Diary of a Grumpy Old Git (6 page)

I meant to watch my
Sopranos
box set today, but I got distracted by worrying about whether the correct phrase was ‘box set’ or ‘boxed set’. I
searched online and ‘box set’ seems to be standard, but it doesn’t sound right to me. It’s not a set of boxes, it’s a set of items in a box.

Perhaps I should go on some sort of crusade to save the phrase ‘boxed set’, but it’s probably too late. There’s no point in trying to save language in a world where
bosses can be described as ‘funky’. If things have got that bad, we might as well return to pointing and grunting.

I’m going to spend tonight trawling the dark recesses of my imagination to guess what Jen meant by ‘funky’. Beards, ponytails, baseball caps – nothing will be taboo. Then
however things turn out tomorrow, I’ll already have anticipated it. That’s the great thing about being a pessimist. You’re never disappointed.

The newspapers reckon today is the most depressing day of the year. It’s called ‘Blue Monday’ because of some bogus calculation about how bad the weather is
likely to be and how little money you’re likely to have left.

Actually, I beg to differ. The twenty-fifth of December is the most depressing day of the year. When you’re a kid it’s depressing because your expectations are so high that only a
pair of hover shoes and a working time machine would meet them. And when you’re an adult it’s depressing because you’re drunk and shouting at your relatives before noon. It
wasn’t depressing for me this year, because I stayed in bed all day. But it has been every other year.

Nonetheless, it all increased my anxiety about meeting Josh. ‘Blue Monday’ didn’t seem like a very good day to meet a new boss.

Josh didn’t turn out to be too horrendous, though. There wasn’t much interesting about him at all, really. He had short black hair, black trousers and a white shirt that was quite
probably tucked into his underpants. The only thing that really caught my attention about him was that
HE LOOKED ABOUT EIGHT YEARS OLD
.

Seriously. I thought a paperboy had sneaked into Steve’s old office to see what it was like to sit in a grown-up’s chair. But apparently that little foetus is my new boss. I hope
he’s been through puberty. I don’t think I could handle the mood swings.

I’m tempted to find out his actual age, but I’m not sure I want to know. Was he even alive when I saw
Star Wars
in the cinema? Or
Back to the Future
? Or
Jurassic
Park
? He probably wasn’t even alive when I walked out of
Mamma Mia
because Pierce Brosnan started singing.

Well, now he’s my boss and I have to do what he says. So I take back what I said yesterday. Pessimists can be disappointed, too.

It looks as though I’m getting the chop after all.

There are a couple of new people joining next week. I only found out because I saw our office manager Erika going round and changing the phone lists. I asked her who Jo and Jez were and she said
they were starting on Monday. I asked her where they were going to sit and she said they could perch on the ends of our desks for the time being.
For the time being.
Subtle, eh?

Imran and Cathy immediately started fretting about which of us would be fired to make way for these newcomers. I told them there was probably nothing to worry about. Then I quit my game of
Scrabble and started searching on job websites.

So it looks like it’s all over for me and either Cathy or Imran. Two new people are joining and they aren’t buying any new desks. I can’t really complain. I’ve managed to
ride it out for over a decade, which is pretty good going. But it’s a little unfortunate for Cathy or Imran, because they both seem to work pretty hard. Unless they’re just as lazy as
me and really good at hiding it.

I feel like I’m crossing a line with these use-by dates now. I’ve just eaten a ready-meal lasagne that was a whole week out of date. Rebelling against the tyrannies
of your ex-partner is one thing, but this is just reckless.

I have no idea what will happen now. Maybe I’ll wake up on a cloud next to Jim Morrison, John Lennon and Kurt Cobain. I’ll tell them about the lasagne, and they’ll greet me as
one of their own – a victim of rock and roll excess who burnt out instead of fading away.

Jen asked me for the SOP on one of our accounts today. For a moment I thought I was supposed to have done some work and I’d have to dip into my bank of excuses. But then I
realized she was just asking me about the state of play. So she’d managed to invent an acronym that caused unnecessary confusion, and for what? To make herself sound so busy she hasn’t
got time to say entire words. And how many syllables did she save exactly? None at all.

I was trying to explain this to her when her phone went off. Her ringtone is ‘Mamma Mia’. Apparently, this is her favourite film of all time, and she especially likes the part where
Pierce Brosnan sings.

I had a day off today. We had to use up all our holiday allowance by the end of January, so I thought I might as well book it. Given how much I hate work, you’d think
I’d welcome days off, but I actually find them rather stressful.

I feel like I have to do something worthy of a day off, or I’ll have wasted it. I couldn’t work out if I wanted to make a start on
The Sopranos
, and while I was trying to
decide I found myself watching an entire programme about car boot sales.

I tried getting round to ordering some decking for the garden, but it felt too much like work, which is definitely not right for a day off.

I then thought I should go to a museum of some sort, but this still hadn’t happened by 3 p.m., so I turned on my laptop and played Scrabble. In other words, my day off was exactly the same
as a day at work would have been except I had to pay for my own heat and electricity.

I really hope Josh doesn’t get rid of me. I couldn’t handle this much choice every day.

This morning I got sent a brochure from Saga, a company that specializes in holidays for the elderly. At first I assumed I’d been sent it by mistake, but then I worried
that I might actually be old enough to be in their target market now.

I threw it in the bin and turned on MTV Base to prove that I wasn’t really old. But all the jiggling arses gave me a migraine so I turned over to a Led Zeppelin special on VH1.

All day the brochure preyed on my mind. What if they were right? What if that really is my sort of thing now?

Eventually, I dragged it out of the bin and sighed with relief as I saw it all still looked utterly horrendous. I don’t want a relaxing, all-inclusive cruise with 24-hour room service and
on-board entertainment. I don’t want to experience distinctive cultures, traditional customs and breathtaking vistas. I don’t want to be herded around tourist traps with sunburnt
geriatrics spending wads of cash on tat for grandchildren who’d rather just have the money.

In other words, there’s hope for me yet.