...and another one
Back when I worked in London, one of the bosses of the company I worked for was a raving alcoholic. We nicknamed him "Geedub", which was short for GW, the initials of "Gold Watch" which apparently is rhyming slang for Scotch, his tipple of choice.

Amongst his party tricks were:

Turning up at 11 every day, sitting at his desk for 2 minutes, then getting up, saying he was going over to the sandwich shop and did anyone want anything, then disappearing for an hour, and coming back smelling of booze, clutching a ham sandwich as if that would fool us.

Telling us stuff in the afternoons while pissed, then forgetting the next day that he'd done so and then bollocking us for doing/not doing whatever it was he'd told us to do.

Towards the end, his drinking was totally out of control, and he would be totally plastered by the end of the day.

One day, I overheard a phone conversation he was having and pointed out to my mate porky that it didn't sound like there was anyone on the other end of the phone.

A quick check of the phones showed us that there were in fact 2 lines in operation, although only Geedub was on the phone.

Further surveillance revealed that he would phone the office number, put the call on hold and then answer it himself, then have a fake conversation with no-one, the end result of which would be he'd have to go to site to examine a job, whereupon he'd nip to accounts to get some petty cash, hail a taxi and disappear, before rolling back in dead on 5 o'clock as pissed as a fart and slurring telling us all about the job he'd just looked at.

When he was particularly pissed we'd spot him getting ready to make one of these calls, and answer the phone before he had a chance to get it himself, which would result in him recognising our voices, and then explaining how if 2 people answered the phone at exactly the same time, it connected them to each other and cut the incoming call off.

Another time, he was having a long, in-depth conversation with much arguing and debating "with a customer", when that customer appeared on the trade counter =)

This one's my personal favourite:

While out with the other 2 owners of the company entertaining some customers, Geedub got chatting to one of them about another customer who wasn't there that night. Apparently the conversation went like this:

Geedub: "Yeah, he's a great bloke, I can't think of his name though"
Customer: "..."
Geedub: "D'oh, it's on the tip of my tongue..." *much head scratching and exaggerated "trying to remember actions* before:
Geedub: *slaps hand on table* "I've got it! It's Terry Smith!"
Customer: "Er, no Geedub. That's me"
Geedub: (angrily) "I know that!"

It wasn't all funny though; in the end we found that as well as going out drinking he was visiting knocking shops and getting his end away with a variety of slappers - not so nice for his wife (who also worked with us) O_o

In the end he was persuaded to leave, I don't know the details - but it wasn't a moment too soon: the company was doing really well but the amount of money he was spending very very nearly brought us down, to the extent that we were almost in our last weeks before he went.

/length? About 4 years too long...
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Wed 30 Jan 2008, 22:53, 1 reply)

winner of the most convoluted nickname
goes to...

:D
(Lannes, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 2:58, closed)