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7:30am, Friday - Morning Glory
There I sat, slightly damp from waiting so long for the bus on a cold, wet, dark, early morning, staring at my VDU, willing myself to start typing. A stack of 20 CVs to my left, a half-empty plastic cup of strongly scented herbal coffee from the vending machine to my right, my hands poised over the keyboard. Boredom personified, but at least there was nobody else around so I could briefly scratch my left armpit quite happily without anyone objecting.
Typing CVs into a recruitment agency's database for a living wasn't the most exciting living. Some people studied for decades to become surgeons, others took huge financial risks and became Directors of their own companies, others became barristers, fighter pilots, mercenaries, sales gurus or management experts. I, on the other hand, had the glamourous task of typing their CVs for when they decided to change jobs and used the agency I worked for to get headhunted.
Management and legal professions were the worst. My own CV didn't run past two pages and no paragraph was more than 4 lines long. These gits dictated essays about how they saved their company from financial ruin or how they specialised in property law for several years before taking over their previous company's criminal law department and (of course) turned it around into a great success.
No mention about how they lost their previous job. The joy of typing their CVs lay in the art of trying to figure out why they were looking for a new job if they were so good at their last one. Caught in the broom cupboard with their secretary on CCTV or having one too many with a client and losing their licence on the way home were popular guesses during those rare moments when my co-workers decided a bit of banter was called for.
A sip of coffee, just enough to give me the encouragement to start on the first CV, and I was off. My fingers warmed up and danced across the keyboard and the names, addresses, dates of birth (why do women think that "less than 35" counts as a date of birth?") were starting to get digitised en masse. On a good day I could whisk through 5 CVs per hour. On a Friday it was more like 2 per hour and lots of coffee, but I was psyched up and wanted to get this backlog done before the weekend so I wouldn't start to go into a black mood on Sunday night thinking about a pile of paperwork on my desk the following Monday.
"Morning!" Sue breezed in through the front door of the agency. Always cheery and fired up, she led the Legal team of recruitment consultants and by all accounts she was one of the top managers in the country. I didn't like her because I once overheard her having a little chat with her secretary about earning an extra £30 if she'd say she was driving Sue's company Audi Quattro around the time it got clocked by a speed camera doing 50mpg in a 30 limit when Sue was driving. Unethical. Being able to still dash around the country visiting clients when by rights she was 340 points past her rightfully due ban didn't seem right, somehow. I gave her my best scowl and carried on typing.
"By the way Steve, could you spray a little air freshener in the lobby? It's a little, erm, whiffy this morning." Clearly my best scowl needed a bit of work because Sue still looked cheery. I'd have to work on it.
My typing trance was broken now so there was nothing for it but to obey, despite the fact that Sue was Legal and had no jurisdiction over me as I was in the CV team, but I guess spraying air freshener wasn't one of her core-skills.
One of the joys of having a city-centre office with street front access to a listed building is that the local tramps regularly use your doorway to urinate in. The urine flows under the door onto the internal recessed welcome mat and soaks in to its heart's content overnight. First worker through the door gets the full aroma the next morning, that worker is usually me, hence the herbal coffee.
Grabbing the always-ready can of Extra Strong Pine Fragrance (Norwegian Blue) from the top of the cabinet nearest the front doorway I gave the lobby a good once over, politely ignoring the "Had a little accident?" jibes from a couple of consultants strolling in whilst I was there. And they always wondered why their CVs came back with typos. Go figure.
9:47am, Friday - Y.U.P.P.I.E.S.
The office was in full swing. Consultants punching the air whilst simultaneously trying to calculate their commission on the placement they'd just managed, then stopping to punch the air when they realised they'd need to use their calculators to figure it out. Team leaders cajoling, laughing, shouting, encouraging, simultaneously trying to calculate their commission on the placements they were getting the consultants to manage and then going quiet whilst they looked for their calculator which had just been swiped. Phones ringing, consultants being cajoled into answering them by team leaders just in case it was worth commission. Sue in the corner whispering to her secretary again. Wonder how fast she was going this time? Typical day.
9:48am, Friday - Walter Mitty Vol.1
"Steve, could I have a word?" Crystal was the boss of the CV team. Responsible for output, quality control, people management and pay she didn't look anything like her name. In mineralogy crystal is quite a fragile substance renowned for its ability to be shaped into something delicate and beautiful. Our Crystal never studied mineralogy, broke the pneumatic systems on office chairs with worrying regularity and it would take a sculptor wielding a sledgehammer to effect any noticeable improvements to her makeup.
"Sure, Crystal. How can I be of help?" The herbal coffee was kicking in, my grouchiness was wearing off, my pile of CVs had depleted during the last couple of hours and I was looking forward to the weekend, I couldn't help being a little civil.
Crystal didn't fall for it. "I just had a call from one of our consultants in Manchester, he'd like you to redo one of the CVs you did last week for a company director he wants to place. One John Moffat? He said there's a typo, you spelt a company name 'McDonalds' instead of 'Fortescue Worldwide Finance Inc'".
"Sure, Crystal, I'll get right on it, must've been daydreaming eh?" I didn't think the excuse would wash but transposition whilst typing was common enough.
"Yes please Steve. Be sure to get right on it, thankyou." Crystal turned back to her desk, her way gentle way of dismissing anyone she was speaking to but clearly a strain for her office chair, which clunked protestingly.
I wondered how long it would be before the other calls started coming.
9:48.45am, Friday - Walter Mitty Vol.2
"Steve! Is there a problem with the CV system?" It was Sue, striding across the 40-feet of office space between her bank of desks and mine, starting the conversation at 35-feet just to make sure that the whole office knew there was a problem and that it wasn't her fault.
"Well there could be, Sue, you never know, funny things computers sometimes. What seems to be the matter?" I emphasised the word 'seems' with just the right amount of decibels when the range had closed to 25-feet so that the whole office would know that the problem was more likely at the Legal team's end and not mine. Sue closed the gap quickly, probably faster than she could have done in her Audi.
