Work Chronicles - 26 October 2012

Since taking possession of a colleague’s old
chair without armrests and attaching my very
expensive physiotherapist cushion to the back,
I’m sitting like a normal person with only two
books, one on Astrology and the other French
Grammaire, to prop up my keyboard; I keep
the high stool on which I sat for so long as a
talisman - should the problems I had come
back and I need to sit high again

We all complain we sit in the cold of the North
Pole with the air-con on freezing but as some-
one remarked, when we complain to manage-
ment, they turn the temperature colder and wait
till it is very warm, then turn it off completely and
we cannot breathe without fresh air - nor work in
the stifling heat, stoically wrapped in our blankets
and wearing woolly socks with thick-soled shoes,
not exactly fashion magazine material – yet

We are all here in the open-plan office – except
our Madame Olympia whose special enclosure,
sound-proof and separate from the rest on this
floor, is empty; we suspect she is suffering from
claustrophobia as we ourselves would if we were
to sit there, though she has her own separate
air-con and can turn it on warm while we shiver
out here – in spite of our ice-trap, we are here
and she does not even call with an excuse

The psychiatrist will probably say sensitive people
like Madame Olympia are too good to mix with
insensitive barbarians like us who can work in all
conditions – Sir Hillary would have been proud to
have us accompanying him on his trek up Mount
Everest, we would have put the all the Sherpa’s
to shame, if we were in the trenches in WW II we
would have won the war single-handedly - so it is
easy to see why Mme Olympia cannot be

Among such strong frontier officials like us!

[Work Chronicles Friday - 26 October 2012]