Pedro the Angry Librarian

Team Building

2008-05-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

Day: Friday, Mood: [sigh] Prospects: Cold and wet

Well, we made it. After crossing many lands and in the process enduring blistering cold and scorching heat (well, a lot of drizzle) we made it to the utopia that is Cragwell Bay Youth Hostel. And it is here that we shall learn to be better human beings. It is here that we shall learn how to work not as individual idiots, but as a team of idiots. It is here that we must endure a weekend of Council Teambuilding Exercises.

Yes, not content with pissing me off 5 days a week, my employer now feels the need to intrude on my happy time as well. A whole weekend spent pretending to care about people I’d like to see on fire. But by the end of it I am assured I will feel ‘part of an operational unit that trusts, cares and achieves together’. However, prior knowledge combined with commons sense tells me I’m going to spend 48 hours trying to avoid hypothermia whilst watching morons fail rudimentary tasks. Super.

So, after levering myself out of the minibus and waiting for the feeling to return to the lower half of my body (seating capacity 16 – presumably 16 one-buttocked people) we had little time to get acquainted with our new surroundings before being herded into the main hall for ‘supper’. I, like most fully functioning adults, remember school dinners as being shite. This evening I find that to be still true. Why, everyone knows the classier establishments don’t serve mash with an ice cream scoop, the lumps in the gravy should not be the most nutritious thing on your plate and portions of ‘cake’ don’t come in cubes. Also, I swear they’ve shipped in the same hairy ladies I remember from junior school to dish the slop out. What’s even worse is trying to force the ‘food’ down whilst slimy people try to network over the Spam fritters and green beans.

Then it’s off to bed. The accommodation is probably one level up from concentration camp yet would no doubt fail to meet the stringent requirements of the RSPCA. I do, however, appeared to have been lucky as regards bagging a mattress with minimal staining. I’m sharing a room with a mixture of people I know I hate and people I don’t yet know, but will no doubt hate by tomorrow.

Day: Saturday, Noon, Mood: Black, Outlook: Nautical

Having barely recovered from the delights of last night’s supper, breakfast time came all too soon. And what a delight it was: a variety of phallus-shaped bread-buns with your ‘choice’ of conserves (rhubarb or prune) washed down with a mug of lukewarm rat’s piss masquerading as coffee. And there was no time to savour the flavour – we had teambuilding to, erm, build…

Oh how I despise the old ‘everyone stand up for 2 minutes and tell us a little about yourselves’ exercise. It’s like some festival of awkwardness. Everyone not wanting to look like the world’s most boring idiot whilst also not wanting to cross the line of ‘too much information’. I like to refer to this as the ‘I like fishing…I like dogging’ paradigm. It’s not easy to sit for 45-minutes listening to librarians describing their inane existence. I never knew that so many people enjoyed cross-stitch. Nor did I care. By the time the finger of doom indicated it was my turn to prattle on about my favourite sports team and my sexual preferences, I could see that the room was wearing a face of desperate boredom which surely mirrored my own. Not wanting to extend the agony any more than was totally necessary I kept it short and decided against launching into a pre-prepared monologue about what would happen if I was in charge.

And so, safe in the knowledge that Eileen from the branch library goes line dancing every Tuesday and that Barbara from the schools library service collects thimbles, we were ready to begin our first exercise. Put into groups of 4 our challenge was to create a bridge from straws. Now, whilst knowing that this weekend was going to consist mainly of total bollocks even I was taken aback – not only by the stupidity of the task but by the furore that accompanied the ‘who gets to look after the glue gun’ debate. In short, our bridge-building failed, both in a literal sense and in a metaphorical inter-staff relations way. The actual bridge wouldn’t have supported a sparrow fart and team relations went spiralling out of control when the words ‘just give me the gun you fat bitch’ were uttered. Not by me I might add.

This afternoon we’ve been told to ‘get prepared to get wet’. I haven’t seen the Jacuzzi as of yet. I have seen the North Sea only 50 yards from the hostel however…

Day: Saturday, Evening, Mood: L Choppy, Outlook: Uphill struggle

Those Sea-King helicopters are bloody enormous when you see them close up you know. And what a racket they make. Still, at least it drowned out the screaming. (Hmm, maybe not the best choice of words, but what the hell). See, you’d think that when it became apparent that gluing straws together was a bridge too far, the organisers may have thought again before sending a bunch of librarians out on the open sea in crappy home made crafts built under time constrained conditions by idiots. But, you live and learn. Well, at least they probably will.

