Periodical Ponderings

I was on lunch yesterday when I fancied reading a newspaper. Over the last four years I’ve gradually stopped reading them frequently to the point I do so every few weeks. Standing in WHSmiths finding myself staring at the quadrant stand of papers I started to see which one I’d purchase. The first one to catch my eye was The Sun. The first paper I ever read. Its large topical banner headlines with colour pictures of scantily clad gorgeous women, what more could a randy teenager want. I used to read it as I delivered them on my paper round, always starting 20 minutes early so I could give myself some leisurely reading time. After a while though, it became apparent that these stories were rather salacious and false, plus I’d have as much chance with them women inside them as Alan Partridge has of getting a second series.

I took a few extra steps around to the second side of the stand and saw The Daily Star, with even bigger headlines and larger photos of semi naked women but the thought of finishing a paper in two minutes encouraged me to continue until I moved on to the broadsheets, or the former broadsheets. I first began reading a broadsheet when my old English teacher instructed us to do so telling us it will improve our vocabulary. She touted The Independent, so off I went and bought one. It was during this period that I became aware of the political and commercial significance the broadsheet signified. I felt all self-righteous and left wing slapping the coins on the counter and walking off with a paper that could also be used as a parachute. The Independent, the paper that stood for independence and against the commercial might of News Corporation. Still able to viably print off papers even though News Corp always outbids them when television advertising space is available, well according to my English teacher they did. So I sat on a park bench and started to read the first few sentences when I came a cropper. What were these words ‘insidious’ and ‘cantankerous’, I was only used to the likes of ‘creepy’ and ‘bellow’. That’s when I realised that to read this paper I would need a dictionary, and reading one story became a one hour study session, frequently turning the papers of the ol’ Oxford Dictionary. And little by little my brain retained words that had two syllables, then three, then four and I even managed to squeeze in a couple of five syllable words. After a year I had all these random words to stupefy people with and occasionally get my backside kicked by a budding semanticist. And all though I was truly grateful for The Independent for introducing me to a greater range of vocabulary, my views had become sort of left wing and off beat. This was mainly due to their stories being completely non-mainstream. For example, there would be an economical crisis and their front page story would be about the polar ice caps melting. A valid story that is true but sometimes I wanted to tap into the pulse of the ‘now’ and so I was finally prised away from ‘The Inde’ to its popular cousin, The Guardian. Now, carrying The Guardian around under your arm pretty much informs the rest of the country that you’re more inclined to vote for Labour than Conservatives, which I didn’t have a problem with. The paper still had many a word that had me baffled and so my learning process continued. However, after a while I started to realise the undertone utterances of its political slant were everywhere. At first, it was a bit of a shock becoming fully aware of it all but I have to say I was happy to agree with most of what was written, and so began the year love affair with the paper. It ended when I sneaked out early one morning and cheated on it with The Times. I hold my hands up, the paper was an easy read and offered me more material things, for instance a free CD. News Corp had corrupted me, they had more money than all the other papers and therefore could afford to ply greater amounts of cash into their journalism covering issues in more detail and offer a greater breadth of them, all covered with the Murdoch glaze, of course. I was slightly savvy now though in the periodical world due to the papers I read previously and could see through the shameless bashing of Rupert’s enemies.
Staring at these papers in the quadrant gave me a tough choice, so I decided to move around the next side to see if there was something else on offer to make the choosing a lot less difficult. As I shuffled around I saw the only broadsheet that still retains its size, The Daily Telegraph. As the Guardian represents labour the Telegraph does the Conservatives and I’ve never ever bought this paper. Mostly due to the fact my father reads it and I could never understand why. I have to say I’ve read certain supplements as they lay scattered around my father’s flat and they are well written and highly slanted but I just couldn’t betray The Independent or The Guardian in teaching me new words.

And so I reached the final side of the quadrant where only the local paper was stacked and is truly as appealing a read as Edwina Curry’s memoirs. Realising I needed to pick a paper soon or lunch would evaporate I walked around once more before picking up the Guardian. Its compact size, berlina style and general colour scheme enticed me enough to make the purchase. And besides if The Private Eye can ridicule it and it still sponsors their competitions it must still be a good egg of a paper.

When You Balls Up At Work

It’s an occurrence that I manage to avoid the majority of the time but I’ve always allocated myself 4 complete balls up per year before my confidence is shattered and all I see around me are the shards of a broken career. Last week I did make a big mistake, I arranged certain things to occur on certain dates inviting dignitaries to divulge their expertise over coffee. My error, telling people the wrong date.

