Jog on...

Today was rather full of event. It was payday at the Gifted Sluts Office. I had my marching orders all but rehearsed. I was sure they would deny me my bonuses and any commission I was owed. Given that I’ve already taken a pay cut by moving from sales to reunification (I earn no commission here now), I had built up a pre-emptive stock of righteous indignation to unleash upon the management team. I was hoping to declare that I would quit unless they paid me what I was owed (and maybe some more).

I got my cheque, and they had indeed forgotten to give me my bonus. When I asked, I got an apology and they happily paid it to me in full. Damn! I was really looking forward to spending today in the crisp autumn sunshine following some hearty dispute.

So morale is up and down. Inevitably (like most days here), people quit, got sacked and forgot to turn up. Unfortunately, two of my colleagues in doss (my partners in scam) were among the wounded. One was sacked at the point where she could have been taken on as a directly paid member of staff. To be fair, most evening shifts that I saw her attend involved her rampant weed smoking, cider drinking and total slacking.

My other friend got his healthy commission cheque and spent the rest of his shift avoiding sales work and hanging around with me downstairs, before finally deciding to 'play the danger card' of unemployment to look for something better. He walked.

I sat with a ukulele in my arms and a tear in my eye and sang him a departing song,

“Richard’s gone home. Richard’s gone home…”

In other news, Graeme (trimmed beard) Walker is moving into our devilishly small spare room as of tomorrow. Homeless, unemployed and hungry, we felt he was a deserving subject for our abode. We suspect Graeme will be more actively engaged in the general running of the house than our current housemate, the amorphous creature from Poland.

This particular Pole chap looks about forty years old, with his receding hairline, bad skin and moist, weak handshake. Turns out he is in fact twenty five. The horror.

At the start of any conversation, his tinny, frail voice accompanies his immediate departure from the room. He spends most of his time in that tiny, airless room smoking cigarettes, watching DVDs and lying on the cracked single bed with its flimsy mattress. What else he gets up to in there, I don’t dare imagine. He drinks a lot of coffee, if that helps.

Prolific as ever, Graeme has set up a new blog detailing the jobs he is available for on Gumtree. I can't seem to find the thing at the moment, but if you click on the above links, you can see his first two skills in full Gumtree glory.

I am amused.