She arrived, paperwork in hand and held it in front of my nose. Sue-style.
"This just came over the fax from one of my clients. It's a CV you did for one of my candidates on Tuesday, but I think some of the details on here are from another CV, it's all mixed up. Like where my candidate has a BSc first-class in Criminal Law his qualifications are listed on this CV as ''O' Level Woodworking (b)', and some of the details of his previous jobs don't appear correctly. My candidate certainly never worked as a shelf-stacker for Marks and Spencer."
I put on my best 'Wow, can't think how this could've happened' expression and was gratified to see that Sue, thick cow that she was, seemed taken in by it.
"Well, Sue, could be that some database fields on the CV templates have become corrupted by any number of variables, sounds like it's one for I.T. to investigate so I'll refer it to them A.S.A.P., meantime I'll get this CV redone P.D.Q. and I'll have it back on your desk before you can say speed camera."
Watching Sue's face go from bafflement to relief to consternation was probably the highlight of my week as I took the offending Curriculum Vitae from her hands and from in front of my nose, and left her to navigate her way back across the office.
9.55am, Friday - Walter Mitty, Come Out With Your Hands Up
"STEVE!" Crystal again, looking a bit flustered. Her voice had been getting steadily louder during the previous 5 minutes until half the office were wondering why her usually calm, albeit rocky, composure was starting to crack because she was usually always so good natured when taking phone calls. I suspect that they were wondering if their commission had been cut by a half percent by head office.
"Yes, Crystal?" Wide-eyed innocence, I could win a BAFTA for it.
"I have just come off the phone from our number one client."
The office was quiet now. If Crystal had been speaking to the number one client and it hadn't been a good conversation it meant bad news for most of them.
"Our number one client is a little confused as to why instead of sending them CVs for 400 of our best call-centre candidates they got the CVs of the cast of Sesame Street, Star Wars and every extra that appeared, however briefly, in the 1959 release of Ben Hur. Do you think, Steve...", I saw a tic at the corner of her mouth. Quite an achievement, I was impressed. I was trying to calculate just exactly how many muscles could be involved in shifting the considerable poundage of pancake that was obstructing them, "... that you could explain EXACTLY what happened?"
"Well, Crystal..."
"Because our number one client is now our EX-NUMBER ONE CLIENT?!?"
Deathly hush. You could hear a paperclip drop, even on the nylon hi-grade 'free electric shock every 3 paces' astroturf that masqueraded as an office carpet.
"Well, Crystal..."
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA" If Mount Fuji could froth at the mouth, Crystal was doing a great impression of what what it would probably look like, "WHAT THE LOSS OF THAT ACCOUNT HAS COST THIS COMPANY?"
Out of the corner of my eye I could see the legal team starting to rise from their office chairs; the insurance consultants were already on their feet, they knew who the client in question was and had already worked out that they'd have trouble paying their rent at the end of the month if things were as bad as they were starting to sound.
"Crystal it could be that..."
"COULD BE MY A**E!" In a feat of gymnastic dexterity Crystal had actually managed to get vertical from her office chair without applying 300lbs of pressure to the cushioned arm rests either side of her. Any other time and I'd have snapped a photo and sent it off to M.I.T. to let them try and work out what various laws of physics had just been broken.
"IT'S... IT'S... SABOTAGE! YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE!"
"Crystal, if you'd stop speaking in caps for a minute and let me explain...."
"YOU... YOU..."
She was advancing. Hell, even legal were getting a bit close for comfort and insurance weren't that far behind. I could stand my ground and explain that I'd had a better offer from another recruitment agency to type CVs for factory workers, truck drivers and warehouse personnel (no more 'BSc (Hons) Literature', yay!) and wanted to leave my mark before I handed in my notice, or do the honourable thing and make a break for the front door.
I did the honourable thing, but the baying consultants were only a few leaps and bounds behind me. I needed a decoy, a distraction, anything to buy a few seconds of time to make my escape without being stapled to death by a yuppie.
Flying past the last filing cabinet en route to the exit I grabbed the tin of Norwegian Pine off the top, pulled a paperclip from my shirt pocket (why do bits of office stationery always end up in your shirt pocket?) and jammed the end of the paperclip into the nozzle.
Dashing into the lobby I fumbled in my trouser pocket for my trusty zippo, flung the hissing aerosol onto the welcome mat and darted out the front door. Just before the pack of consultants reached the lobby I flicked open the zippo, got a flame going (took me two flicks, Bruce Willis can always do it in one in the movies but I reckon it must be the third or fourth take that makes the cut) and hurled the lighter back into that stinking lobby from hell with a gutsy overarm.
It worked. Ammonia fumes, strickly speaking, aren't flammable. But the consultants who spent more time at school learning how to add up their pocket money than paying attention in chemistry, who turned up their noses each time they came into work each day but didn't do anything about the stench because "Steve'll take care of it, he's good with airfreshner" hadn't a clue. There isn't a collective noun for consultants, so I'll just say that the pack of twonks back-pedalled faster than the Irish Tour de France whilst I ran off down the pavement.
10:07am, Friday - It's a New Dawn, It's a New Day, It's New Life
I was humming plesantly to myself as I left the newsagent equipped with my new disposable lighter. I'd caught my breath, got over the loss of my zippo and was feeling good. Weekend ahead, new job to start the following week and the sun had finally managed to poke out through the retreating clouds above.
"Spare 50p for a cup of tea guv?"
I'd guess he was in his early 50s, hard to tell with beggars, he could have been early 30s for all I knew but then the outdoor life can be hard on some people. I have him £9.10 and told him that if he ever needed a good night's kip then the listed building around the corner had a good overhang that could provide some decent shelter from the elements.
