Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

This morning was a repeat of yesterday’s leadfoot. I really, really wanted to stay in bed and snooze the day away. Instead I managed to get into the office where I can still snooze the day away, but in a more guarded manner.

It is indicative of the modern office environment that the phrase ‘restacking’ is back on the agenda. Every year for the past five, Office Services, the band of brothers formerly known as Accommodation and prior to that, Establishments, have sought to justify their existence by ‘restacking’ us. There is a disturbing hint of battery chicken-ness about the term which aptly reflects the social standing of the modern civil servant.

Nothing ever comes of it; the Housing Command waxes and wanes, our division acquires new branches and discards old, but we all stay where we are, knowing that eventually it will all settle back down in something close to its original format. One branch has been shifted in and out of the division three times in four years; it’s just a paper exercise. They still sit in the same place.

This all means that Office Services never quite get round to restacking us. It might be all quite illogical now, but it will all sort itself out in time.

It’s a shame that nothing’s happening, though. At some point all the little cell offices that dot the floor for managers to hide in are being removed. This is a bad thing. Firstly they like having their little offices, and we like having our bosses hidden away in them. Sadly, in the ever-expanding bureaucracy that I inhabit, floor space is at a premium, so I suppose that it’s inevitable that they will go.

Shame; I always harboured the secret ambition of getting hold of one at some point, if I ever manage another promotion, and decorating it with candle lit skulls, with maybe a burning skull on a pole to let people know I’m not to be disturbed. A comfy chair would be nice, too.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I seem to have acquired a new laptop without really trying.

I certainly haven't been anywhere to buy one, and I haven't ordered on-line. I need to load MS Office onto it. To do that, I need a copy of MS Office...

We are approaching the end of an era.

Monday will be the last day in her current posting for Suzi the Office Bombshell. She is moving on to a job in Private Office where she will perform some as yet unspecified function for the Minister. This is the Minister who was to have been Secretary of State until Two Jags told Tony precisely what to do with that part of the proposed reshuffle after the General Election back in May.

The place won't be the same without Suzi. She is one of the few people – make that the only person - I know who must have distilled water in her veins rather than blood. On the hottest of days she is able to sit at her desk covered in cardies and blankets complaining about the cold, while we watch lead melt and drip from the church roof. I have often suspected that being rather too clean living is the problem. She is a tea-total veggie. Actually, I don’t think she drinks tea, either. Not proper tea, anyway – that stuff that actually used to be part of a tea plant, as opposed to the stuff that gets called tea, but is just perfumed dandelion sweepings that somehow tastes of cold chewing gum, no matter how aromatic it smells in the cup. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t touch coffee either, just water and fruit juice.

It’s not right.

Mind you, all is not lost, as she can destroy chocolate and flap jacks faster than a plague of locusts.

Anyway, she’s off from Monday. We have no idea who will take up the existing post. I myself am thinking of putting a fiver on the cave troll option.