Put into groups of 4 (can you see a trend developing here?) we were told to construct a raft from what appeared to be a small maritime-themed shanty town. Barrels, ropes, lobster pots, used hypodermic needles – anything you can salvage you can use. Once you had constructed the HMS Shitty, the aim was to take to the high seas and paddle approximately 120 yards to a jetty. You had 45 minutes to construct your sea-bound death-trap before a good old fashioned race to the finish. So, with much huffing, puffing, sweating and swearing we set about tying 4 old barrels together with rope. Obviously in compliance with British Standards on nautical craft. It soon became apparent that some form of industrial espionage had taken place, as all the team’s designs seem fairly similar. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find someone in possession of a 92-page confidential document on making dinghies out of trash. Or maybe it was because all we had were barrels and rope.

So, when the claxon sounded, we took to the seas – 16 librarians aboard home-made craft with nothing between us and continental Europe except miles of unforgiving sea. Happily, about 5 metres out, our team sank. Rather spectacularly. Ropes broke, barrels shot off in four different directions and before I knew what was happening I was momentarily pinned to the seabed by Brenda from reference desk. After tossing her aside and dragging myself back to shore, there was some comfort to be taken from watching others sail into peril whilst knowing, although your own ineptitude had got you soaked, that was as bad as it was going to get. For others the nightmare was only beginning. Whilst one team managed to stay afloat only a few seconds more than us, the remaining two fought a titanic battle – seemingly in slow motion - for the kudos of first place.

Just as the two ramshackle rafts finally edged towards the jetty and everyone thought the contest was drawing to a close, the weather took a change for the worse (or indeed for the better, if you share my negative view on life). Now, I didn’t have a copy of the Beaufort Scale to hand, but I believe the meteorological term is ‘brown trousers time’. Up until now both craft had moved at a speed not dissimilar to that of a dying hedgehog, but now they were achieving major knottage. And they were heading to The Netherlands. The idea was mooted that we quickly construct a new craft and launch a rescue mission. This was vetoed for reasons too numerous to mention and the coastguard was called. Of course, now that the wind had picked up the engineering processes behind the building of the flimsy floating craft was put to the test: i.e. they capitulated, throwing a cluster of petrified information professionals into the raging waters. Cue much thrashing about like overexcited Labradors and the arrival of the coastguard in an enormous yellow helicopter. A little winch here and a little winch there and they’re off to hospital for treatment for shock, cold and raft-building inadequacies. At least they’ll get a better meal than me tonight. Bastards.

Day: Sunday, Noon, Mood: Ropy, Outlook: Claustrophobic

Whilst we were all manfully forcing down breakfast news reached us that the deep sea octuplet had sustained no serious injury and, like the morons they clearly are, would be returning for more punishment later today. In fact they arrived just in time to catch the end of ‘A call to action: satisfy your needs and win with teamwork’ – a gruelling motivational speech given by one Terry Weddle. Now, I had a number of problems with Terry’s ramblings:

1) 72 minutes is a long time to maintain a chorus of ‘YEAH!’, ‘WOO!’ and ‘RIGHT ON BROTHER!’ at appropriate intervals.

2) It’s like sitting through manual handling training. We can all pretend we’re going to be bending knees and keeping backs straight, but the minute its all over we’ll be lifting boxes with the favoured ‘rainbow spine’ technique. Similarly, we can all say ‘Yes Terry, we’re visualising…yes Terry, we’re communicating…yes Terry, we’re breaking through’ knowing well that as soon as Terry naffs off back to whichever brand immersion programme he’s crawled out from under we’ll all get back to ignoring each other and being purposefully awkward.

3) Terry couldn’t inspire me to breathe in and out.

With another hour-plus of life wasted by Weddle’s ramblings, we were the told to prepare for this afternoon's activities, which would be ‘both physically and mentally challenging and require us to work as a well organised team’. And would involve harnesses and ropes. Now, I’m no Sherlock Poirot, but I can piece together clues and work out that my afternoon is probably going to consist of encouraging/dragging portly, middle aged librarians up a cliff face. Against the clock. Lets just hope we don’t have to construct out own safety equipment our of old nautical rope and crab nets.

