Unbearable Yogi

The other day I got to work at 8.50am. The other 4 members of my team were gathered around the desk next to mine. I said hello to all of them and they all said hello back, including my ursine colleague Yogi Bear who then said

“David got all his ‘good mornings’ out in one go. That is the benefit of being the last person in to work."

Was he having a dig about me being allegedly late for work? Surely not I thought. Give Yogi the benefit of the doubt, I thought.

But then he said, "I will have to get in late tomorrow like David and do that.”

And then I just wanted to locate a bear trap...

It is legal to shoot bears right? ;)

The Jew in the Fridge

Merry Fridge Cleaning Everyone! Can you believe it is the ‘second bi-monthly fridge cleaning for my office building’ already?? I must not have even noticed the Fridge Cleaning carollers singing from fridge door to door , I have not even purchased my Happy Fridge Cleaning cards and I have no idea what to buy my Fridge Kindle...

If you missed this significant event here is the email I received this morning heralding the important event:

Please be advised that this Friday 12th February (tomorrow), Cleaning Services will be conducting the second bi-monthly fridge cleaning on each floor.

Please be aware that any food (sandwiches, yoghurts etc) and containers will be thrown out on this date regardless of food used by dates. Contents that will remain 'safe' in the fridge and not thrown out are butters, sauces, milk, and jams.

Any personal items (tupperware, breads etc) and foods if you wish to keep, please remove each Friday bi-monthly cleaning date.

Kind regards

Facilities Management Helpdesk

As always ordinary office tasks take on the importance of a major event requiring planning appropriate to a major military operation. You are not invading Normandy – you are cleaning a fridge!

There are so many aspects of this email that have caused me to roll me eyes in disbelief. Bread is apparently a personal item akin to Tupperware. Bread is not personal - it’s perishable. Yogurt, regardless of the use-by date, is going to be expunged from the fridge forthwith. Seems a bit harsh. Can’t we settle our differences and get along. If yogurt is allowed to live alongside butters, sauces and jams we truly would have a multicultural fridge... I feel compelled to rescue the innocent yogurt tubs caught in the middle of this highly organised hygiene holocaust. I wonder if it is worth hiding some yogurt inside some Tupperware in an Anne Frank-in-the-attic attempt to evade the cruel clutches of the fridge-cleaning Gestapo? Similarly, in a desperate attempt to have their lives spared, bottles of Yakult could have small signs hanging from their necks reading, “We are not yogurt – we are but innocent milk infused with Dr Shirota’s special Shirota bacteria strain.”

I just hope this crisis can be resolved quicker than the explosive time a decomposing loaf of Helga’s bread was discovered on the middle shelf of the fridge, an incident forever remembered as the Middle Yeast Crisis of 2007...

Nanny McPhee and the Office Nightmare

Last night I had a work-related nightmare. The frightening ghoul that disturbed my slumber came in the inelegant form of a co-worker at a previous workplace whom I had nicknamed Grey Rae. Grey Rae was so called because both her personality and dress were far from colourful. It is difficult to describe Grey Rae facially or physically without exaggerating or being unnecessarily cruel but it would not be inaccurate for me to say that she would not have looked out of place in a Breugel painting, perhaps as a peasant woman selling tubers from a barrel. In my dream Grey Rae’s features had been distorted so that she resembled, physically, a law office version of Nanny Mc Phee. Regrettably while Grey Rae had morphed into the foul warted and exuberantly nosed appearance of Nanny McPhee she did not bring with it the singular Nanny’s plucky personality and subtle charm. In my dream Grey Rae merely turned in her swivel chair towards me repeating with increasing anger and loudness, “I would never renew your contract!” I would never renew your contract! I would never renew your contract!” Hilarious! I woke up distressed until I realised that I am no longer at that job and that, regardless, Grey Rae was never in a position to negotiate my contract.



As Grey Rae is the topic of this post I cannot help but recall the image of the Grey One sitting in the asymmetrical glass office we nicknamed the penthouse. She sat staring at her computer screen with such lack of movement, intensity and concentration that to this day I am convinced that she was watching DVD’s on her computer. If she was I can assure you she was not watching a comedy...