Monday morning has arrived. Lixy drives through the pouring rain, arrives at the car park and thinks her luck is in as she finds a space nearest to the building entrance. Perhaps this day has started off well! She parks her car, and, as she opens the door and steps out, she hears a shout from the ‘coffee room’ (where the damp smell must be getting worse in this rain) window. Fat ugly sales girl (*7) shouts out “Oi! You can’t park there! Matt parks in that space. He will just ask you to move!” charming. Lixy feels that her luck has ended for that day and parks miles away from the building.
After arriving in reception soaking wet, Lixy makes her way through the office amongst the animals, models and hooray Henrys to find the welcoming sight of Emma fellow temp, and Zoe, a girl who she has temped with before. (*8)
She has just said her hello’s and has started to settle down when FUSG appears. She bulldozes through the room, and as she walks the full length of the bank of desks, whilst still pounding (*9) she rudely points at Lixy. “You. What’s your name?” she enquires. Lixy, rather put out with her tone, breathes deeply and keeps her cool. She retorts “Well it isn’t ‘Oi’. It’s Lixy.”
FUSG, who realises she has been caught out (and made a fool of herself) plonks (*10herself down in her seat, red-faced and embarrassed. She stumbles “Yeah well, yeah I, I didn’t know your name.” (Er, well yes you did, and that doesn’t excuse the rudeness).
Everyone gets back to their telephoning; Lixy is amazed to see even more members of staff in today; (what do they all do?) and is pleased to see that they all conform to the pretty-girl-in-office rule.
Lixy pops out to make the tea, sorts out who she will be telephoning today and can’t have been sat sorting her day’s plan for longer than 5 minutes when Jobsworth(*11) has appeared, standing over Lixy is a rather threatening manner. She barks “Is there a problem? Do you have a problem?” to which a rather confused Lixy replies “Errrr no?.” Jobsworth continues. “Because I heard there was some sort of problem about the car earlier?”
A-ha. Jobsworth has been talking to FUSG while she was in the ‘coffee room’. Lixy looks over at FUSG. “Is there still a problem with the car? Am I parked in the right place now?” To which FUSG (who cannot get any MORE in the wrong by now) shrugs her shoulders and mumbles “Yeah s’pose.” Lixy then turns to Jobsworth (who has spoken so loud and rudely to her that she can feel the whole room looking) and says “Is there a problem with my work? Am I doing that wrong?” The whole room waits for a response from Jobsworth. “Err no, I don’t think so.” She retreats and sits back at her desk, which overlooks the worker bees. I mean temps.
Lixy looks over at fellow temp Emma and mouths ‘how rude!’ to which Emma replies. Mouthing ‘fuck that. I would leave’. Lixy mouths back ‘I think I will.’
Lixy shuffles together her papers, evidence of who she has telephoned so far. She gets up from her seat, and walks over to Jobsworth’s desk. Lixy calmly, in a more polite volume, so not everyone in the office can hear, says “Here are my papers, of the work that I have done correctly. I didn’t have a problem, until you did that. Therefore I am going to leave. Thanks.”
Lixy smiles, turns, picks up her bag and, when out of eyeline of everyone else apart from Emma, gives her the ‘phone’ sign with her fingers and mouths ‘call me’. As she walks out, she can almost hear the silent cheers from the temps.
As she has almost reached the door, she hears Jobsworth shout out “yeah…thanks!” Great retort. I don’t think.
(*7) Oh yes, there was one. She must have been hired by mistake. Now known as ‘FUSG’
(*8) Maybe ‘welcoming sight’ is a slight over exaggeration. Although compared to the ridiculousness it was relatively normal and welcoming.
(*9) FUSG didn’t really walk; she was more of a ‘pounder’. She pounded the carpet.
(*10) FUSG was a plonker; no that doesn’t mean……well it kind of does…oh, you get the idea.
(*11) Unforgettable name. Or her position. But you would imagine she was ‘overseeing’ something in some kind of way.