Fist of Death
Monday, July 11th, 2005 08:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanWhat a day.
Some days you are the pigeon, some days you are the statue. Today I was very small statue under a flock of pigeons withdiarrhoeah (f**king word) voluminous squitters.
Already tired on account of getting next to no sleep, (LJ entries passim), it all started poorly enough. The Tube was packed and by the time I got to the office, my clothes were tacky at best. There then followed a conversation with Officially The Dullest Man On The PlanetTM who works for our correspondence unit. Not only is he duller than a one-watt bulb, but he doesn't understand any of our policy lines at all. This is something of an inconvenience in a man tasked with answering our mail for us.
Having put him back on a collision course with the correct answer, I was rudely distracted from trying to sort out the whys, whens and wherefores of a VERY IMPORTANT MEETING in the afternoon in Admiralty Arch.
Yes, folks, a fire alert.
"Please remain at your desks while the incident is investig...RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! Arghh!!"* And yes, it turned out to be a false alarm. Someone had put a new battery in the smoke detector over the deep fat fryer (thinks: deep, fat friar - there's a character for a story, sometime...) in the kitchen. This meant that my attempts to check on the status of the aforementioned VERY IMPORTANT MEETING were frustrated by lack of time. So, print off papers and leg it across the park in 30 degree heat to Admiralty Arch.
I arrive, twenty minutes later, hot knackered and with clothes suitably re-hydrated, to find that the north entrance to which we had been directed, is closed for the duration (duration of what, God alone knows). So is the south entrance. We must perforce decamp to 22 Whitehall, whereupon some functionary will let us in and escort us through the maze of corridors that leads us back to the meeting room directly indoors from the north entrance.**
Except.
No-one knew we were expected. So, no security passes and no record of the room booking. Somehow navigating the lack of passes (largely by pointing an irate boss at the security guard), we made our way through the corridor to our room. Since there were mere neophytes and civilians in tow, this took some time, as it doesn't do to allow people to experience the corridor unprepared.
Room 1.45 was, of course, not set up in board room stylee for a meeting, nor did it have sufficient chairs and tables. Indeed, there was no coffee, tea or cold water. Nice room, mind.
Fortified by the sight of the Director of Housing muscling a conference table into place, I take leave of the room and go to find my contact to find out precisely what has happened. I am not sufficiently senior to have the necessary corridor-fu so this takes some time, including a short conversation with an old lady who was doing things to a photocopier, ("Oh, you shouldn't be here, dear, this is the British Consulate in Uzbekistan. You did turn left at the water cooler didn't you?").
I eventually procure the refreshments ten minutes before the meeting concludes.
Then, it is the long walk back through the park to Victoria. So for the third time in the day, my clothes
are reduced to damp blotting paper, and I have to pretend the white salt lines are design features.
Still, like all good civil servants I have a paper trail proving that it isn't my fault.
In triplicate.
*To be fair, this is still better than the messages we had on the tannoy at the old offices in Marsham Street, "If you cannot hear this message, call Office Services on..."
**There is a moebius warp tunnel of infinite length, and no width that links all UK civil service offices together. Once you have achieved mastery of its secrets, you can walk from your office to any other civil service office in the world, regardless of department or country simply by schmoozing past the stair well and turning left at the water cooler.
Some days you are the pigeon, some days you are the statue. Today I was very small statue under a flock of pigeons with
Already tired on account of getting next to no sleep, (LJ entries passim), it all started poorly enough. The Tube was packed and by the time I got to the office, my clothes were tacky at best. There then followed a conversation with Officially The Dullest Man On The PlanetTM who works for our correspondence unit. Not only is he duller than a one-watt bulb, but he doesn't understand any of our policy lines at all. This is something of an inconvenience in a man tasked with answering our mail for us.
Having put him back on a collision course with the correct answer, I was rudely distracted from trying to sort out the whys, whens and wherefores of a VERY IMPORTANT MEETING in the afternoon in Admiralty Arch.
Yes, folks, a fire alert.
"Please remain at your desks while the incident is investig...RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! Arghh!!"* And yes, it turned out to be a false alarm. Someone had put a new battery in the smoke detector over the deep fat fryer (thinks: deep, fat friar - there's a character for a story, sometime...) in the kitchen. This meant that my attempts to check on the status of the aforementioned VERY IMPORTANT MEETING were frustrated by lack of time. So, print off papers and leg it across the park in 30 degree heat to Admiralty Arch.
I arrive, twenty minutes later, hot knackered and with clothes suitably re-hydrated, to find that the north entrance to which we had been directed, is closed for the duration (duration of what, God alone knows). So is the south entrance. We must perforce decamp to 22 Whitehall, whereupon some functionary will let us in and escort us through the maze of corridors that leads us back to the meeting room directly indoors from the north entrance.**
Except.
No-one knew we were expected. So, no security passes and no record of the room booking. Somehow navigating the lack of passes (largely by pointing an irate boss at the security guard), we made our way through the corridor to our room. Since there were mere neophytes and civilians in tow, this took some time, as it doesn't do to allow people to experience the corridor unprepared.
Room 1.45 was, of course, not set up in board room stylee for a meeting, nor did it have sufficient chairs and tables. Indeed, there was no coffee, tea or cold water. Nice room, mind.
Fortified by the sight of the Director of Housing muscling a conference table into place, I take leave of the room and go to find my contact to find out precisely what has happened. I am not sufficiently senior to have the necessary corridor-fu so this takes some time, including a short conversation with an old lady who was doing things to a photocopier, ("Oh, you shouldn't be here, dear, this is the British Consulate in Uzbekistan. You did turn left at the water cooler didn't you?").
I eventually procure the refreshments ten minutes before the meeting concludes.
Then, it is the long walk back through the park to Victoria. So for the third time in the day, my clothes
are reduced to damp blotting paper, and I have to pretend the white salt lines are design features.
Still, like all good civil servants I have a paper trail proving that it isn't my fault.
In triplicate.
*To be fair, this is still better than the messages we had on the tannoy at the old offices in Marsham Street, "If you cannot hear this message, call Office Services on..."
**There is a moebius warp tunnel of infinite length, and no width that links all UK civil service offices together. Once you have achieved mastery of its secrets, you can walk from your office to any other civil service office in the world, regardless of department or country simply by schmoozing past the stair well and turning left at the water cooler.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-12 12:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-12 07:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-12 06:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-12 07:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-12 11:05 pm (UTC)The teas question
Date: 2005-07-14 08:37 pm (UTC)