Stress at Work? Damn Tooting!

The bane of my life is driving me nuts.

No, it’s not the wife, its work.  Doing. My. Head. In.

I know, I know, I’ve said it all before.  But the last month or so is making me bang my head against the wall.  There are so many incompetent people in this world, it is scary.

Truly scary.

I’ve got a job where I can’t say anything.  No matter how useless the boss is, how much of a waste of time this particular task is, I can’t say a word.  Not a dickie.  I can tell my boss my concerns, he’s on the same page and agrees with me, but that’s as far as it goes.  Nothing else will be said.

The joys of being a Civil Servant.

Diplomacy is an art form.  I am a master.

You have to have so many faces to deal with the different people and their problems.  I have never seen so many moaning people in one place.  It’s like a full bingo hall where the same old biddy won the main prize twice in a row. 

Sadly, in this space in time, I can’t go elsewhere.  I’m stuck with this job for the foreseeable future.

It’ll either end by me strangling the management or creating a large alcove in the nearest wall to my desk.

Dear Diary: What a week it has been…

The past week has been a write off.  Are you ready for a sob story?

It all started last Thursday evening.  A cold night with the threat of severe snow showers and freezing temperatures.  Of course this would be the perfect night for the heating to stop working!

I live in the sticks and use oil for my heating system.  It’s also rented accommodation so the whole thing is outdated anyway.  This means that if anything goes wrong or needs repairing I can’t just fix it myself (to a certain degree) or phone up someone to come and fix it.  No, I have to phone up the authorities who then send out their approved contractors.  Great.

First off I checked my tank gauge, half full.  Checked that the bloody thing was actually turned on, yes it is.  What the hell is then?  Phoned my boss who lives round the corner for some advice.  He suggests that the pilot could of gone out.

‘That’s nice, I wonder if it’s gone anywhere nice’ I replied.

A moments pause.  Press the big red button on the side of the tank.  Done.  Fires up, happy days.

Two minutes later, I’m still cold.  Go out to the boiler.  It’s not on.  Press the button again, fires up.  Stops. Bollocks.

Phones the authorities, luckily there’s a chap around and he’ll be sent.  Bloody good job, I say.  He has a quick look around, walks up to the tank and knocks on it.

‘It’s empty’ he says.

‘Fuck off is it’ I reply.

I have a look.  By fuck, it is.  No oil, yet the gauge says it’s half full.  I spy a problem.  Is it getting warmer in here, no, that was my blood boiling.  It was him and his mates that had been round and ‘fixed’ the gauge on two separate occasions.  Methinks he didn’t do it properly.

…

After about ten minutes of my shouting, he was allowed to leave.  Now what?  I have a two year old, a six week old and a wife that is moaning (normal) because she’s cold.  I have to make a drastic decision.

A few phone calls later and the path is clear.  Work will have to make do without me for a few days, I’m going to house where it’s warm.  Luckily my mother was willing to put us up, probably reluctantly going on past experiences, and just wait for oil to be delivered.

But wait, didn’t you say that snow was on the way and it was really cold?!

Yes I did.  It would appear that quite a few other people needed oil and the subsequent problems the snow caused on the roads meant that it was Tuesday before we got any delivered.  Great, now we could go home and I could go back to work.  Hurray!

You may not have any interest in my tale of woe and frustration, but if I hadn’t told anybody I would’ve just let this bug me for weeks.  People, if you are in a position, buy a house and don’t rent.  I hate having to rely on other people to get stuff done.  We were lucky this time that it wasn’t drawn out for hours as it has done before.

Oh well, it’s done.  It’s the weekend time to relax.

What did you say?  There’s more snow coming?

Fuck.  Check the tank…