January 5th

Saturday.

Didn’t manage to do anything apart from drink a very poor cup of coffee and get dressed. Got the bathroom scales and carried them to work because they are doing fat club again. Arrive to find that they are charging a £10 entry fee now. I’m out. I can’t afford that. They can still use my scales though. For free.

Checked the rest of my emails and read what everyone had been up to yesterday. Nothing. The place is not closing and the people are not interesting. 

8:38 – Listening to ‘Let’s Dance’ by Bowie. Lesser Bowie but still Bowie. Oh now it’s the Beach Boys singing Love Actually. Sounds better in Mono. 

Don’t worry. This is not a list of songs. Who would do that?

I hear a voice above all over voices. It has such a patronising tone. It is loud and patronising and has the wrong accent. I wish it would be quiet. 

Other people seem to be arguing. That’s so much more entertaining ‘what a nightmare’.

Listening to people slagging off a colleague. I wonder what they say about me when I am not here. Nothing good. 

Oh The Jam. Three decent songs in a row. Need some disco so as I can have a dance.

First bit of work done. The terrible systems mean I had to do it three times as it kept getting kicked out. A 2 minute job to nearly 10 because I had to reformat everything and raise the same job 4 times. I also had to delete an incorrect job some other clown had raised for no apparent reason. This is my life. My job is so rewarding. 

Talk of people crashing cars has faded and we have all slumped into an oblique silence. 

Slagging people off again. The same person. Shamefully I am involved this time. 

There are so many adverts on the radio for things I have no interest in. I don’t want to register with the Open University. It’s too expensive. Maybe if I had not spent all my money on shiny pieces of plastic to make me happy I would be able to. Then I could do something worthwhile and actually be happy. I would have less shiny thing but hey. The things you own end up owning you someone once said. 

The world has woken up (its 9:00) and now I am having to speak to people. First one wasn’t too bad. I await the inevitable arguments with excitement. They break up the day very well. Most people don’t like them but I would happily sit and be shouted at for all of my time here. Fun times. 

I have now been here nearly an hour and the three pieces of work that have come my way (including an out of office reply) are well and truly covered. I have eaten most of my snack food simply due to boredom. I have not yet killed anyone. Everything is going swimmingly.

Yeah you’re annoying. I know everyone else loves you but I want to chuck you out the window. Sadly we are only a second floor building so you may well recover. Hopefully you can be a bit less chirpy.

We all tell the same lie to people over and over again. I wonder if anyone on the other end of the phone buys it. We all sound so convincing. I try very hard to stay right on the edge of being fake and patronising. I think I have perfected it. It does go wrong sometimes but that’s fun as well.

‘I get asked for this every time I call through’

‘Do you have it then?’

‘No’

Got through to a man and asked him my questions. He kept asking me questions but not answering the ones I needed to know to answer him. We went round in a circle. Round and round. I am not trying to make your life hard, I just have to do things this way. They make me. If I don’t do it this way, like a robot, they punish me. I don’t want to be punished. I just want to go home. I don’t know why I want to go home. There is nothing there for me. Just illness. 

What am I supposed to do now?

Hula Hoops eaten 4.5 hours to go. 

Just been asked for the potential of me dying again. Told them I am waiting for my results and I am not that bothered. 

‘What would we do without you?’

‘Don’t know. What did you do yesterday? What will you do on Monday?’

I only have one thing that keeps me going. Apart from that it’s just a whole garage of pointlessness. 

I didn’t say that of course. 

Wouldn’t want anyone to worry. They did that a bit last year. It was nice. Everyone has returned to type. I include myself in that statement. I am as rubbish as I always was.

Big argument about the ‘weigh club’ thing which started out as a fun nice thing to do but everyone has made it insanely complicated in an attempt to make it fit in their own agenda. Last time it was just we all got weighed and encouraged each other. This time there is maths and prize money that may or may not go to charity and BMI’s and this and that. It’s kind of got away from the point. I need to lose some weight (again) so I will just do the simple bit and bypass the complicated expensive bit.

If this means I have to do it on my own I am more than fine with that. They are my scales and I will stand on them once a week if I like. 

10:16 Squeeze – Cool for cats. It reminds me of taping things of the radio back when I was little. Extended piano riff. 

Thin Lizzy. How weird. Weight loss talk and ‘Whiskey in a Jar?’ comes on. 

Like rain on your wedding day.

It just did the thing where no-one has phoned for ages and then EVERYONE calls at the same time. That happens. It’s like people are programmed in patterns. I find it’s a lot like life. Nothing is happening and then all of a sudden EVERYTHING is happening. That’s not something I like. It makes me feel uneasy and breaks me. I like things to be linear and come at me in a line. I don’t like it when everyone is throwing eggs. I struggle to catch them.

When will I find the time and inclination to watch ‘ Wrestle Kingdom’ it’s nearly 6 hours long. Half of me really wants to see it. Half of me really doesn’t. 

Watched ‘Crashing’ yesterday which was a series about a lot of entitled people living in an abandoned hospital. Have I told you this already? It was OK. Took an episode or so to click then I got it. The people were still entitled and annoying though. What next?

