On Detachment with An Arse
I spent most of this summer on detachment with a group of scientists who regularly go and measure atmospheric stuff from an aeroplane and are possibly connected with a large body of other scientists, some of whom might possibly do the weather forecast. And overall, it was a good detachment: the instrument on which my supervisor and I worked behaved quite well, the flights were good, the others were good company. Oh, and we were based in Switzerland. Views out of the window during flights were nothing short of Fucking Awesome.

The only drawback was the boss. He was sent out as detachment manager, and I'd heard "stories" about him previously, about him being a bit difficult, perhaps a bit annoying. Now I try to be nice to everybody when I first meet them, especially if I've got to work with them for a month. And whilst he seemed pleasant enough at first, I soon began to understand why the other scientists got so pissed off with him.

For this man was A Complete Arse. I developed a theory that, when Chris Barrie was simultaneously cast in Red Dwarf and The Brittas Empire as Arnold Judas Rimmer and Gordon Brittas respectively, he must have been racking his brains to develop two distinctly different characters who could still be Complete and Total Arsehats. And I think, one night, he went to the pub with his friends and bumped into this Detachment Manager at the bar. Because I do believe that after ten minutes of talking to this bloke, you could pick out just about all the personality traits of both characters.

As a result, people avoided hanging out with him at any cost. If he suggested heading into town to get some lunch, the pilots would usually go with him but all the scientists "already had plans," or "would be a while longer with this," and then would all get together and go somewhere else after he'd cleared off.

I'm not normally this childish. I felt bad doing the same. But having sat next to him the first night we all went out for dinner, I didn't feel bad enough to make me take him up on his invitation.

Towards the end of the detachment, my supervisor and I ended up around a table with him for lunch with a couple of the others. As usual, he decided the best course of action was to regale us with fascinating stories of his travels. This afternoon's location of choice was Eastern Europe.

"And of course, they're great engineers, the Poles."
I looked around. Four or five scientists sat around a table, bored stiff by this fifteen-minute excursus on what a fascinating life he led.
"Yeah, they're good plumbers, too," I quipped. I thought I'd just try and lighten the tone, introduce some gentle humour, anything to reclaim the conversation. My supervisor, however, decided to go one better,
"Good strippers, too," he said, in reference to a Polish-run nudey-bar near his home.
This then descended into the two of us childishly suggesting names for an Eastern European Strip Club, the best of which being "Topleski."

Complete Arse Detachment Manager was less than impressed by our "puerile" humour, we later heard from someone else. Were we being so childish to draw the conversation back to a level at which everyone could participate? Admittedly, the ulterior aim was to stop him talking.

What was certainly childish, however, was the behaviour of all the scientists, myself included, at the detachment dinner. We all convened in one restaurant for dinner. A few people decided that it was imperative that Complete Arse Detachment Manager not make a speech. It had been his first detachment, and a successful detachment, so we knew he would crow about it. ("Of course it was successful; it was in Switzerland," pointed out one of the scientists, "it was always going to be easier than the last one in fucking Borneo.")

So one of them, after the desserts had been round, called upon various people to make speeches. He called upon
The two senior scientists
The pilots
The cabin crew
The core chemistry guy
One of the spectrometry guys
Me (being the lowly PhD understudy and therefore the least important person there)
And managed to string it out until coffee had been round and everybody cleared off. It takes some effort to be that childish. Mr CompleteArse is thought to have turned to the person sat next to him and muttered, "Well, I didn't really need to make a speech..."

Edit: I've just remembered - days off, i.e., when nobody needed to do instrument maintenance and the conditions weren't suitable for flying, were called "Hard-down Days," and were announced clearly as such on the whiteboard in the foyer of the hotel in which we were staying. It only took two strokes of the finger to render this announcement immature and hilarious.
(LongJohnBaldry, Thu 17 Sep 2009, 16:27, 2 replies)

"Hard-on Gays"?

(aroe_m0rre, Mon 21 Sep 2009, 20:36, closed)

Well, "Hard-on Days"
was the initial idea. But that would have worked even better...
(LongJohnBaldry, Tue 22 Sep 2009, 13:22, closed)