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This is a question Workplace Boredom

There's got to be more to your working day than loafing around the internet, says tfi049113. How do you fill those long, empty desperate hours?

(, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 12:18)
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It's been quite a while now, so I can post this
A few years ago I worked for a accountancy firm with big aspirations and endemic small mindedness.

Anyone who's ever worked in private practice will probably be nodding in silent agreement with what I'm about to describe.

The firm was headed by the fading presence of the Senior Partner; Edward, an outwardly amiable but infuriatingly bumbling man in his sixties who was absolutely entrenched in class principles from a bygone age. Imagine an aged Boris Johnson with a dose of Captain Peacock minus the sense of humour and you're there.

The real power brokers in the firm were the regional partners, David and Graham. The latter chap was surely a candidate for undiagnosed Aspergers as his ruthlessness was equalled only by his ineptitude at any form of interpersonal communication. Staff who handed in their notice were treated as if they'd pissed on Graham's garden wall, as was anyone he didn't expressly approve of.

The ageing and baffled Edward would interrupt the working day with numerous requests to "pop down" and undertake various menial tasks bidding irrespective of our workload and deadlines.

A junior accountant spent an afternoon on the phone to a dry cleaner trying to locate a missing pair of trousers. A departmental manager was tasked with finding clipart on the internet. Various people were tasked with finding bits of paper that would eventually be found somewhere on Edward's expensive desk.

It's hardly a surprise that tormenting Edward became the corporate sport. The objective was simple, convince Graham that Edward was losing his marbles and get him retired pronto.

One week during Graham's annual leave proved pivotal. After a week of being run ragged by Edward, a seething senior accountant snuck into Edward's office one afternoon and randomly shredded every tenth document he found.

The stakes were raised.

Edward's secretary spiked his coffee with Optrex which was funny for ten minutes until the postern serenade from his tortured barking spider was heard in reception, several rooms away from ground zero.

Another senior accountant rigged the clock in Edward's office to tick backwards and poured a glass of water onto Edward's laptop, after randomly deleting system files.

First prize for ruthless ingenuity went to yet another senior accountant and the practice manager who both used Edward's office furniture as an impromptu urinal. The office was left to marinade all weekend until Monday morning when a returning Graham was tactfully appraised that an increasingly senile Edward might be losing his bladder control.

Despite gibbering, spittle flecked assertions from Graham that the kindest thing to do for Edward would be to take him outside and shoot him, the wiley old bugger stubbornly avoided retirement and subsequent attempts to depose him. He's still there and no doubt still pestering young, female members of staff to find his lost trousers for him.
(, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 18:22, 4 replies)
you can't 'randomly' shred every tenth document

(, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 19:08, closed)
Bloody hell
You're right.

I can't be arsed to edit it now.

I've got work to do ;-)
(, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 19:44, closed)

I suppose you can, if the order in which you're selecting the 10th is random.
(, Mon 12 Jan 2009, 19:26, closed)
i like him
sounds exactly how i'd like to go out

cantankerous lecherous old cunt

oh!
(, Mon 12 Jan 2009, 5:37, closed)

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