This week has been marked by various people wandering in to the office where I work and saying 'ooh aren't you big? How long have you got to go now?' So because I'm a nice person and not a grumpy moo I have the same conversation over and over and over again. But by Wednesday it was starting to grate ever so slightly and I may of announced to the office that I was going to fashion a sign to hang on the side of my desk with the amount of weeks I had left and yes, I knew I was big written on it.
Thursday morning started well, pay slips were in and that was going to put a big smile on my face because I am owed four months worth of mileage which equates to about four hundred pounds. Not a fortune but would pay for the pram that's on order and the car tax on the car that had to be bought when I was told I had to move offices. I am going off track a little here but in October last year, our organisation took a long hard look at itself and decided to save money by making lots of lovely people redundant and closing the office where I worked and moving me to an office in a town eight miles away. Not the commute of the century I agree but the office where I did work was half a mile from my house and the boy's school, so I walked everywhere and had no requirement for a big smelly car. As part of the moving offices thing I get paid mileage for a year. It covers petrol, but not the monthly car repayments so I'm worse off. This sounds like a big old whinge, and I could of been one of those people that was made redundant so I know I'm lucky I'm just giving a bit of back story to the mileage.
Back to Thursday morning, I open my payslip, and is there an extra four hundred pounds? No, is there fuck. I am not a happy bunny. I phone payroll, 'No, we've got no trace of your claim, your car's not even registered on the system.'
'But I submitted them in time, there was a bit of a backlog so there was eleven forms in all and I definitely passed them to John* to counter sign.'
'I'm really sorry, they're not even in our to do pile, lots of things got delayed because of all the bank holidays at the end of May but they're not here. Double check with John that he doesn't still have them, then phone us back'
So off I go upstairs to the middle management floor where to find John and ransack his office if need be to find my forms. But John like a lot of other middle management people is looking a bit Brokeback Mountain today. He is sporting a check shirt and jeans instead of his usual ill fitting suit.
'Hi I submitted some mileage forms at the end of last month, but I haven't been paid.'
'Well I would of definitely forwarded them to headquarters, I don't even do anything with the forms, have you phoned payroll?'
(Through angry gritted teeth) 'Yes I've phoned them, they haven't got them. They said I should see you.'
'There is a team building day for middle management today and I'm on a course tomorrow but I'll be back in on Tuesday. I've got to go now.'
And off he goes out of his office escorting me with him without a care in the world about my missing four hundred pounds. I at this point am incandescent with rage. But unfortunately rage for me is expressed in the form of tears. So I take myself off to the toilets to calm myself down before heading back to my office.
It takes about twenty minutes before I can face the world again, that's how fucking cross I am with that useless sack of shit known as an Area Finance Manager. And I know it will be him that's lost/misplaced/wiped his arse with them, because he has previous for losing peoples overtime/mileage/expenses forms. I get back to my office and phone payroll again, explain that John claims he's passed everything to headquarters and 'he doesn't even do anything with them anyway' So I ask, can I re submit them and forward them straight to headquarters this bypassing the black hole of forms that is John's office? No, I am told John does do something with the forms and if they arrived at payroll without his authorisation, they would just sent them back. So now the useless sack of shit is lying as well.
Now, everyone in the office has overheard my one sided conversation with payroll and have correctly judged me to be in the foulest of foul moods when I get off the phone. And all do exactly what I need, which is just leave me alone for a bit to get on with some work and calm down. My boss asks me if John has left me in the shit and I explain that me and the other half had plans for the money and they will just have to be put on hold. (To put it into perspective, four hundred pounds is just over a third of my monthly wage and when every penny matters it annoys me that John can be so blaze about it.)
Then Big Gob Lucy* a sometime worker in our office pipes up with 'Ooh, aren't you big? How long have you got to go?' To which most of the office titters knowing my feelings on this question and I do a massive sigh because I CAN'T BE FUCKING ARSED. 'What? If you don't want people to ask, you shouldn't get up the duff.'
'Yes, but maybe Lucy it would be nice if occasionally people conversed with me about things other than my pregnancy. How about asking me about my son, or my other half or the weather or anything?'
'Well, why don't you get your roots done? There we go, that's talking about something else.'
I sat in stony silence because Lucy is one of those people who says stuff like 'people have to take me as they find me' or 'I call a spade a spade' and if you ever challenge her and say that she might be offensive or hurtful or insensitive all you ever get is 'that's just the way I am, get used to it'
I obviously vented my fury on twitter, and people made me feel a lot better but the truth is I have wanted to get my hair done for about three months and this was going to be the month I could afford it. So Big Gob hit a bit of a raw nerve. Not that I'd ever let her fucking know. Next time I see her I shall be informing her that dip dyed hair is all the rage and doesn't she fucking know anything?
*Of course they're not their real names, but he is a useless sack of shit and she is a gob on a sturdy, big boned stick.
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