam. I do love a good bible story, and a hymn. In response to P.Q.’s mum’s suggestion Vic said, ‘You couldn’t be a nun, you like kissing boys too much.’ I would have to agree with her. Perhaps they’d allow me to kiss boys given my excellent bible story knowledge.

Since then another reason has come to my attention for not leaving London, other than choir, and that is my bed. It is so lovely that I can’t bear to get rid of it and I have nowhere to store it. Also London has been good to me since it found out I’ve been thinking of leaving so I may just stay a little longer. I feel I’m not quite done.

The moral of the story is Facebook bans lead to itchy feet, unrest in the workplace, obsessions with East Central Asian countries and secreting nunny vibes. Beware.