Day: Sunday, Night, Mood: Knackered, Outlook: Mundane

At last, back at home. And having now endured a weekend of ‘group self-assessment in the theory and practice of organizational development’, do I feel more able to ‘clarify goals and build ownership across the team, identifying the inhibitors to teamwork and remove or overcome them, or if they cannot be removed, mitigate their negative effect on the team’? Nope.
What I have learnt, in no particular order, is:

a) Librarians can’t build rafts

b) Librarians can’t climb cliffs

c) Librarians like glue guns

d) Terry Weddle is no Vince Lombardi

The final trial came this afternoon. Rejoined by our sea-bound friends of yesterday, we were given brief and unsatisfactory training on how to climb up a cliff face, and then told to climb up a cliff face as quickly as possible. ‘Remember to help each other as some of you will find this tougher than others’ we were told. What this translated as was ‘when you’ve dragged your sorry arse to the top of Death Mountain, be sure to give a good heave-ho on the rope and winch your obese colleagues up as well’. Still, a victory for team Pedro as we managed to complete the task first (with, somewhat disappointingly, no death or serious injuries to boot).

With victory still fresh in our minds it was back to the hostel for a final reflection on the weekend’s ‘success’ and afternoon tea, including some aptly named rock buns (I could have put windows out with them. And I’m talking double glazing). Everyone agreed it had been an adventure. No doubt in the same way those kids from Jurassic Park who narrowly avoid being eaten alive would class that experience as ‘an adventure’.

Then it was time to pile back onto the minibus and head for home. One agonising ride later and I can enjoy the utopian bliss of Sunday evening, knowing well that tomorrow I get to entertain the unemployable and the aged insane with tales of ocean rescue and Stallone-esque cliffhanging. God I hate libraries.

The Quizling

2008-05-29T07:19:00.000-07:00

Day: Monday, Mood: Exacerbated, Prospects: Relentless

Once again I start the week seemingly at the lowest possible ebb, only for that ebb to be plunged further into the cavernous abyss on Monday morning. The enormous injection of despair came courtesy of the weekly meeting, scheduled seemingly by some escaped mental patient for 9.05am. With my mind still mostly concerned with a rather splendid Faberge Egg collection I’d witnessed on the previous evening’s Antiques Roadshow, I was in no position to cope with corporate jargon. In fact with all the talk of ‘work streams’ ‘datasets’ and things being ‘mission critical’ I thought I’d wandered into NASA by mistake. But amid all the budget boredom, health and safety tedium and performance target ramblings came an agenda item I hadn’t prepared for. ‘We need someone to take the bi-weekly silver surfers group’ was the cry. I searched frantically for a button on my clothing that would turn me invisible, and when that failed I decided to slowly slide down my chair and hide under the table. It was too late however. Fate had seemingly intervened, and before I knew what was happening, I was the man that the confused coffin dodgers look to when failing to download pictures of the grandchildren.

Old dogs can learn new tricks. Old people, however, can rarely learn how to use a computer. When the first two hours of the first session simply covers ‘plugging in and switching on’, you know the yellow brick road is indeed long and winding. And Oz is just one double click too far away. For the double click is just one of the plethora of fundamental problems. ‘A double click is 2 clicks of the left mouse button in quick succession’ you say. And what they do is click the right button twice, leaving enough time between the clicks for Neptune to orbit the sun a few times. Then there’s the failure to understand Basic English, should it appear without warning in a small grey box on the screen. And the constant fear that they could create a cataclysmic chain of events by clicking on the wrong icon, as if the library is connected to a nuclear armoury.

Putting aside the techno phobic failings of the elderly, my morning misery wasn’t complete. Attempting to sidle out of the meeting without acquiring further responsibility I was pulled aside by the boss. The annual GJEK inter-library quiz takes place this Thursday night and my presence is expected. Given the temperamental nature of the boss and the unfortunate incident involving his cat and my car, I had no choice but to nod politely and say ‘of course’ when what I meant was ‘I’d rather die a horrible death’.

