Pointless Things

Before I get on to the intended subject of this post I thought I'd mention a small amount about my day yesterday, and for that we need a small amount of scene-setting...

*wavey screen effect to dissolve*

We're on a project. The project is over-running because the people who decided what's in the project didn't do a very good job of deciding exactly what's in the project. We are therefore in a process known as 'scope-creep'.

Despite this, the three more recent contractors (of which I am one) have worked well together and finished our project stage ahead of the visit from the client. The other contractor (who's a bit slower) wasted a couple of weeks and wasn't going to make it on time. I got assigned his work and - stand back, own-trumpet-blowing in progress - organised, planned and completed a week's worth of work in 2 days, meaning that we were finished on Friday lunchtime.

The two permie members of our team (boss A and boss B) were out all wednesday afternoon on a company jolly. Boss A spent all Thursday doing little work with a hangover, boss B didn't turn up on Thursday due to a hangover.

Scene-setting complete.

*wavey screen effect to dissolve*

We completed our work at lunchtime on friday, and finding that no-one else was around (permie members in meetings, older contractor had a day off) the three of us decided to head to the local pub for a celebratory drink - especially seeing as we hadn't for a couple of months due to project time pressures. After an hour on the diet cokes I decided to head back to work but was persuaded to stay 'for just one more' by the other two. An hour after that I realised it was now at the end of allowed lunchtimes and headed back alone to arrive 15 minutes late.

I instantly got an email from boss B (who sits 3 metres from me in line of sight and had said nothing) - cc'd to the three management levels above him - stating agreed lunch times and warning that with the 'project schedule pressures we shouldn't be taking time out of the office'.

Said the man who'd just missed 1.5 days of the last 2 due to drinking too much.

I bit my tongue and said nothing. This was 'a wise move'.

In no time at all it escalated. The two in the pub were told not to come back that afternoon, meetings were had, privileges removed and many conversations about 'cancelling notice periods' and discussing 'contracts with agencies' were overheard. One of the two wasn't doing himself any favours by alternately phoning boss A and I every 5 minutes and not heeding texts to him to stop doing it as it was pissing boss A off. Boss B, who doesn't like one of the two in the pub and is rightly concerned that we're showing him up as being incompetent and lazy, took every opportunity to stick the boot in. All very distasteful.

I left work at six and walking home found that one of the two (whom I shall call Alpha as he is very much the alpha male of the group) was still in the pub and still drinking on an empty stomach six hours after starting. I phoned him to get him to go home (as he was drinking with others from work and I wasn't going to get involved as I haven't formally had my permie offer yet). He took seven attempts to say the word 'happy'. I left him to it.

After leaving the curry house with 8 lovely young ladies later that evening (I'm such a stud. Shame that they're all employees of a friend. Darn my morals.) I discovered a missed call from Alpha. I got no reply when calling him back. At midnight I got a fantastic text from him:

'Hi. Got arrested for being drunk and disordfly!'

I have heard nothing more. We shall see on Monday who gets a paddlin', who gets a bollockin' and who gets a slapped wrist. I'd better be in the latter group or they can stick their permie job up their cavernous arse*.


Anyway, the point of this post was to mention about the utterly pointless projects I start when I have nothing much to do - mainly when I'm having a break from drinking. Sometimes I do them because I find them funny all the way to the end, but mainly because once I've said I'll do something then I do it.

Always.

(With the possible exception of killing the students. That was an 'ironic' death threat.)

As a case in point, the 5-a-side team I played for a few years back was managed by a lovely bloke called Thommo. The team (The 'Liners) had initially been the works team for the company he'd set-up, but over the years had moved up divisions and therefore acquired some better players, many of whom were my friends.

In the middle of my last drinking hiatus I started stepping into the goalie's shoes every now and then (to middling success) and regularly attending the matches. Eventually I became 'Assistant Manager' for whenever Thommo was caught up with work and couldn't make kick-off. Now Thommo was a legend at the 5-a-side complex where we played. During the match he would furiously pace up and down the touchline hurling full-volume instructions and comments like hand grenades into the game (often with a similar effect as bewildered and bloodied players would stagger out of the morass he'd created by inadvertently telling everyone to 'go up front' or 'take a breather' at the same time). In fact, in the few games we had on the show court (which was directly below the terrace where around a hundred people waiting for their next game or drinking after their last would gather in the summer) he, rather than we, would get quite an audience.

After one such match when the team were good naturedly mocking some of his more famous catchphrases, someone suggested that it would be funny to mix some of them up as a track. I said I would.

So for the next two weeks I followed him around during the game, recording his pleadings and admonishments, copied them onto my computer, located the finest audio manipulation software the internet could provide for free, hacked up a few tracks I owned, overlayed some of Thommo's finer moments, took a cheesey photo of him at a match (he had no idea this was going on), borrowed a CD labelling machine from work, and voila! we have Thommo's Dream by DJ Stats:

Copies were given to everyone at the end of season awards :)

Should you wish to hear this masterpiece, you can download it here for the next week or so. I appear on it (after forgetting that my mp3 player was recording) urging 'James' to shoot 'on sight'. With management skills such as that, was it any wonder we came 2nd?

I guess the point of this post is :- Should you hear me say I'll do something no matter how ridiculous, then expect it done and expect it done properly. I mean eventually, expect it done eventually. Yeah.

Basically I have no point :(

*Just kidding. Please employ me. I'll make the tea and everything.