There I sat, slightly damp from waiting so long for the bus on a cold, wet, dark, early morning, staring at my VDU, willing myself to start typing. A stack of 20 CVs to my left, a half-empty plastic cup of strongly scented herbal coffee from the vending machine to my right, my hands poised over the keyboard. Boredom personified, but at least there was nobody else around so I could briefly scratch my left armpit quite happily without anyone objecting.
Typing CVs into a recruitment agency's database for a living wasn't the most exciting living. Some people studied for decades to become surgeons, others took huge financial risks and became Directors of their own companies, others became barristers, fighter pilots, mercenaries, sales gurus or management experts. I, on the other hand, had the glamourous task of typing their CVs for when they decided to change jobs and used the agency I worked for to get headhunted.
Management and legal professions were the worst. My own CV didn't run past two pages and no paragraph was more than 4 lines long. These gits dictated essays about how they saved their company from financial ruin or how they specialised in property law for several years before taking over their previous company's criminal law department and (of course) turned it around into a great success.
No mention about how they lost their previous job. The joy of typing their CVs lay in the art of trying to figure out why they were looking for a new job if they were so good at their last one. Caught in the broom cupboard with their secretary on CCTV or having one too many with a client and losing their licence on the way home were popular guesses during those rare moments when my co-workers decided a bit of banter was called for.
A sip of coffee, just enough to give me the encouragement to start on the first CV, and I was off. My fingers warmed up and danced across the keyboard and the names, addresses, dates of birth (why do women think that "less than 35" counts as a date of birth?") were starting to get digitised en masse. On a good day I could whisk through 5 CVs per hour. On a Friday it was more like 2 per hour and lots of coffee, but I was psyched up and wanted to get this backlog done before the weekend so I wouldn't start to go into a black mood on Sunday night thinking about a pile of paperwork on my desk the following Monday.
"Morning!" Sue breezed in through the front door of the agency. Always cheery and fired up, she led the Legal team of recruitment consultants and by all accounts she was one of the top managers in the country. I didn't like her because I once overheard her having a little chat with her secretary about earning an extra £30 if she'd say she was driving Sue's company Audi Quattro around the time it got clocked by a speed camera doing 50mpg in a 30 limit when Sue was driving. Unethical. Being able to still dash around the country visiting clients when by rights she was 340 points past her rightfully due ban didn't seem right, somehow. I gave her my best scowl and carried on typing.
"By the way Steve, could you spray a little air freshener in the lobby? It's a little, erm, whiffy this morning." Clearly my best scowl needed a bit of work because Sue still looked cheery. I'd have to work on it.
My typing trance was broken now so there was nothing for it but to obey, despite the fact that Sue was Legal and had no jurisdiction over me as I was in the CV team, but I guess spraying air freshener wasn't one of her core-skills.
One of the joys of having a city-centre office with street front access to a listed building is that the local tramps regularly use your doorway to urinate in. The urine flows under the door onto the internal recessed welcome mat and soaks in to its heart's content overnight. First worker through the door gets the full aroma the next morning, that worker is usually me, hence the herbal coffee.
Grabbing the always-ready can of Extra Strong Pine Fragrance (Norwegian Blue) from the top of the cabinet nearest the front doorway I gave the lobby a good once over, politely ignoring the "Had a little accident?" jibes from a couple of consultants strolling in whilst I was there. And they always wondered why their CVs came back with typos. Go figure.
9:47am, Friday - Y.U.P.P.I.E.S.
The office was in full swing. Consultants punching the air whilst simultaneously trying to calculate their commission on the placement they'd just managed, then stopping to punch the air when they realised they'd need to use their calculators to figure it out. Team leaders cajoling, laughing, shouting, encouraging, simultaneously trying to calculate their commission on the placements they were getting the consultants to manage and then going quiet whilst they looked for their calculator which had just been swiped. Phones ringing, consultants being cajoled into answering them by team leaders just in case it was worth commission. Sue in the corner whispering to her secretary again. Wonder how fast she was going this time? Typical day.
9:48am, Friday - Walter Mitty Vol.1
"Steve, could I have a word?" Crystal was the boss of the CV team. Responsible for output, quality control, people management and pay she didn't look anything like her name. In mineralogy crystal is quite a fragile substance renowned for its ability to be shaped into something delicate and beautiful. Our Crystal never studied mineralogy, broke the pneumatic systems on office chairs with worrying regularity and it would take a sculptor wielding a sledgehammer to effect any noticeable improvements to her makeup.
"Sure, Crystal. How can I be of help?" The herbal coffee was kicking in, my grouchiness was wearing off, my pile of CVs had depleted during the last couple of hours and I was looking forward to the weekend, I couldn't help being a little civil.
Crystal didn't fall for it. "I just had a call from one of our consultants in Manchester, he'd like you to redo one of the CVs you did last week for a company director he wants to place. One John Moffat? He said there's a typo, you spelt a company name 'McDonalds' instead of 'Fortescue Worldwide Finance Inc'".
"Sure, Crystal, I'll get right on it, must've been daydreaming eh?" I didn't think the excuse would wash but transposition whilst typing was common enough.
"Yes please Steve. Be sure to get right on it, thankyou." Crystal turned back to her desk, her way gentle way of dismissing anyone she was speaking to but clearly a strain for her office chair, which clunked protestingly.
I wondered how long it would be before the other calls started coming.
9:48.45am, Friday - Walter Mitty Vol.2
"Steve! Is there a problem with the CV system?" It was Sue, striding across the 40-feet of office space between her bank of desks and mine, starting the conversation at 35-feet just to make sure that the whole office knew there was a problem and that it wasn't her fault.
"Well there could be, Sue, you never know, funny things computers sometimes. What seems to be the matter?" I emphasised the word 'seems' with just the right amount of decibels when the range had closed to 25-feet so that the whole office would know that the problem was more likely at the Legal team's end and not mine. Sue closed the gap quickly, probably faster than she could have done in her Audi.