Oh Luther is great at the moment. Having to watch it in bits which means it’s taking an age to watch the four episodes. Maybe that’s the best way. Noticed Idris Elba is looking a bit old for the first time.

Is he older than me? Let me check……

….sadly not.

Wow. I could have done so much more with my life. I could have been a black policeman living on the edge in London. But no. I am here. Yeah.

Abba are on now which is always acceptable. 

How can a Pizza cost £20? Its bread and low quality ingredients. Remind me to go and get the bits and I will make my own and see how much it costs.  £20? And it’s supposed to be a bargain if we go and collect it.

11:00 – Woah – we’re half way there. WO OOO livin on a prayer….

51 year old man stabbed to death in front of his son on a London bound train in Surrey yesterday. There’s a lot to unpack there. Elsewhere someone has been run over and Americans are shooting each other again. 

Oh apparently it’s Sunshine Saturday. That’s a thing.

There are too many apostrophes in my life at this moment in time. 

I seem to have been left a very cheap keyring proclaiming I am in some kind of car club? I am not in any form of car club.

Stop autocorrecting me. I want to be incorrect. 

Just did a tiny little bit of evil. Just because I am a bit evil and everso bored. 

11:24

Most of my mistakes and errors revolve around me being bored. Trying to fill in the gaps. What I tend to do is fill in the gaps with things that will make my life worse. The gaps then get bigger and need refilling. It is a recurring nightmare. It’s not going to change. I am faulty. I can see how I need to be through a gap in the clouds but I know I will never get there. I would like to think there is a me out there that’s not an asshole having a wonderful time. 

TRex followed by Blondie. Happy times. 

Just carved an X into my desk turtle. Yes I am that bored. And yes I do have a desk turtle. Thanks for that K. You are missed. I wonder if anyone else still has theirs?

Lets play the ‘looking at pictures of people that work here but I am not sure who they are or what they do’ game. That’ll pass 5 minutes. 

There was a photo here but I thought better of it and removed it. 

It did. 

11:47 and people have started to go for their dinner breaks so the end must be in sight. They get 20 minutes to cram as much garbage into their mouths as they physically can. They run, like the wind, to the garage and hope to get a decent sandwich in the sandwich lottery. It brings back happy memories of when I used to get a dinner break and I used to sit drinking K cider in the park on my own. Coming back to work after this was always all the better for it. I hoped no-one would notice but really didn’t give a flying fuck. I might come in and do a full days work again at some point just so as I can relive the dream. Happy times. 

That was obviously at another job and not this one. I would never do something like that at this job. I value it far too much. It is the best. 

Night Fever is on. I am just going to get changed in to my white suit as I am both a brother and a mother. 

Vitamins and ninamins and all you can stand.

It’s just flowing out of me today. It’s like a heavy period that just won’t stop giving. 

I will never read this back. That way lies madness.

12:00 Midday. Most people think we are shut now. You will still get the odd one from Scotland but that’s it. 

Oh they are playing an exciting ball game over there. That looks super fun.

Slade are on and thank god it’s not a Christmas song. 360 sleeps (or thereabouts. I can’t be bothered to work it out). Everyone is working but me.

My skin is healing from my drone attack quite badly. They are now playing my dad’s record collection apparently. 

So had 20 minutes of being told the same story about how rubbish it is here and how you will destroy the system. You won’t destroy the system and you are only partially correct in some of the things you are saying. You are swearing a lot and seem very angry about it all though. Hope you are ok.

It then gets a bit busy – less than an hour though, best crack on….

Oh it’s quiet again. I can clean my cup with baby wipes. 

Someone is loudly proclaiming that they are in charge at the weekend. They are so not in charge at the weekend but it’s a shame it has to be said simply because no-one from management can be bothered to come in at the weekend. I have never worked anywhere were this is applicable. Just here. 

There is now a 3 hour conversation happening about what exactly management do. I am sure they do a lot. I am just not clever enough to know what that is. It’s none of my business. I am just a cog in this great machine. 

Now we are discussing all the great people we have sat with over the years. I can’t really remember any of them. 

‘Because you don’t really love me….

…..you just keep me hanging on’.

‘Seeing you only breaks my heart again…’

Looking around I can’t see many people. There is a lot of noise. 

I am going to go for a walk and count people. BRB….

16 or there about. I know 5 of them.

The stabbed man has been named and was apparently wonderful. I bet he wasn’t I bet he was awful. No one ever says that about people. If I had died I would hope they would have told the truth about me. I don’t want anyone out there thinking I am worth anything. I am not. 

I still have a Christmas card on my desk (my only work one). I feel a bit bad throwing it away but it needs to be done. Off in the bin you go. Away with you Christmas.

I think I am going to finish here. Nothing else will happen and there is only 27 minutes to go before I can go from being bored and miserable here to being bored and miserable at home. I am just going to listen to the music and tick another few hours off my life.

Thanks for listening.

I am so sorry.