Another Day at the Office

I was going to write a rather vitriolic piece about how wonderful women are because they can manage to hold down a job, a relationship, a hobby - take care of kids, remember the mother in law's birthday, knit, sew, wash, clean, iron, repair things from broken hearts to blocked drains. How we can look sexy when we want to and practical when we don't. How we can turn a man on with a glance and off with a gesture and cure a tear with a Pooh Bear band aid or whip up a dinner for five with a can of tomatoes and a kilo of mince. We're even capable of putting the toilet seat down and cleaning our teeth without spitting toothpaste all over the mirror. We're so clever, how come we don't rule the world! Surely we should have grown out of a few hundred years of mysogenistic oppression by now! If only we could programme the bloody DVD recorder! We could be queens of the universe! (actually that's the only thing I can't or choose not to do that the men in my house can!).

Then I became distracted by men who are awful managers and patronising bastards because they expect you to be superhuman one minute then treat you like a dumb cow the next . . then it sort of wondered off into crazy why do IT people speak a foreign language? Then the word snowjobbing turned into a dialogue about how I love the cold and want to go to Lapland and feed a reindeer and visit Santa's kingdom - it's so shiny! (No I haven't been on the hallucegenics).

I really hate working in an office. One partner refuses to speak to me, the other treats me like I'm a schoolgirl and the other . . well he doesn't really care too much either way. The most annoying paraplanner in the world even asked me to look up a phone number for her today and was promptly met with "piss off, do I look like a fucking phone book!" (so much for my not being bitchy for lent) I wish I'd been a landscaper or a dog washer . . . in fact, dammit . . .when I'm financially fit . . . I'm going to be the Spin Doctor to the aspiring Benevolent Dictator of the world - yeh, he exists, I know him, really! I just have to wait for him to finish University and get over his video gaming habit so that he focuses on the real agenda!

In the meantime, I'm stuck in the office somewhere between the pedants and the underlings and the most annoying paraplanner in the world, getting buried in forms and procedure manuals and employment contracts and scrapping with overpaid youths about the virtues of their IT skills and drop-everything-and-do-it-now requests and printers that don't work and did I mention the most annoying paraplanner in the world?

So kiddywinks, a lesson to you . . bugger pushing a pen around for others! Get into your own business, be your own boss, be knowledgeable, empathic, treat your employees with real respect not just 'recognition' (which is a corporate word for 'we love your work but we're not giving you a pay rise') . . be the master of your own universe whether you're cleaning bathrooms or building skyscrapers. Leave 'the man' to his own devices and see if he can book a meeting in Outlook or type a letter all by himself, let alone work a dictaphone or how to copy anything double sided! Seriously, it's enough to drive a Saint to madness!