She arrived, paperwork in hand and held it in front of my nose. Sue-style.
"This just came over the fax from one of my clients. It's a CV you did for one of my candidates on Tuesday, but I think some of the details on here are from another CV, it's all mixed up. Like where my candidate has a BSc first-class in Criminal Law his qualifications are listed on this CV as ''O' Level Woodworking (b)', and some of the details of his previous jobs don't appear correctly. My candidate certainly never worked as a shelf-stacker for Marks and Spencer."
I put on my best 'Wow, can't think how this could've happened' expression and was gratified to see that Sue, thick cow that she was, seemed taken in by it.
"Well, Sue, could be that some database fields on the CV templates have become corrupted by any number of variables, sounds like it's one for I.T. to investigate so I'll refer it to them A.S.A.P., meantime I'll get this CV redone P.D.Q. and I'll have it back on your desk before you can say speed camera."
Watching Sue's face go from bafflement to relief to consternation was probably the highlight of my week as I took the offending Curriculum Vitae from her hands and from in front of my nose, and left her to navigate her way back across the office.
9.55am, Friday - Walter Mitty, Come Out With Your Hands Up
"STEVE!" Crystal again, looking a bit flustered. Her voice had been getting steadily louder during the previous 5 minutes until half the office were wondering why her usually calm, albeit rocky, composure was starting to crack because she was usually always so good natured when taking phone calls. I suspect that they were wondering if their commission had been cut by a half percent by head office.
"Yes, Crystal?" Wide-eyed innocence, I could win a BAFTA for it.
"I have just come off the phone from our number one client."
The office was quiet now. If Crystal had been speaking to the number one client and it hadn't been a good conversation it meant bad news for most of them.
"Our number one client is a little confused as to why instead of sending them CVs for 400 of our best call-centre candidates they got the CVs of the cast of Sesame Street, Star Wars and every extra that appeared, however briefly, in the 1959 release of Ben Hur. Do you think, Steve...", I saw a tic at the corner of her mouth. Quite an achievement, I was impressed. I was trying to calculate just exactly how many muscles could be involved in shifting the considerable poundage of pancake that was obstructing them, "... that you could explain EXACTLY what happened?"
"Well, Crystal..."
"Because our number one client is now our EX-NUMBER ONE CLIENT?!?"
Deathly hush. You could hear a paperclip drop, even on the nylon hi-grade 'free electric shock every 3 paces' astroturf that masqueraded as an office carpet.
"Well, Crystal..."
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA" If Mount Fuji could froth at the mouth, Crystal was doing a great impression of what what it would probably look like, "WHAT THE LOSS OF THAT ACCOUNT HAS COST THIS COMPANY?"
Out of the corner of my eye I could see the legal team starting to rise from their office chairs; the insurance consultants were already on their feet, they knew who the client in question was and had already worked out that they'd have trouble paying their rent at the end of the month if things were as bad as they were starting to sound.
"Crystal it could be that..."
"COULD BE MY A**E!" In a feat of gymnastic dexterity Crystal had actually managed to get vertical from her office chair without applying 300lbs of pressure to the cushioned arm rests either side of her. Any other time and I'd have snapped a photo and sent it off to M.I.T. to let them try and work out what various laws of physics had just been broken.
"IT'S... IT'S... SABOTAGE! YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE!"
"Crystal, if you'd stop speaking in caps for a minute and let me explain...."
"YOU... YOU..."
She was advancing. Hell, even legal were getting a bit close for comfort and insurance weren't that far behind. I could stand my ground and explain that I'd had a better offer from another recruitment agency to type CVs for factory workers, truck drivers and warehouse personnel (no more 'BSc (Hons) Literature', yay!) and wanted to leave my mark before I handed in my notice, or do the honourable thing and make a break for the front door.
I did the honourable thing, but the baying consultants were only a few leaps and bounds behind me. I needed a decoy, a distraction, anything to buy a few seconds of time to make my escape without being stapled to death by a yuppie.
Flying past the last filing cabinet en route to the exit I grabbed the tin of Norwegian Pine off the top, pulled a paperclip from my shirt pocket (why do bits of office stationery always end up in your shirt pocket?) and jammed the end of the paperclip into the nozzle.
Dashing into the lobby I fumbled in my trouser pocket for my trusty zippo, flung the hissing aerosol onto the welcome mat and darted out the front door. Just before the pack of consultants reached the lobby I flicked open the zippo, got a flame going (took me two flicks, Bruce Willis can always do it in one in the movies but I reckon it must be the third or fourth take that makes the cut) and hurled the lighter back into that stinking lobby from hell with a gutsy overarm.
It worked. Ammonia fumes, strickly speaking, aren't flammable. But the consultants who spent more time at school learning how to add up their pocket money than paying attention in chemistry, who turned up their noses each time they came into work each day but didn't do anything about the stench because "Steve'll take care of it, he's good with airfreshner" hadn't a clue. There isn't a collective noun for consultants, so I'll just say that the pack of twonks back-pedalled faster than the Irish Tour de France whilst I ran off down the pavement.
10:07am, Friday - It's a New Dawn, It's a New Day, It's New Life
I was humming plesantly to myself as I left the newsagent equipped with my new disposable lighter. I'd caught my breath, got over the loss of my zippo and was feeling good. Weekend ahead, new job to start the following week and the sun had finally managed to poke out through the retreating clouds above.
"Spare 50p for a cup of tea guv?"
I'd guess he was in his early 50s, hard to tell with beggars, he could have been early 30s for all I knew but then the outdoor life can be hard on some people. I have him £9.10 and told him that if he ever needed a good night's kip then the listed building around the corner had a good overhang that could provide some decent shelter from the elements.
7:30am, Friday - Morning Glory
There I sat, slightly damp from waiting so long for the bus on a cold, wet, dark, early morning, staring at my VDU, willing myself to start typing. A stack of 20 CVs to my left, a half-empty plastic cup of strongly scented herbal coffee from the vending machine to my right, my hands poised over the keyboard. Boredom personified, but at least there was nobody else around so I could briefly scratch my left armpit quite happily without anyone objecting.