Day: Tuesday, Mood: Worsening, Outlook: Foggy

The invitation has been made official. Behold the flyer:

It’s enough to make me want to kill. For starters I have no idea what GJEK stands for. It being an Annual Quiz for Librarians, I’d have thought an A, Q, and L would have been certainties for inclusion the pathetic acronym. Then there’s the clichéd WordArt and the cartoon font for imbeciles – each sentence suffixed with the requisite multiple exclamation marks. And contained within the tragic proclamation is the description of what will no doubt be a ‘super’ evening. Trapped in a room full of one-night-out-a year librarians with only my boss and a vegan-friendly buffet for company. Another wheat-free mung bean vol-au-vont? Why, I couldn’t possibly sir…

Then there are the silver surfers tomorrow. Fourteen of them have signed up for it. Fourteen! Mind you they’re all ancient so there’s always the chance of a gentle passing in the night or a slip in the shower to get those numbers down before 11am tomorrow. ‘What is the likelihood I’ll be able to use Ebay before my granddaughters birthday?’ asked one old git today, seemingly intent on purchasing some Godforsaken chavette fashion doll for her offspring’s offspring. She’s got no chance unless she’s talking about her granddaughters 21^st birthday. This is the same woman who mistakes the emergency assistance cord for the light switch in the disabled loo every time she uses it. Every time. Every damned time. Without exception.

Day: Wednesday, Mood: Despairing, Outlook: Frightening

I knew it was going to be tough. I’d prepared mentally. I was ready for slow. In fact I was ready for very slow. Cataclysmically slow I was not prepared for. This was however, the speed at which me and my merry bastard band of silver surfers progressed. Four hours. Four sodding hours it took for them to semi-master switching on. And it wasn’t just 14 of them either. Oh no, we had a couple of freestylin’ old laydees who’d obviously got wind of where da partee woz goin’ down. ‘I’m hoping to do all my banking online’ said one old bitch whilst attempting to switch the computer on using the monitor’s contrast control button. After an age of frustration and a collective total of 39 trips to the toilet (oh yes, I counted) I decided it was only fair to leave them on an optimistic note: regaling them with tales of Nigerian businessmen who are sure to offer them once in a lifetime business opportunities when they set up an email account. ‘And all I have to do is hold their $20 million in my Cheltenham and Gloucester sensible saver account for a few weeks and I’ll get 10%? Sounds marvellous’. It does indeed.

The sadly unavoidable library-quiz was already hanging over me like a radioactive rain cloud. Now it’s been made known to me that not only do we have to take part, but we have to win – at all costs. It seems the boss has got a longstanding unhealthy rivalry with the head of another team – the unbreakable Roger of ‘Mind Your Shelf’. This year, he declares, we’re taking them down. One can only assume he means in the intellectual sense, as oppose to heading into the quiz like a SWAT team and bustin’ a cap in some ass. Whatever that means. It’s now confirmed that the line up for tomorrow night is:

Mike: The boss. Seemingly putting his professional reputation on the line. It’s all or nothing in the high-pressure environment of annual quizzes for information professionals. He’ll be ready and primed that’s for sure. I saw him devouring several volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica as I left this evening. Failure is not an option.

Judy: The 50-something crone who appears to have been born middle aged. Barely speaks all year, other than to complain about the ‘blatant misuse’ of the staffroom toaster. This will no doubt be her one night out of the year as she’s normally far to busy knitting little coats for her Scottie dog.

Karen: Big fat chubber. Will no doubt arrive by some sort of truck/winch combination. The vegan buffet will have to be of gargantuan proportions in order to support ‘Special K’ and her monstrous appetite. Frequently responsible for the aforementioned toaster abuse, (did you know, with enough effort, you can toast a Victoria sponge…) she’s due for a run-in with miserable Judy, the dog-knitwear maestro.

Me: Hooray.

Day: Thursday, Mood: Tense, Outlook: Unavoidably poor

I’ve got 55 minutes before its quiz time [insert multiple exclamation marks here]. The boss has spent the whole day ‘getting himself focussed’. This seemed to involve doing some kind of Tai Chi/football hooligan hybrid in between double espresso and trips to the toilet with ‘The ITN Factbook 1988’ for extended periods of time. He kept leaping out from behind shelves and from under tables with tedious general knowledge questions relating to the colours of the Gambian flag or the winner of the 1983 World Snooker Championship. Judy wasn’t in today, seemingly having taken the day off to iron her best cardigan and prepare to wow the elder gents on the library quiz scene. Karen was in. Her preparation involved eating a box of Fondant Fancies at record speed before spraying the remnants over anyone unfortunate enough to visit the reference desk.

The boss’s overexcitement meant he had no time for the trivial whingeings of the elderly (for once). It seems the silver surfers could not cope with the breakneck speed at which our journey to cyber hell advanced yesterday. It would appear that next week will involve a return to the land of ‘turning on’ before we can travel to the faraway place known as ‘start program’. That’ll be another 4 hours of my life wasted.