When I discovered my mistake, which a helpful catering assistant pointed it out, I pulled out my packet of Polos withdrew four of them and plopped them into my mouth before chewing aggressively to exercise my fury. Alas, being in my office means reactions of anger must be curtailed to within the remits of one’s own space, and in this case my mouth. However I had to get out of the office so walked out of the building and started to mouth expletives to the audible level of the two ladies taking their fag break. They chuckled and I felt a fool. So what do I do? There were two options available to me, the first was to tell my boss who would give decent advice and probably be able to solve the situation without too much stress. The only negative point for me was that I would be considered nothing more than a harlequin’s assistant and not be given responsibility again. The second option was that I try and sort out things myself, not let my boss know and hope I manage to do a good job of it.

I have to say the former sounded appealing. It was my fault and I was responsible for making sure everything went to plan therefore I should just sort it and think nothing more of it. However, my boss was also involved and if one of the invitees were to mention that the wrong date was initially given, then it would be highly likely I would be considered a bit of a devious devil. I clasped my hands together, ran my fingers through my hair before starting to think how to handle this. I picked up the phone and rang the person in charge of the venue. I explained that the wrong date was given and could I have it for June. The guy who seemed accommodating, said he’d have to clear it with his boss and would get back to me. I placed the handset back down into its place and started to think this through again. It wasn’t possible to tell the invitees that the date had been changed as I couldn’t confirm the venue. I therefore also couldn’t tell catering too. Rather flummoxed by it all I decided to seek advice and mailed a sound source for an opinion.

After weighing up their opinion I thought maybe it was best to just digress all to my boss and receive the potential clip round the ear hole when the phone rang. It was the person in charge of the venue who informed me they could do my new date. I made a coffee before calling catering to let them know it had changed to another date. Then after my third coffee I called the invitees and let them know it was all taking place in June because May is considered passé, especially in June. To my sheer fortune they all were available to come. Excellent, I got away with it by drawing on skills the corporate entity salivates over such as initiative and thinking independently. I could stroll out of the office without my boss knowing. In fact at the end of the day I slipped on my jacket picked up my big with the broken zip and started to walk down the corridor when something didn’t feel right. I wanted to tell my boss. Let them know that I screwed up but wasn’t afraid to tell them. Everyone messes up, no question, I guess it is how we deal with the consequences that the differentiation begins amongst us. From this experience it took me awhile to think of a plan and even really until the end I didn’t make a choice on what to do whereas someone else would just send a few emails and everything would be rearranged. I knocked on my boss’s door and let rip on what happened letting them know as well what was going through my mind before walking out of the building feeling a lot less lighter around the conscious and still relatively high on caffeine.

Chatting To The Cleaner

The other day I found myself flopped over my desk at work feeling sorry for myself. My head was pounding, my back was arched in a funny way and I was whizzing the mouse around whilst frequently refreshing the BBC Sport page. It was around 5:50 and I had numerous tasks to complete but felt knackered, both physically for contorting my body in the office pose and mentally for thinking on my feet about things that I don’t have a passion for. It was at that point I heard the door open behind me. The cleaner walked in with a smile on her face. It lifted my spirits enough to bring me out of my moping. She started wiping the desks around me before dusting the computer screens and eventually reaching my desk. I said hello and asked her how her day was. She told me it was long. I asked how long, to which she replied she had just come back from her first job at Buckingham Foods. When I heard that name a cold cringing sensation ran through my body. I knew Buckingham Foods well, it was only for half a day but it definitely stuck in my mind.

It was pretty much my first job since leaving school. I got a job for the summer holidays through an agency who must have laughed when two young boys came begging at their door asking for anything they had. They gave me and Suggs (my pal) a position at Buckingham Foods. Our shifts were from 6am till 2pm. That morning I got up at 5:45 and was late so I booked a taxi costing £8 and jumped in. I had to clock in which when stamped imprinted 9:03 on the card. Not a good start I thought. The supervisor, a weather beaten man in his 40’s led me to Suggs in the reception area and then took us to conveyor belt city. Buckingham Foods makes sandwiches and packs them up for vending machines. Everything was a long production process. The bread would come from the machine, someone would butter it whilst it was moving on the conveyor belt, then the bread would move along and someone else would lay the lettuce, then another person the tomato before the bread reached the guy who laid the bacon. And then all of a sudden you have a BLT sandwich. The haggard supervisor told us that we were to work in the egg mayonnaise section. I was to spread the mayo whilst Suggs was to spread the egg. We were both given 2 x 15 minute breaks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon with a 30 minute lunch in between. We had to wear white coats, hairnets and gloves which would have made us look like mad scientists if it wasn’t for the hairnets which did nothing for our reputations.