Typing CVs into a recruitment agency's database for a living wasn't the most exciting living. Some people studied for decades to become surgeons, others took huge financial risks and became Directors of their own companies, others became barristers, fighter pilots, mercenaries, sales gurus or management experts. I, on the other hand, had the glamourous task of typing their CVs for when they decided to change jobs and used the agency I worked for to get headhunted.
Management and legal professions were the worst. My own CV didn't run past two pages and no paragraph was more than 4 lines long. These gits dictated essays about how they saved their company from financial ruin or how they specialised in property law for several years before taking over their previous company's criminal law department and (of course) turned it around into a great success.
No mention about how they lost their previous job. The joy of typing their CVs lay in the art of trying to figure out why they were looking for a new job if they were so good at their last one. Caught in the broom cupboard with their secretary on CCTV or having one too many with a client and losing their licence on the way home were popular guesses during those rare moments when my co-workers decided a bit of banter was called for.
A sip of coffee, just enough to give me the encouragement to start on the first CV, and I was off. My fingers warmed up and danced across the keyboard and the names, addresses, dates of birth (why do women think that "less than 35" counts as a date of birth?") were starting to get digitised en masse. On a good day I could whisk through 5 CVs per hour. On a Friday it was more like 2 per hour and lots of coffee, but I was psyched up and wanted to get this backlog done before the weekend so I wouldn't start to go into a black mood on Sunday night thinking about a pile of paperwork on my desk the following Monday.
"Morning!" Sue breezed in through the front door of the agency. Always cheery and fired up, she led the Legal team of recruitment consultants and by all accounts she was one of the top managers in the country. I didn't like her because I once overheard her having a little chat with her secretary about earning an extra £30 if she'd say she was driving Sue's company Audi Quattro around the time it got clocked by a speed camera doing 50mpg in a 30 limit when Sue was driving. Unethical. Being able to still dash around the country visiting clients when by rights she was 340 points past her rightfully due ban didn't seem right, somehow. I gave her my best scowl and carried on typing.
"By the way Steve, could you spray a little air freshener in the lobby? It's a little, erm, whiffy this morning." Clearly my best scowl needed a bit of work because Sue still looked cheery. I'd have to work on it.
My typing trance was broken now so there was nothing for it but to obey, despite the fact that Sue was Legal and had no jurisdiction over me as I was in the CV team, but I guess spraying air freshener wasn't one of her core-skills.
One of the joys of having a city-centre office with street front access to a listed building is that the local tramps regularly use your doorway to urinate in. The urine flows under the door onto the internal recessed welcome mat and soaks in to its heart's content overnight. First worker through the door gets the full aroma the next morning, that worker is usually me, hence the herbal coffee.
Grabbing the always-ready can of Extra Strong Pine Fragrance (Norwegian Blue) from the top of the cabinet nearest the front doorway I gave the lobby a good once over, politely ignoring the "Had a little accident?" jibes from a couple of consultants strolling in whilst I was there. And they always wondered why their CVs came back with typos. Go figure.
9:47am, Friday - Y.U.P.P.I.E.S.
The office was in full swing. Consultants punching the air whilst simultaneously trying to calculate their commission on the placement they'd just managed, then stopping to punch the air when they realised they'd need to use their calculators to figure it out. Team leaders cajoling, laughing, shouting, encouraging, simultaneously trying to calculate their commission on the placements they were getting the consultants to manage and then going quiet whilst they looked for their calculator which had just been swiped. Phones ringing, consultants being cajoled into answering them by team leaders just in case it was worth commission. Sue in the corner whispering to her secretary again. Wonder how fast she was going this time? Typical day.
9:48am, Friday - Walter Mitty Vol.1
"Steve, could I have a word?" Crystal was the boss of the CV team. Responsible for output, quality control, people management and pay she didn't look anything like her name. In mineralogy crystal is quite a fragile substance renowned for its ability to be shaped into something delicate and beautiful. Our Crystal never studied mineralogy, broke the pneumatic systems on office chairs with worrying regularity and it would take a sculptor wielding a sledgehammer to effect any noticeable improvements to her makeup.
"Sure, Crystal. How can I be of help?" The herbal coffee was kicking in, my grouchiness was wearing off, my pile of CVs had depleted during the last couple of hours and I was looking forward to the weekend, I couldn't help being a little civil.
Crystal didn't fall for it. "I just had a call from one of our consultants in Manchester, he'd like you to redo one of the CVs you did last week for a company director he wants to place. One John Moffat? He said there's a typo, you spelt a company name 'McDonalds' instead of 'Fortescue Worldwide Finance Inc'".
"Sure, Crystal, I'll get right on it, must've been daydreaming eh?" I didn't think the excuse would wash but transposition whilst typing was common enough.
"Yes please Steve. Be sure to get right on it, thankyou." Crystal turned back to her desk, her way gentle way of dismissing anyone she was speaking to but clearly a strain for her office chair, which clunked protestingly.
I wondered how long it would be before the other calls started coming.
9:48.45am, Friday - Walter Mitty Vol.2
"Steve! Is there a problem with the CV system?" It was Sue, striding across the 40-feet of office space between her bank of desks and mine, starting the conversation at 35-feet just to make sure that the whole office knew there was a problem and that it wasn't her fault.
"Well there could be, Sue, you never know, funny things computers sometimes. What seems to be the matter?" I emphasised the word 'seems' with just the right amount of decibels when the range had closed to 25-feet so that the whole office would know that the problem was more likely at the Legal team's end and not mine. Sue closed the gap quickly, probably faster than she could have done in her Audi.
She arrived, paperwork in hand and held it in front of my nose. Sue-style.