Better go and prepare. I promised Mike I’d memorise ‘The Incredible book of Vatican Facts’ before tonight…

Day: Friday, Mood: Exhausted, Outlook: [Unavailable]

Well, we won. That’s the first thing and indeed the most important. For whoever invented the saying ‘it’s not the winning it’s the taking part’ did not invent it for evenings like the one I witnessed yesterday. Had we I fear my battered corpse would be hanging from the smouldering remains of the library.

I arrived to find Mike sinking his third pint of ‘Old Peculiar’ in an attempt to calm the pre-match nerves. With my boss already slurring his speech I was begrudgingly introduced to his nemesis: the all conquering Roger (who, across the course of the evening and several more beers was downgraded by my boss to ‘Rog’, ‘Rodders’, ‘Roog’, ‘Roddy No-Nuts’, ‘Roddy Loserface’ and finally ‘Spanked Rog’).

First on the agenda was the necessity to think of a witty yet tasteful team name. With ‘Mind Your Shelf’ setting the bar high on the scale of library punnery, it was a tall order. After several suggestions from Karen that involved various brands of biscuits and a stern yet respectable silence from Judy, Mike decided that ‘The Bookend Bravehearts’ had a certain ring to it. Sadly not a ring on which I could tie a rope and hang myself.

Then came the quiz itself. As luck would have it there was a Papal theme to the picture round, which meant my revision came in handy. Mikes cramming served him well until the Old Peculiar took control of his bodily functions at which point his input was restricted to leering over at Roger on the table opposite and shouting ‘Oii wankaaaaahhhh!!’ a lot. Before the final round there was the buffet break. Some pre-planned table choreography meant that Karen was forced to circumnavigate the long way to the buffet, allowing the rest of us half a chance to grab a handful of animal-friendly finger food before she consumed all.

The quizmaster (a man who appeared to be 127 years old and who spoke without moving his face) revealed that the scores were close going into the final music round. When it turned out to be a Rod Stewart medley, Judy took the Bravehearts over the finishing line for a victory. By this point Mike has drunk himself into a coma, but with new of the victory he sprang to life like a cartoon vampire. The shirt was off. The tie was off. Hell, the trousers were off. Christ almighty, the underpants were off. And before I knew it he was starkers. Bollock naked. An apt phrase indeed as he proceeded to climb onto the table of ‘Mind Your Shelf’ and shake his wedding tackle in time to the encore of ‘Maggie May’. This is the same man who has sleepless nights worrying about ‘stationary issues’. I accosted one of the throng of people now clapping in time to the swaying scrotum and asked if we should get him down. ‘Why?’ came the reply ‘It’s the winner’s prerogative! They’ve been like this for years’

I felt it was time to leave. Judy and Karen felt it was time to have a heated discussion the toasting capacity of a Kenwood T330. I fear Karen may have eaten Judy.

So where to from here? The path is unwritten, but one thing’s for sure: once you’ve seen you boss victoriously jiggling his lovespuds in the face of a longstanding rival at the annual librarian’s quiz, you’re ready for anything.

Cross words

2008-05-29T06:48:00.000-07:00

Day: Monday, Mood: Turbulent, Prospects: Poor

It’s funny what can push you over the edge. I always regarded myself as a fairly stable fellow who could cope with as much nonsense as the next man. This morning, however, just proved that there is only so much a rational being can take. And although the local paper kind of summed up the incident with the headline ‘Librarian hospitalises pensioner after crossword ‘incident’’, I don’t think anyone who has suffered the torment that I have could be entirely unsympathetic with my plight.

It’s true that librarianship was my last resort. I’d learned the hard way that I was unable to cope in the real world, so surely the library would be my Valhalla. Initially, I was host to the same stereotypes as everyone else: the quiet perusal of the card catalogue, the tender silence broken only by the infrequent shushing of a tweed-swaddled crone. Hours spent gathered around the biscuit tin, cup of tea in hand, discussing that smashing book we’ve just acquired on dinosaurs with a few gentle souls. I had imagined scholarly gents looking for tomes on aviation and warships; elderly ladies searching for that illusive Mills and Boon.

Alas, I was grossly mistaken. The library, the one last profession that could be relied upon as an oasis of peace in the angst-filled sea of vocations, has gone corporate. Out with the tweed, in with the trouser suits. Out with the card catalogue, in with the Playstation. Out with the tender silence, in with the dull, moronic roar.

