Diary of a Grumpy Old Git (18 page)

Josh invited us all to something he called a ‘kickstart’ meeting this morning. Every time he said ‘kickstart’, he did an inverted quotes mime with his
fingers, as if the meeting wasn’t really called this at all. It was basically a pep talk about how we should all work harder and make him more money. Jen whooped at the end of every sentence
and I wanted to start kicking her. Maybe that’s where the name comes from.

Josh announced that we were pitching for the business of a forklift truck manufacturer in Manchester on Friday morning. I immediately started to think of excuses why I couldn’t work on it,
but then he thanked Jo for agreeing to do the presentation.

I thought about this for a second. That meant Jo would be staying over on Thursday night, and so would I if I worked on the pitch. I suddenly remembered that I’m incredibly interested in
forklift trucks and I’ve always wanted to find out more about them.

Josh was overjoyed when I volunteered to work on the pitch and said he was glad that his ‘kickstart’ meetings were already having an effect. And yes, he did the finger quotes
again.

I’d better get something out of all this, because working on the forklift account is unbearably dull, and I had to stay until ten tonight. I asked Josh if he wanted me to
get on with the Web copy, but he said there was no point until we’d cracked the ‘big idea’. I asked why we didn’t just show pictures of warehouse workers standing next to
the machines and explaining how they rely on them. Josh said I wasn’t ‘pushing the envelope’ enough and went back into his office. Then at quarter to eight he emerged holding a
picture of a worker standing next to a forklift. ‘This is it,’ he said. ‘This is the idea.’

So that’s what ‘pushing the envelope’ means. Making someone wait around all day and then passing off their ideas as your own. Finally, at eight o’clock, I made a start on
the Web copy at a time when I should have been making a start on my lasagne ready-meal.

This is just great. Josh was worried that Jo had too much work on, so he’s taken her off the pitch and put Jen on instead. So now my reward for all this unpaid overtime is
an overdose of Jen’s blathering. Maybe I should tell Josh that I’ve just remembered that I’m not remotely interested in forklifts.

It’s ten o’clock and I’m still at work. I was just packing my things away at five to six when Josh came over with something he referred to as a ‘shopping list’.
This was basically a load of things I had to do before the pitch tomorrow. Except that he didn’t say I had to do them, he said I had to ‘action’ them. It seems that the verb
‘do’ wasn’t good enough for people like Josh, so they had to invent a premium business-class version with extra legroom and a complimentary glass of champagne.

Josh put his coat on after he’d handed me the list and it became clear that he intended to action absolutely fuck all himself. I was annoyed at first, but then I realized he’d given
the same list to Jen. And I can tell from her muttering that she’s almost got through it. As long as I keep perfectly still I reckon she’ll finish the list before she realizes I’m
supposed to be working on it too.

I shared a cab down to the station with Jen this afternoon. We might have been on time if she hadn’t stopped off at Josh’s office to tell him how
‘stoked’ she was.

We didn’t have time to queue for the only open ticket window so we had to use one of the machines. I typed in the destination, and it displayed about twenty different ticket options. We
selected the most expensive one and made a run for the train.

We dashed on board with just a few seconds to spare, only for the conductor to tell us that the train would be departing twenty minutes late. Thanks for telling us before we did the 200-metre
suitcase hurdle.

Most of the seats were taken, but there were a couple of singles left. I tried to hide my delight that I’d be sitting on my own for the journey rather than listening to Jen go on about the
pitch.

I sat down, popped my headphones on and settled back for a relaxing couple of hours of music. The first song had hardly started when Jen came over and asked the man next to me if he’d mind
moving so we could sit together. He said he wouldn’t mind at all. Of course he wouldn’t.

I found that Jen didn’t leave any gaps in her conversation for me to reply, so I didn’t have to concentrate on what she was saying.

While she was wittering on, I heard the teenager opposite complaining to the conductor that the wi-fi was too slow. I felt like shaking the ungrateful little bastard by the shoulders.

I remember being amazed the first time I saw a digital watch. No more working out the time from the big hand and the little hand. Now we could read numbers from a display.

I remember being astounded the first time I saw a Sony Walkman. No longer would we have to choose between listening to
The Dark Side of the Moon
and walking down to Woolworths. Now we
could do both at once.

And I was overjoyed when I got my first cash card. No more fretting over how much money we’d need for the week ahead, now we could take it out as we pleased. We could even withdraw money
on a Sunday. Imagine that.

And now this little shit was hurtling through the countryside at over a hundred miles an hour with all the information and culture he could ever consume at his fingertips, and he had the nerve
to complain it wasn’t fast enough.

Maybe things will be better when society collapses and we return to a medieval bartering system. As we gather on desolate hillsides to tell tales of magic glowing rectangles and huge metal birds
in the sky, we’ll finally appreciate what we had, and understand what spoilt little children we were.

I know times are hard, but you’d think we could have afforded a better hotel than the one we were booked into. As soon as the receptionist handed me an actual metal key
rather than a plastic card, I knew I was in trouble.