"This just came over the fax from one of my clients. It's a CV you did for one of my candidates on Tuesday, but I think some of the details on here are from another CV, it's all mixed up. Like where my candidate has a BSc first-class in Criminal Law his qualifications are listed on this CV as ''O' Level Woodworking (b)', and some of the details of his previous jobs don't appear correctly. My candidate certainly never worked as a shelf-stacker for Marks and Spencer."
I put on my best 'Wow, can't think how this could've happened' expression and was gratified to see that Sue, thick cow that she was, seemed taken in by it.
"Well, Sue, could be that some database fields on the CV templates have become corrupted by any number of variables, sounds like it's one for I.T. to investigate so I'll refer it to them A.S.A.P., meantime I'll get this CV redone P.D.Q. and I'll have it back on your desk before you can say speed camera."
Watching Sue's face go from bafflement to relief to consternation was probably the highlight of my week as I took the offending Curriculum Vitae from her hands and from in front of my nose, and left her to navigate her way back across the office.
9.55am, Friday - Walter Mitty, Come Out With Your Hands Up
"STEVE!" Crystal again, looking a bit flustered. Her voice had been getting steadily louder during the previous 5 minutes until half the office were wondering why her usually calm, albeit rocky, composure was starting to crack because she was usually always so good natured when taking phone calls. I suspect that they were wondering if their commission had been cut by a half percent by head office.
"Yes, Crystal?" Wide-eyed innocence, I could win a BAFTA for it.
"I have just come off the phone from our number one client."
The office was quiet now. If Crystal had been speaking to the number one client and it hadn't been a good conversation it meant bad news for most of them.
"Our number one client is a little confused as to why instead of sending them CVs for 400 of our best call-centre candidates they got the CVs of the cast of Sesame Street, Star Wars and every extra that appeared, however briefly, in the 1959 release of Ben Hur. Do you think, Steve...", I saw a tic at the corner of her mouth. Quite an achievement, I was impressed. I was trying to calculate just exactly how many muscles could be involved in shifting the considerable poundage of pancake that was obstructing them, "... that you could explain EXACTLY what happened?"
"Well, Crystal..."
"Because our number one client is now our EX-NUMBER ONE CLIENT?!?"
Deathly hush. You could hear a paperclip drop, even on the nylon hi-grade 'free electric shock every 3 paces' astroturf that masqueraded as an office carpet.
"Well, Crystal..."
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA" If Mount Fuji could froth at the mouth, Crystal was doing a great impression of what what it would probably look like, "WHAT THE LOSS OF THAT ACCOUNT HAS COST THIS COMPANY?"
Out of the corner of my eye I could see the legal team starting to rise from their office chairs; the insurance consultants were already on their feet, they knew who the client in question was and had already worked out that they'd have trouble paying their rent at the end of the month if things were as bad as they were starting to sound.
"Crystal it could be that..."
"COULD BE MY A**E!" In a feat of gymnastic dexterity Crystal had actually managed to get vertical from her office chair without applying 300lbs of pressure to the cushioned arm rests either side of her. Any other time and I'd have snapped a photo and sent it off to M.I.T. to let them try and work out what various laws of physics had just been broken.
"IT'S... IT'S... SABOTAGE! YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE!"
"Crystal, if you'd stop speaking in caps for a minute and let me explain...."
"YOU... YOU..."
She was advancing. Hell, even legal were getting a bit close for comfort and insurance weren't that far behind. I could stand my ground and explain that I'd had a better offer from another recruitment agency to type CVs for factory workers, truck drivers and warehouse personnel (no more 'BSc (Hons) Literature', yay!) and wanted to leave my mark before I handed in my notice, or do the honourable thing and make a break for the front door.
I did the honourable thing, but the baying consultants were only a few leaps and bounds behind me. I needed a decoy, a distraction, anything to buy a few seconds of time to make my escape without being stapled to death by a yuppie.
Flying past the last filing cabinet en route to the exit I grabbed the tin of Norwegian Pine off the top, pulled a paperclip from my shirt pocket (why do bits of office stationery always end up in your shirt pocket?) and jammed the end of the paperclip into the nozzle.
Dashing into the lobby I fumbled in my trouser pocket for my trusty zippo, flung the hissing aerosol onto the welcome mat and darted out the front door. Just before the pack of consultants reached the lobby I flicked open the zippo, got a flame going (took me two flicks, Bruce Willis can always do it in one in the movies but I reckon it must be the third or fourth take that makes the cut) and hurled the lighter back into that stinking lobby from hell with a gutsy overarm.
It worked. Ammonia fumes, strickly speaking, aren't flammable. But the consultants who spent more time at school learning how to add up their pocket money than paying attention in chemistry, who turned up their noses each time they came into work each day but didn't do anything about the stench because "Steve'll take care of it, he's good with airfreshner" hadn't a clue. There isn't a collective noun for consultants, so I'll just say that the pack of twonks back-pedalled faster than the Irish Tour de France whilst I ran off down the pavement.
10:07am, Friday - It's a New Dawn, It's a New Day, It's New Life
I was humming plesantly to myself as I left the newsagent equipped with my new disposable lighter. I'd caught my breath, got over the loss of my zippo and was feeling good. Weekend ahead, new job to start the following week and the sun had finally managed to poke out through the retreating clouds above.
"Spare 50p for a cup of tea guv?"
I'd guess he was in his early 50s, hard to tell with beggars, he could have been early 30s for all I knew but then the outdoor life can be hard on some people. I have him £9.10 and told him that if he ever needed a good night's kip then the listed building around the corner had a good overhang that could provide some decent shelter from the elements.
There I sat, slightly damp from waiting so long for the bus on a cold, wet, dark, early morning, staring at my VDU, willing myself to start typing. A stack of 20 CVs to my left, a half-empty plastic cup of strongly scented herbal coffee from the vending machine to my right, my hands poised over the keyboard. Boredom personified, but at least there was nobody else around so I could briefly scratch my left armpit quite happily without anyone objecting.