And the customers? I swear that every nutter in a 200 mile radius makes his/her/it’s way through the doors. They cast off the shackles of politeness, personal hygiene and respect for fellow human beings in order to abuse the facilities. Those facilities that, as I’ve heard on many, many, many occasions, ‘their taxes paid for’.

Which brings me to today’s big problem. Now I’m not fan of crosswords and I never have been. There are enough things in this world that I’ll never have time to do without partaking in that crap. That aside, I can cope with the occasional request for information leading to the revelation of 13 down in the Evening Standard’s £20 prize crossword. We appear to serve the only town where the entire population is incapable of solving ANY crossword puzzle without the help of Council owned facilities.

It’s relentless. They don’t even ask for help directly anymore, they just spout the clue like we’re all talking in code. Trigonometrical lettuce? Poultry she disturbed found on furniture? Souvenirs made yours truly repeat the wrong notes? Aghhhhh! It’s enough to make me want to kill…

Irene caught me at a particularly weak moment. There I was, struggling with the microfilm reader, when without warning comes the cry of ‘Spotted doctor of divinity eating fruit?’ I was unleashed. In fairness, I didn’t think it was necessarily a given that a 93 year old woman would have heart problems. As I explained to the paramedics, I believed the tone, language and intensity of my ‘explanation as to why I was unable to fulfill her request at this time’ was apt. They said it would have been better if I’d stopped berating her after she lost consciousness. It looks like she’s going to pull through, so no harm done really…

Day: Tuesday Mood: Raging, Outlook: Bleak

After a very unpleasant meeting with my superiors this morning (in which they used the terms ‘inconsiderate’, ‘overreaction’ and ‘therapy’ a few too many times) I was ordered to go to the hospital and see Irene in my lunch hour. Frankly, I don’t see the problem. The fact is she didn’t die and ‘nearly’ is such an ambiguous word…

And I so loathe hospitals. I think it must be because they attract the same huge quotas of elderly idiots as the library, giving it a similar ‘Land Of The Dead’ type feel. For some of us a trip to hospital is an unpleasant necessity whilst for others it seems to be a family day out. I struggled through the crowds of the unclean and comically injured to begrudgingly purchase a bag of chocolate covered peanuts and a bunch of ‘flowers’ for Irene. If that doesn’t make her drop the charges, nothing will.

She seemed timid, almost terrified at first but by the end of visiting time we’d both agreed that she was 95% to blame and wouldn’t be making my life a living hell from now on. She may have been coming into that library every day for 30 years but she’s got to learn some respect for those in charge. Hell, if I have to wear the staff issued tank-top, then I’d better be getting some God-damned respect.

Having thought that visiting the old sod would have been the low point of my day, it ironically turned out to be the highlight. On returning to the library I find out that the shockwaves caused by me laying down the law to old Fanny Crossword are still being felt and that ‘a very senior figure’ is coming for a ‘chat’; I’ve got to produce a seasonal book display by Friday; I’ve got to spend £3,000 on books about domestic animals in 2 days or we won’t get the funding again next year and I’ve been drafted onto the Playstation game-buying committee. Great.

Day: Wednesday, Mood: Abhorrent, Outlook: Stormy

Poultry Keeping For The Disabled…How to Share Healing Messages With The Horses In Your Life…Gourmet Bird Food Recipes… Professional’s Book of Gerbils…This is how I spent my morning. Before 9am this morning I was blissfully unaware as to how many books there were about Elk. But there we are.

I’ve been told to expect my meeting with The Top Brass to be unpleasant. That’s fine. If there’s one thing that the working world has taught me it’s how to kiss a whole lot of arse and mean none of it. On the subject of meaningless nonsense, I’ve handed over the responsibility for the seasonal display to young Katy. True, she may have an IQ in minus figures and be as reliable as a balsawood bomb-shelter, but it saves me doing it. Hell, its empowerment and it’s only a matter of selecting some of the less-dreadful rubbish from the shelves and cobbling it together on a table. What could possibly go wrong?

I had an afternoon in the unpleasant company of the greasy internet celebrity pervert. Well, when I say ‘in the company of’ what I really mean is ‘in the odour trail of’. This is a man who spends countless hours searching the web for female celebrity addresses so he can write them a lovely letter. No doubt he highlights the finer points of their acting/singing/modelling careers before enquiring as to whether or not they have a boyfriend and asking for some of their underwear. I tell you, I pay taxes too and this is where they’re going! So the unemployable can get free access to celebrity wank club.

