Monday, August 29, 2005

Absence Explained

Today I have returned from holiday, only to find that many of my readers are disgruntled that I have not kept my blog going. Why, they all ask, have I not updated my blog?

Because, you fuckers, I WAS ON FUCKING HOLIDAY! You don’t like that? THEN EAT SHIT!

I don’t take holidays often. I find that it’s prudent to avoid holidays. Whenever I do take a break, I invariably end up in some kind of trouble. Like in a jail cell, or with work in crisis, or suddenly discovering that I have become a key investor in a racehorse/ski chalet/goat farm/seedy bar. Yes folks. All different and unique stories that have one key characteristic in common: I was on holiday, and drunk at the time.

My first day away from the office, I got a call from my PA at ten am, asking me the whereabouts of a certain document. “It’s on my fucking computer,” I answer.

“Where?”

“No fucking idea. Google desktop it.”

Two more calls later over the next hour, and I instructed her that for all further requests for information, she was to ask my director. An hour later, I had my director calling me, asking for the same stuff, plus a few other things my PA hadn't yet managed to ask me.

“Don’t know. Look on my fucking computer,” I answer.

“Where?” he asks.

“Look for it. It’s there. Unless it’s not there, in which case I haven’t written it yet, which I’m not going to do before I return from my holiday anyway, so if you can’t fucking find it, then there’s nothing to be done about it.”

My director sighs his ‘I’m barely tolerating you’ sigh.

“Oh, and by the way,” I say.

“Yes?”

“There is one document that I haven’t yet completed.”

“Oh?” My director asks.

“Yes,” I say. “It’s my request for annual leave. Which means that given that I haven’t actually applied for annual leave, then technically I’m not on annual leave right now. Which would probably explain why I’ve been receiving so many phone calls from you fuckers over the past two hours. Since I only have about three genuinely useful and productive telephone conversations each work day, you’ve already used up your limit. So I’m going to call it a day today, and not count today as annual leave. And any further calls I get between now and when I return from annual leave, I’m going to deduct from the annual leave that I had originally intended to claim.”

Suffice to say, I continued to receive phone calls over the next five days, and I have arrived back at my desk with no more paperwork on it than when I left, and have no intention of filing a retrospective request for annual leave. After all, since I had not managed to get drunk enough to make any ridiculous personal investment decisions while on holiday, I concluded that I hadn’t actually been on holiday at all.

It so happened that while I was away, the refit of the top floor of our building was completed. Due to some cunning bureaucratic sleight of hand, my team managed to secure part of the top floor. I don’t recall precisely how this happened, but it was something along the lines of when drunk at after-work drinks, I diplomatically suggested to my chairman: “I’m moving to the top fucking floor.”

The refit of the top floor took a couple of months to complete. The HR manager, in whose good books I have yet to make an appearance, spent some time deciding the furniture, décor and office layout. Painstakingly, she spent some weeks consulting broadly about the appropriate seating plan, paying keen regard to the intricate principles of feng shui and office politics.

I arrived this morning to see the new structure. This time, I spoke to my director who had so generously given me a week’s extra leave. I said to him: “Nice office lay-out. I don’t care where I sit, as long as it’s in the corner next to a window. Figure there’s no point in me being on the top floor if I’m not in the corner, next to the window.”

My director began to launch into a pre-prepared speech about the effort that the HR manager had put into the seating arrangements, and made a reference to feng shui.

“I’m sorry,” I say to him. “You must have mistaken me for a Chinaman. If I’m not wrong, there isn’t a single person on this fucking floor who is Chinese. Feng shui doesn’t matter to fucking anyone. I’m going to a meeting, and then I’m going to lunch.”

So off I trodded to my supposed client meeting. On my way, I get a call from the HR manager.

“Your director says you want to change the seating plan,” she says.

“No,” I reply. “I just said I didn’t care where I sit, as long as it’s in the corner, by the window.”

HR Manager then tries to launch into a detailed explanation of her rationale for seating various people in various places. I interrupt: “I’m sorry. That’s not my job. That’s your job to sort that shit out. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable, am I?”