Typing CVs into a recruitment agency's database for a living wasn't the most exciting living. Some people studied for decades to become surgeons, others took huge financial risks and became Directors of their own companies, others became barristers, fighter pilots, mercenaries, sales gurus or management experts. I, on the other hand, had the glamourous task of typing their CVs for when they decided to change jobs and used the agency I worked for to get headhunted.
Management and legal professions were the worst. My own CV didn't run past two pages and no paragraph was more than 4 lines long. These gits dictated essays about how they saved their company from financial ruin or how they specialised in property law for several years before taking over their previous company's criminal law department and (of course) turned it around into a great success.
No mention about how they lost their previous job. The joy of typing their CVs lay in the art of trying to figure out why they were looking for a new job if they were so good at their last one. Caught in the broom cupboard with their secretary on CCTV or having one too many with a client and losing their licence on the way home were popular guesses during those rare moments when my co-workers decided a bit of banter was called for.
A sip of coffee, just enough to give me the encouragement to start on the first CV, and I was off. My fingers warmed up and danced across the keyboard and the names, addresses, dates of birth (why do women think that "less than 35" counts as a date of birth?") were starting to get digitised en masse. On a good day I could whisk through 5 CVs per hour. On a Friday it was more like 2 per hour and lots of coffee, but I was psyched up and wanted to get this backlog done before the weekend so I wouldn't start to go into a black mood on Sunday night thinking about a pile of paperwork on my desk the following Monday.
"Morning!" Sue breezed in through the front door of the agency. Always cheery and fired up, she led the Legal team of recruitment consultants and by all accounts she was one of the top managers in the country. I didn't like her because I once overheard her having a little chat with her secretary about earning an extra £30 if she'd say she was driving Sue's company Audi Quattro around the time it got clocked by a speed camera doing 50mpg in a 30 limit when Sue was driving. Unethical. Being able to still dash around the country visiting clients when by rights she was 340 points past her rightfully due ban didn't seem right, somehow. I gave her my best scowl and carried on typing.
"By the way Steve, could you spray a little air freshener in the lobby? It's a little, erm, whiffy this morning." Clearly my best scowl needed a bit of work because Sue still looked cheery. I'd have to work on it.
My typing trance was broken now so there was nothing for it but to obey, despite the fact that Sue was Legal and had no jurisdiction over me as I was in the CV team, but I guess spraying air freshener wasn't one of her core-skills.
One of the joys of having a city-centre office with street front access to a listed building is that the local tramps regularly use your doorway to urinate in. The urine flows under the door onto the internal recessed welcome mat and soaks in to its heart's content overnight. First worker through the door gets the full aroma the next morning, that worker is usually me, hence the herbal coffee.
Grabbing the always-ready can of Extra Strong Pine Fragrance (Norwegian Blue) from the top of the cabinet nearest the front doorway I gave the lobby a good once over, politely ignoring the "Had a little accident?" jibes from a couple of consultants strolling in whilst I was there. And they always wondered why their CVs came back with typos. Go figure.
9:47am, Friday - Y.U.P.P.I.E.S.
The office was in full swing. Consultants punching the air whilst simultaneously trying to calculate their commission on the placement they'd just managed, then stopping to punch the air when they realised they'd need to use their calculators to figure it out. Team leaders cajoling, laughing, shouting, encouraging, simultaneously trying to calculate their commission on the placements they were getting the consultants to manage and then going quiet whilst they looked for their calculator which had just been swiped. Phones ringing, consultants being cajoled into answering them by team leaders just in case it was worth commission. Sue in the corner whispering to her secretary again. Wonder how fast she was going this time? Typical day.
9:48am, Friday - Walter Mitty Vol.1
"Steve, could I have a word?" Crystal was the boss of the CV team. Responsible for output, quality control, people management and pay she didn't look anything like her name. In mineralogy crystal is quite a fragile substance renowned for its ability to be shaped into something delicate and beautiful. Our Crystal never studied mineralogy, broke the pneumatic systems on office chairs with worrying regularity and it would take a sculptor wielding a sledgehammer to effect any noticeable improvements to her makeup.
"Sure, Crystal. How can I be of help?" The herbal coffee was kicking in, my grouchiness was wearing off, my pile of CVs had depleted during the last couple of hours and I was looking forward to the weekend, I couldn't help being a little civil.
Crystal didn't fall for it. "I just had a call from one of our consultants in Manchester, he'd like you to redo one of the CVs you did last week for a company director he wants to place. One John Moffat? He said there's a typo, you spelt a company name 'McDonalds' instead of 'Fortescue Worldwide Finance Inc'".
"Sure, Crystal, I'll get right on it, must've been daydreaming eh?" I didn't think the excuse would wash but transposition whilst typing was common enough.
"Yes please Steve. Be sure to get right on it, thankyou." Crystal turned back to her desk, her way gentle way of dismissing anyone she was speaking to but clearly a strain for her office chair, which clunked protestingly.
I wondered how long it would be before the other calls started coming.
9:48.45am, Friday - Walter Mitty Vol.2
"Steve! Is there a problem with the CV system?" It was Sue, striding across the 40-feet of office space between her bank of desks and mine, starting the conversation at 35-feet just to make sure that the whole office knew there was a problem and that it wasn't her fault.
"Well there could be, Sue, you never know, funny things computers sometimes. What seems to be the matter?" I emphasised the word 'seems' with just the right amount of decibels when the range had closed to 25-feet so that the whole office would know that the problem was more likely at the Legal team's end and not mine. Sue closed the gap quickly, probably faster than she could have done in her Audi.
She arrived, paperwork in hand and held it in front of my nose. Sue-style.