So we set off. I started to spread the mayo on the bread whilst Suggs had to spread the egg. However, although the boiled eggs were peeled they still needed to be cut which was proving difficult for Suggs. The knife seemed a little blunt and the conveyor belt was moving along rather quickly and he struggled to lay the slices on some of them. In the end he started to miss a few and the person next in the line started to complain that he wasn’t doing his job. I decided to swap with Suggs to help him out. Straight away I could feel the pressure as the bread came sliding along. The knife wasn’t helping as I tried to cut the egg and eventually managing to cut it into three slices and placing it on the bread before it carried on past me. As soon as I did that though another two slices appeared, this time I managed only to chop the egg in half and lay it on there before I could see another two slices of bread heading my way. To combat the pace I got rid of the knife, discarding it on to the floor. Instead I used more basic means to spread the egg, the palm of my hand. I lay the egg on the table and splat I’d flatten it, pick it up and lay it gently on the slices with ample time to spare. Of course this wasn’t hygienic, sensible or good practice but I didn’t care I realised I hated this place. We were supposed to work 8 hours doing the same thing over and over again until it was 2 in the afternoon. No way. This was soul destroying, splatting eggs for a living while your chum spreads mayo. At lunch time me and Suggs both walked out. Although we weren’t paid for the day we were at least exposed to the harsh realities of shit jobs (it was a few more experiences before I learnt my lesson about rubbish occupations).

When the flashback finished playing in my mind I asked the lady what hours she worked there. She replied the 6-2 and from there she’d rest at home until 4 before starting her cleaning job here from 5-8:30. It was quite sobering listening to just how hard this lady must work not having hardly any free time to herself. It made me feel a bit of a fool for moping about doing a 9 hour day. We talked a little bit longer and now she’s my friend so I guess that day wasn’t bad after all.

SaiNO's

It was last week that my current experience of quirky events continued. I found myself in Sainsbury’s buying the week’s food supply. Some salad, an avocado, Quorn pieces, Doritos (with a hint of lime flavour) a couple bottles of red wine and some other odds and sods too mundane to mention. Everything seemed rather procedural and regular as you would expect on a frequent shopping excursion. However things changed when I found myself at express till Number 2. The till lady eyed me up reproachfully as I approached her and snatching at my items and scanning through before tossing them on the other side. She picked up my bottle of wine.

“Are you old enough, young man?”

To this lady I was a young man, maybe even baby faced assassin but it hasn’t been a good 5 years since someone questioned my credentials to purchase goods or enter premises reserved for the adult.

“Yeah, I’m old enough.”

“Show me your identification.”

Balls! Usually it never gets this far, I manage to smile and then grimace and people let me pass or buy. I begrudgingly pull out some ID and hand it over to her. She scrutinises it with her roaming beady eyes while I look up at the ever growing queue becoming ever so slightly agitated at the delay. She hands it back without looking at me and scans the two bottles of wine. Feeling slightly put out by her actions I quickly start packing up my goods before she looks up again.

“£18.78 please.”

I pull out my wallet, slide in my ID and then start searching for my debit card. At first it’s a casual perusal through pocket book but as I realise it’s not where it’s supposed to be I start searching through all the compartments before remembering that it’s in fact laying on top of my television. I manage to collate just over £11 in a note and some coins.

“Erm, I’m a bit short.”

“Please take away the things you don’t want. And hurry people are waiting.”

The only reason why they’re waiting is because you need some spectacles m’lady thinking I’m a Master instead of a Mr, I thought. I pull away the avocado and one bottle of wine.

“That’s £12.98”

“I’m still short”.

“Take away something else then.”

Now, I didn’t want to take away anything else. I wanted everything there in front of me and if I had to get rid of something I wanted it to be just under the £11 I had. However, those of you who know me are aware that on the spot mental arithmetic leaves me short of breath and in a state of panic. Standing there frozen and going slightly red I find my mind unable to process the numbers and instead unravelling the characters into letters that spell out the word ‘bitch’ in referral to the lady in front of me.

In my panic I pick up the avocado and shove it under her nose demanding she scans this as it’s the only thing I really want. Slight taken aback at my intrusion of her personal ‘till’ space she listens to my command. I snatch the avocado back and give her 50p for it before walking off and leaving the rest of my shopping scattered all over the place. Smiling that I, firstly, managed to not break into convulsions over a simple equation and secondly, wiping the smugness of the till lady’s face, I head towards the exit. As I reached the exit I feel a hand pull me back, I turn around to see a security guard asking to check my bags. And it’s not just any security guard it’s someone who was a year below me at school and despite the shirt and tie still looks like he’s just gotten out of bed. Although we recognise each other we don’t know each other and I’m glad I don’t know him as he proceeded to check my only shopping bag and my work bag right in front of the general public. I suspected either he saw my reaction as I was paying or the evil till lady pressed a button or something. Either way I wanted out of this place.

“Everything seems in order, thank you for your trouble sir.”

“What ever ball bags.”

And I leave.


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