And the Playstation working group is worse than I could have possibly imagined. Apparently it takes 10 of us from 3 different branches to work out that we need to buy ‘the most popular games’, excluding of course those games that include violence, drugs, sex, swearing or over-stimulation of the senses. I reckon it leaves us with ‘Dora the Explorer takes Mickey Mouse to a nice place where nothing happens’. I’m sure the teenage boys will be clamouring for it…

Day: Thursday, Mood: Furious, Outlook: Black

“Do we really need all these books on llamas?” was the cry as management reviewed yesterday’s marathon order. Well I spent the money didn’t I? Maybe the local llama keeping population is way above the national average. Maybe it will encourage those members of the public who were yet to consider animal husbandry to try keeping one in their back garden. Or maybe I just don’t care.

Anyway, putting aside the physical manifestation of thousands of pounds worth of wasted money that is the llama section, this morning I was greeted with the fruits of Katy’s labour. All of yesterday afternoon she spent on that display. Three and a half hours. Now I’ve come to realise that she’s not the sharpest tool in the box – in fact she’d no doubt lose a battle of wits with broomstick – but today she surpassed even my lowest of expectations. The challenge was simple: construct a seasonal display. Given that it’s the end of January I’d have thought winter was appropriate. Perhaps St. Valentine’s Day. Maybe even Spring, given a little optimism. What do we get? Halloween. That’s right, only 9 months early, or 3 months late depending on your view of the world. I don’t know where she found all the pumpkins. I don’t think I want to know. Stupid girl, honestly.

I’ve decided to just go with the flow on the old Playstation thingy. See I could take the opinionated, involved stance that involves effort and caring and the like. However, I felt more comfortable in the ‘distant cynicism, only appearing occasionally to disown all responsibility’ position. That way when the yobbos ask for ‘Big Titted Fast Drifting Killers 4’ and all I can offer them is ‘Eamonn Holmes’s Sudoku Challenge’ I can at least genuinely empathize and agree that, indeed, it is ‘well bad, like’.

Doom still impends like a Weight Watchers outing to Lau’s All You Can Eat Buffet as regards them from upstairs and the royal visit. No doubt they will appear at precisely the wrong moment. Not that there’s a right moment in the world of family friendly Playstation touting land of crossword answers and celebrity-stalking crotch rubbers. That’s decorated for Halloween. In January.

Day: Friday, Mood: The Usual, Outlook: Unfulfilling

For a long time we kept a golf club behind the counter. Where it came from remains a mystery, as does where it went. It’s fair to say that, if it had still been there today, Irene would now be wearing it and I would be in police custody. That’s right: not content with hospitalising a great-grandmother earlier in the week, I was fully prepared to send the old bat to the morgue.

The day had started reasonably well. I was prepared for the idiocy of our spooky setup and had even come to the conclusion that at least we had a display and I could always explain Katy away as some kind of Care in the Community case. Bathshy Billy had happily decided that he had more important things to do than track down Natasha Kaplinsky’s personal details for his ‘personal satisfaction’.

It all went wrong when she appeared in the doorway. Like a spectre. I swear it went cold when she appeared and this ungodly mist appeared. Ok, well, maybe not. But she was carrying with her the book of the damned. The tome of terror. A volume of the vile: The Bumper Book of Crosswords.

I’d just returned from lunch (where I’d decided I simply must write that strongly worded email regarding the false description of so called ‘square’ crisps) when it began. Once again it started. She began to wear me down. One damned clue at a time. (Clue)…5 minutes pass…(clue)…8 minutes pass...(clue)…3 minutes pass.

It was about this time that the teenage numb-nuts were introduced to the plethora of new Playstation buys. Precisely two minutes later they felt it necessary to force feed a pumpkin to the aforementioned games console. Paul the Pungent Pervert appeared wanting to know if he could book ‘the secluded computer in the corner’. Irene asked me (clue)…I lost it.

It’s difficult to recall exactly what I shouted but it was something like ‘Why couldn’t you have just died you rancid old crone’ I believe when Mr. Simmons from the City Library appeared to talk to me about Irene, the real irony was that my hands were reaching for her throat. He asked me why the library was covered in pumpkins, some of which appeared to be inserted into Council owned hardware, and why I was trying to choke a pensioner. The day was kind of downhill from then on…