“Why couldn’t you have told me last week?” she asks, exasperated.

“Because I was on fucking holiday last week!” I say.

“You didn’t file for it!” she says.

“That’s not the fucking point,” I say, “and nor is it the point that I don’t intend to file for it. What is the point, I think, is that I’m giving you plenty of options here. Four options, in fact. There are four corners.”

“But you can’t have one! People have already moved to their new offices!”

“Then move them again before they get fucking attached to them,” I suggest helpfully.

HR Manager begins jabbering about procedures and protocols. Again, I interrupt her: “Look. You are the HR Manager. You are empowered to make these important decisions that affect the smooth performance of the workplace environment. Since I actually make money for this firm, and since you are just a fucking overhead, I think you should make an important decision.”

And with that, I rang off, turned off my cellphone, went into a meeting, then went to lunch, and returned to my new corner office on the top floor. Four other people had been moved to accommodate me.

But there were some stressful moments there, I tell you. So stressful, dear reader, that I think I need a holiday.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Mr Prick.Welcome home.I hope you don't mind my thought that you must be a short person,as I have never encountered a tall man with quite your attitude.Go on,let us know...5.5 or 5.7?How tall would you really like to be.?I await your reply with trepidation as I am prepared to shoot myself if I got it wrong but my revolver is rusty and anything could happen.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, short? Are ya a little tubby too? Obviously a bit of intelligence there... poor little rich kid maybe? I'd be interested to know what it takes to produce such interesting writing... the style is good, the attitude... well, it's bitter. Care to share?

Rob Good said...

You could have left the phone switched off on your holiday? HR manager might need a couple of days off to get over the fu#ked up feng shui.

Anonymous said...

to quote some scumbag on the red side of the house - "take your medicine"

I do enjoy you rants - but this makes me think you must either be very very good or you want short career at whatever company you work for.

If I worked for a company and had to work with /for / over you, I would suggest you bugger off elsewhere - yet in a Bob Jones sort of way - it would be fun to have you around to bait.

At least you are bluey or you would be an insufferable prick

Insolent Prick said...

Are you all missing the frigging point, or WHAT?

HR are the frigging enemy. Any moves to make them look even sillier than they are, are a badge of workplace honour.

Insolent Prick said...

Anonymous, if you really have to ask questions, make sure they're not rhetorical!

Anonymous said...

OK, I will do that then. In real life, are you the offensive little tosser that you come across as in your blog posts and comments? Also, what is it that makes you so angry all the time?

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Excellent! Now you have comment spam to make you even angrier! If only they were offering you some valium to help you calm down...

Oswald Bastable said...

Time spent fucking HR fembots around, is time not deducted from your allocated time on earth!

Oswald Bastable said...

What is the name of the Blog, cretins?

Why do you get all upset and cry-babyish over:

Insolent Prick
Not-so-random thoughts of an intolerant egotist who doesn't care what YOU think

Sort of lets you know what you are in for, doesn't it?

Grow a spinal column or install kiddy-safe software, ya pansys!

Anonymous said...

fucking HR really are just a waste of space. I have to deal with the losers on occassions when renewing contracts, and they really are so piss weak about every decision they make. Just last week, someone took offence at how I showed an access card/ id card on request (you can't get into the fucking place with out one), and the tard in HR felt it her obligation to start filing about 1000 forms. I'm sure they only do it to have something to point to when job credentialling/ worthiness is being appraised.
Also, FFS, who really uses Feng Shui to organise a seating plan. You could of course state to her that one of the key principles of feng shui is flowing water, then stand on her desk and let some flow.

Anonymous said...

I have the spinal column thanks, but I'm keen to know what makes someone so short-tempered. I mean, I had a short fuse in London, but then most commuters there do. Which is why I came here, to chillout. Because, frankly, there really isn't that much to get wound up about in a little country like this. Apart from those other tossers, Brash and Winston.

Anonymous said...

other anon: you may have a spinal coloumn, but the frontal lobotomy that you ordered on your entrance into NZ, also gave you a terminal case of limpwrist and/or cockitis