Hacked Off

Rowche Rumble Sunday, 23 October 2011

Good month for gigs, this one: SLF last week, Toyah this coming Thursday.

The bruises from SLF have just about gone now, apart from the huge yellow one still on my right tit where I bounced off a particularly bony elbow to the sounds of the fast bit at the end of Doesn’t Make It All Right. Classic stuff – thought I’d grown out of all that (out of sheer medical necessity, if nothing else), but it seems that doing a couple of half marathons (sigh, yes, I’m doing the one in March) means I don’t need to stop for emergency oxygen after five minutes of moshing any more.

Sorted.

There might be something in that old “music soothes a savage breast” thing after all – I’ve not been feeling particularly anti-work recently (hence the lack of posts?). In a unexpected but not unwelcome twist of corporate fate I’ve been shovelled onto a different dungheap, which means that I no longer sit within earshot of the Wooden Spoon’s babbling stream of meaningless management twaddle. I’m almost missing it, as I’ve less things to feel indignant about.

The new dungheap isn’t ideal, of course.

My immediate neighbour spends a lot of time trying to tell endless funny (to him, at least) stories using as many words from the OED as possible, which means that he can squeeze two in a day – one just after the morning scrum (“That reminds me of the time…”), which ends just before lunchtime, and the other just after lunchtime (“I had a prawn cocktail sandwich from Boots today. That reminds me of the time when…”), which is usually still ongoing when I make a run for it at 5:30.

I’ve slowly worked out that the best way to avoid being on the receiving end is to arrive at work with headphones in ears and only remove them for the scrum. As soon as the boss says “ok, thanks” they’re back in and my head is nodding ferociously in a I’m-utterly-into-this-and-I-can’t-hear-you fashion, even if there’s nothing actually playing.

Makes for itchy ears though, so sometimes I have to chance it and unplug myself for a few minutes. In those few minutes he’s usually cracked his knuckles very loudly at least five times. No idea if he does this throughout the day, as the headphones filter it out even if there’s no music on. I guess he won’t be playing the piano in his seventies though.

Unfortunately they can’t filter out his smelly feet. He takes his shoes off and sits there wiggling his socks at us for most of the day.

I think I must be showing signs of strain already. The guys on the other side spend most of the day typing rapidly and sniggering. My guess is that they’re on Microsoft Communicator and chuckling over the new guy’s discomfort. Either that or they’re even nerdier and more socially inept than they seem, and they can only communicate with each other via key presses and snorts despite the fact that they sit on either side of the same partition.

So, to summarise the last few weeks – bosswaffle makes way for smelly feet, schoolboy sniggering, and fear of being entertained.

Hmmm.