Dickens

No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to find a way of asking for Thursday and Friday off. Either it comes out as though I am instructing my boss to give me time off, or it ends up sounding like "please sir, can I have some more holidays". It's only about three sentences, and yet I've been drafting it and re-drafting it all afternoon. Eventually, I opted for a variant of "please sir" etc., - probably the best way to get what I want.

I witnessed another Dickensian moment a few weeks ago, when Gambo went up to the boss to ask if he could leave work early on Christmas day, so that he could go home and see his little girls (we work with a lot of international companies, so the office is always open, and Gambo is employed to work on weekends and bank holidays). "I'll think about it," says the boss.

And there you are - work conditions might have improved vastly, but our attitudes to work are rooted firmly in the industrial revolution.

All a bit po-faced and humourless, I know, but I think it needed to be said.

Looking alike

Gambo, Oscar and Eva are looking at a celebrity lookalike hire website when I get back from lunch.

"Do you think there are celebrity websites where they offer 'other services'?", asks Gambo as I come through the door.
"What - like 'David Beckham, International Footballer and Children's Birthdays'?" I ask.
All three of them look at me, confused.
"Not real celebrities," says Gambo after a few seconds have elapsed. He motions towards the computer screen where a guy who looks nothing like Bono, wearing orange sunglasses, is advertised as a Bono lookalike.
"Oh, I see," although I still don't really follow. "What kind of 'other services'."
"You know," says Gambo.
"They do," enjoins Eva earnestly. "You can hire people who look like celebrities to do anything, if you pay enough money for it."
"You're talking about hiring celebrity lookalikes to perform sexual favours?" I venture.
"Just as a fantasy," Gambo offers by way of reassurance.
"Like in LA confidential?" I suggest.
"Never seen it," says Gambo.
"Oh, I won't spoil it then." I sit back down at my desk.

I wonder if my thought processes are as alien to Gambo as his are to me, and am reminded of Ogden Nash's poem, The Hippopotamus:

Behold the hippopotamus!
We laugh at how he looks to us,
And yet in moments dank and grim,
I wonder how we look to him.

Peace, peace, thou hippopotamus!
We really look all right to us,
As you no doubt delight the eye
Of other hippopotami.

******************

And if mine and Gambo's bemusment is, indeed, mutual, and Ogden is right, could I be the hippo? And does it matter if I am? Fortunately, five o'clock is already here, so even if I had answers to these questions, I couldn't share them now.

Irresolute

This morning, I emailed a client, informing him that "questions will be published in the aforementioned manner forthwith", and was rather pleased with the turn of phrase. However, I soon became worried that there could be a comma before the "forthwith" or even that the words would have looked nicer in a different order. After a few intense minutes of ruminating over "forthwith published", I was forced to ask myself whether being quaint was worth this much trouble - could that one happy moment after I clicked on "send" ever justify the perplexity, disappointment and self-questioning which ensued? At least it provided an apt, albeit convoluted, metaphor for my recent attempts at romantic liaisons, and the thought of this lightened my mood again.

Which brings me back to resolutions, only one of which has so far been carried out.

Still, there are worse things than not having sex, not getting enough sleep and having as one's sole consolation a drawer full of clean socks: not everyone has as a consolation a drawer full of clean socks.