Saturday 2 February 2008

Hush, puppy!


My line manager is like a puppy dog. Of indeterminate age - as he's a carrot-top, it's difficult to tell - he is somewhere between 40 & 50. He answers the phone as if he's been waiting for your call all his life. For no good reason, I wonder if he envies his brother.

"Are you OK to talk?" he asked me yesterday evening as I stood waiting for the blessed relief of the 87 to Aldwych, the beginning of my umbilicus severance for another couple of days.

"Yes," I replied.

"I did say," he said, "That if anything was urgent, you shouldn't email me..."

"It's not urgent," I said, "It's too late now to be urgent..."

"Well," he panted, "I've just picked up the email you sent me about time sheets."

"Mmm..." I mumbled.

"I really think we need to sort something out there."

"Quite right."

"I've got an invoice from them with your time sheet on it, which has been returned. They're not going to get paid because there's no purchase order reference on it."

"Oh really..."

"Are you sure it's all right to talk?"

Earlier in the day, somebody else had sneered at a poster campaign relating to bullying. I asked him why he was being so cynical.

"Well," he said, "All management is bullying of a sort, isn't it?"

I don't know why I attempted to mount a feeble riposte to his argument.

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