"This just came over the fax from one of my clients. It's a CV you did for one of my candidates on Tuesday, but I think some of the details on here are from another CV, it's all mixed up. Like where my candidate has a BSc first-class in Criminal Law his qualifications are listed on this CV as ''O' Level Woodworking (b)', and some of the details of his previous jobs don't appear correctly. My candidate certainly never worked as a shelf-stacker for Marks and Spencer."
I put on my best 'Wow, can't think how this could've happened' expression and was gratified to see that Sue, thick cow that she was, seemed taken in by it.
"Well, Sue, could be that some database fields on the CV templates have become corrupted by any number of variables, sounds like it's one for I.T. to investigate so I'll refer it to them A.S.A.P., meantime I'll get this CV redone P.D.Q. and I'll have it back on your desk before you can say speed camera."
Watching Sue's face go from bafflement to relief to consternation was probably the highlight of my week as I took the offending Curriculum Vitae from her hands and from in front of my nose, and left her to navigate her way back across the office.
9.55am, Friday - Walter Mitty, Come Out With Your Hands Up
"STEVE!" Crystal again, looking a bit flustered. Her voice had been getting steadily louder during the previous 5 minutes until half the office were wondering why her usually calm, albeit rocky, composure was starting to crack because she was usually always so good natured when taking phone calls. I suspect that they were wondering if their commission had been cut by a half percent by head office.
"Yes, Crystal?" Wide-eyed innocence, I could win a BAFTA for it.
"I have just come off the phone from our number one client."
The office was quiet now. If Crystal had been speaking to the number one client and it hadn't been a good conversation it meant bad news for most of them.
"Our number one client is a little confused as to why instead of sending them CVs for 400 of our best call-centre candidates they got the CVs of the cast of Sesame Street, Star Wars and every extra that appeared, however briefly, in the 1959 release of Ben Hur. Do you think, Steve...", I saw a tic at the corner of her mouth. Quite an achievement, I was impressed. I was trying to calculate just exactly how many muscles could be involved in shifting the considerable poundage of pancake that was obstructing them, "... that you could explain EXACTLY what happened?"
"Well, Crystal..."
"Because our number one client is now our EX-NUMBER ONE CLIENT?!?"
Deathly hush. You could hear a paperclip drop, even on the nylon hi-grade 'free electric shock every 3 paces' astroturf that masqueraded as an office carpet.
"Well, Crystal..."
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA" If Mount Fuji could froth at the mouth, Crystal was doing a great impression of what what it would probably look like, "WHAT THE LOSS OF THAT ACCOUNT HAS COST THIS COMPANY?"
Out of the corner of my eye I could see the legal team starting to rise from their office chairs; the insurance consultants were already on their feet, they knew who the client in question was and had already worked out that they'd have trouble paying their rent at the end of the month if things were as bad as they were starting to sound.
"Crystal it could be that..."
"COULD BE MY A**E!" In a feat of gymnastic dexterity Crystal had actually managed to get vertical from her office chair without applying 300lbs of pressure to the cushioned arm rests either side of her. Any other time and I'd have snapped a photo and sent it off to M.I.T. to let them try and work out what various laws of physics had just been broken.
"IT'S... IT'S... SABOTAGE! YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE!"
"Crystal, if you'd stop speaking in caps for a minute and let me explain...."
"YOU... YOU..."
She was advancing. Hell, even legal were getting a bit close for comfort and insurance weren't that far behind. I could stand my ground and explain that I'd had a better offer from another recruitment agency to type CVs for factory workers, truck drivers and warehouse personnel (no more 'BSc (Hons) Literature', yay!) and wanted to leave my mark before I handed in my notice, or do the honourable thing and make a break for the front door.
I did the honourable thing, but the baying consultants were only a few leaps and bounds behind me. I needed a decoy, a distraction, anything to buy a few seconds of time to make my escape without being stapled to death by a yuppie.
Flying past the last filing cabinet en route to the exit I grabbed the tin of Norwegian Pine off the top, pulled a paperclip from my shirt pocket (why do bits of office stationery always end up in your shirt pocket?) and jammed the end of the paperclip into the nozzle.
Dashing into the lobby I fumbled in my trouser pocket for my trusty zippo, flung the hissing aerosol onto the welcome mat and darted out the front door. Just before the pack of consultants reached the lobby I flicked open the zippo, got a flame going (took me two flicks, Bruce Willis can always do it in one in the movies but I reckon it must be the third or fourth take that makes the cut) and hurled the lighter back into that stinking lobby from hell with a gutsy overarm.
It worked. Ammonia fumes, strickly speaking, aren't flammable. But the consultants who spent more time at school learning how to add up their pocket money than paying attention in chemistry, who turned up their noses each time they came into work each day but didn't do anything about the stench because "Steve'll take care of it, he's good with airfreshner" hadn't a clue. There isn't a collective noun for consultants, so I'll just say that the pack of twonks back-pedalled faster than the Irish Tour de France whilst I ran off down the pavement.
10:07am, Friday - It's a New Dawn, It's a New Day, It's New Life
I was humming plesantly to myself as I left the newsagent equipped with my new disposable lighter. I'd caught my breath, got over the loss of my zippo and was feeling good. Weekend ahead, new job to start the following week and the sun had finally managed to poke out through the retreating clouds above.
"Spare 50p for a cup of tea guv?"
I'd guess he was in his early 50s, hard to tell with beggars, he could have been early 30s for all I knew but then the outdoor life can be hard on some people. I have him £9.10 and told him that if he ever needed a good night's kip then the listed building around the corner had a good overhang that could provide some decent shelter from the elements.
Entertaining story. It feels like some of it is based on real experience. And I like the narrator's rebellious streak.
Very good. I think 'amusing' is the word. Fits the theme to a tee. And anything featuring tramps always gets a thumbs-up from me.
I really enjoyed that. I really need to have a go at one of these again, I always used to partake of the FoG stories but I;m completely out of practice now.
Enjoyed that, some really great lines - particularly liked - stop talking in caps - and more back-pedaling than an Irish Tour De France.