There's a hippopotamus on my ceiling smoking a fag and showing builder's crack
I have just banished my flatmate to the other room to play his guitar as I cannot write scathing remarks about the legal profession whilst hearing, albeit pleasant, jangly jazz chords being strummed in my vicinity. How sweetly ironic as I have spent a day working in an office underneath a construction area. The heritage listed house-cum-law office is full of little nooks and crannies (one lovely nook being the tiny office space where I sitALONE and UNSUPERVISED to surf the net...I mean to work next to the office of the senior partner I am assigned to). However, like all heritage listed buildings in this town, they are renovating the shit
out of it......starting on the top floor - the floor above me. I spent all day yesterday tapping my keyboard in staccato counterpoint to the thumps and shudders from the floor above me...where they only recently discovered that the weight of 8 secretarial desks on the topfloor has caused stress on the building foundations.
Hence the reason for the renovations to reinforce the floor.
Only after working directly underneath the site for 7 hours did someone in Office Services consider that perhaps they should move the temp from underneath the unsupported floor. Gee thanks. And once all of my office was moved elsewhere, I could not only appreciate the space of the uncluttered room I had just been sitting in but also had a clear view of the stress cracks running through two walls in said office. I spent today sitting in between the filing cabinet and the fax machine in the cupboard/library getting RSI but apparently that's not so high on their health and safety list as being crushed to death.
Good to know.
The reason I am in this attractively quaint deathtrap is the new assignment I picked up last week. Some people have charmed lives in love or money or something equally romantic or practical. My charmed life is in my dayjob. Thank you so very fucking much, hypothetical guardian angel. I seem to have established a pattern of being booked at the last minute, to work for a senior lawyer with a difficult reputation, following in the footsteps of the rapidly departing and harrassed legal secretary who has just 'had it' (quote from the last 5 legal secretaries who handed the job over to me). I then proceed to do the logical thing and manage to work out the basic systems of the firm (how to turn on the computer, how to file something) and in doing so become god in the eyes of the senior lawyer because they cannot comprehend how one can manage to change the settings to 'holepunch' on the photocopier without going through a week's induction and 3 training courses first.
Once I have the senior partner on my side, I can pretty much do what the hell I want. Ooops, have I given away my secret to a long and happy temping life? No, not really. For no matter how well cushionedI am from the severities of life in the pocket of the senior partner, I still get screwed by my temp agency.
to be continued after this bottle of wine
out of it......starting on the top floor - the floor above me. I spent all day yesterday tapping my keyboard in staccato counterpoint to the thumps and shudders from the floor above me...where they only recently discovered that the weight of 8 secretarial desks on the topfloor has caused stress on the building foundations.
Hence the reason for the renovations to reinforce the floor.
Only after working directly underneath the site for 7 hours did someone in Office Services consider that perhaps they should move the temp from underneath the unsupported floor. Gee thanks. And once all of my office was moved elsewhere, I could not only appreciate the space of the uncluttered room I had just been sitting in but also had a clear view of the stress cracks running through two walls in said office. I spent today sitting in between the filing cabinet and the fax machine in the cupboard/library getting RSI but apparently that's not so high on their health and safety list as being crushed to death.
Good to know.
The reason I am in this attractively quaint deathtrap is the new assignment I picked up last week. Some people have charmed lives in love or money or something equally romantic or practical. My charmed life is in my dayjob. Thank you so very fucking much, hypothetical guardian angel. I seem to have established a pattern of being booked at the last minute, to work for a senior lawyer with a difficult reputation, following in the footsteps of the rapidly departing and harrassed legal secretary who has just 'had it' (quote from the last 5 legal secretaries who handed the job over to me). I then proceed to do the logical thing and manage to work out the basic systems of the firm (how to turn on the computer, how to file something) and in doing so become god in the eyes of the senior lawyer because they cannot comprehend how one can manage to change the settings to 'holepunch' on the photocopier without going through a week's induction and 3 training courses first.
Once I have the senior partner on my side, I can pretty much do what the hell I want. Ooops, have I given away my secret to a long and happy temping life? No, not really. For no matter how well cushionedI am from the severities of life in the pocket of the senior partner, I still get screwed by my temp agency.
to be continued after this bottle of wine
posted by belle de dayjob at 3:10 pm
1 Comments:
I am genuinely intrigued by your blog. I only opened an account yesterday and have seen so much blah blah blah crapola... Confederacy of Dunces sealed the deal. That and the fact that you type fast, despise authority, and have a sense of humor. I'll make my second post today and I hope to have you read it. Cheers
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