The Office of the Dead

I am a very lucky person to have a job I enjoy. One of the things I really enjoy about my job is the fact that I’m often out of the office. Now of course this is great for a reader like me, hours either sat on trains with a book, or driving round in a car with an audio book blaring are never time wasted. The other big bonus about my job, is I’m often out of the office.

Yes I know that is a repeated sentence, but frankly it is such a bonus it is worth repeating. Offices are funny things. People who have never worked in offices will never understand the day to day resentment that builds up amongst normally sane people. Those that outside the shackles of the 9-5 would normally be nice people inside those hours become like extras on The Walking Dead, out to drink the blood of anyone that dares to get on their nerves. Little things take on huge significance and can take up whole days, first with the discussion around the perceived misdemeanour and then the inevitable policy that will be introduced to attempt to put a stop to the war.

Take for example the phantom porridge bowl leaver in our place. Every day someone has their breakfast in the office. This is of course the first gripe, should it be allowed? Some say yes, some say no, some say this is akin to treason and should be dealt with as such. When finished with the bowl it then gets left in the sink rather than put in the dishwasher. The dishwasher is next to the sink, is it really so difficult to put it in one rather than the other? Of course like all good office workers no one actually works out who the offender is and confronts them. Instead people write big notes which they hang over the sink to be completely ignored by the phantom porridge bowl leaver.

The latest scandal to hit the office however relates to toilet roll. Someone is taking the nice big industrial toilet rolls that I purchase for the office bathrooms, removing them and replacing them with cheap lidl versions. Why would anyone do that? Maybe they have a cat related to mine that likes to ensure all toilet paper is in as tiny pieces as possible and preferably laying on the floor. Yet unless they have an industrial sized toilet roll holder in their toilets how are they even going to hang it up? Maybe they are getting ready for Halloween and are going to throw it over houses that don’t have good enough sweets. Yet we are a bunch of middle aged women, not American children! Of course what I should do is calmly call a staff meeting and explain that the toilet roll is for staff use and shouldn’t be replaced with cheap tracing paper. However that would not be proper office etiquette. Oh no, I’m going to write a big sign to stick in the toilets, and if that doesn’t work I think I might write a policy about correct toilet paper usage. If that doesn’t work I’m thinking of installing CCTV in the toilets to catch the offender, surely there is nothing wrong in that?

Luckily for both me and the rest of the staff I am not currently in the office. Therefore I shall stick to reading my book and hope that by the time I’m back in Halloween will be over and the need for industrial size toilet rolls will no longer be a problem. Like I say the big bonus in my job is I’m often out of the office!