Office honesty

Keith Fleming from HR is talking to me but I say nothing. I don’t need to. I know from experience that he’ll keep talking whether I respond or not. Possibly whether I’m even here or not. I’m tempted to test this theory by just walking off and seeing if he stops. I silently curse the firmly ingrained politeness that keeps me standing here while he drones on.

I muse on how satisfying it would be to be able to say and do whatever I felt like. I could walk away from Keith, I could point out to Peter Hanson that I would rather gouge out my own eyes than sit through another two-hour meeting on updating budget codes. I could even tell Gemma Grant that I think she has the most beautiful bottom I have ever seen.

But there would be repercussions. Keith might not notice, but Peter would probably inform my manager and Gemma would more than likely slap me or put in a grievance for harassment. Or, knowing my luck, both.

Keith is still talking. I fight the urge to scream “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” into his gormless face. It would feel so good to do it just once. We’ve got ‘duvet days’, why can’t we have ‘no consequences days’? Once a year, everyone has the opportunity to nominate a day in which they can do or say pretty much whatever they want and no one can hold it against them or take any disciplinary action. I think it would release a lot of tension for everyone and increase productivity.

I could tell James Palmer about his body odour problem, enlighten Sundeep Bhangal that everyone is sick of her asking for sponsorship for yet another 10K run, and let Andrew Chandler know in no uncertain terms that I do not care how marvellously his many children are doing at school.

The depressingly realist side of my brain breaks in as is its wont to point out the flip-side of my plan is that everyone will be able to tell me exactly what they think of me. “Can you handle that?” I ask myself. Probably not.

If only I could have followed my dream and been an astronaut I wouldn’t have to deal with all this office bullshit. Mind you, would it be so different? Probably it would just be swapping office politics for spaceship politics. Arguments and back-biting over who got to pilot the shuttle, bearing grudges about who gets to step onto the moon’s surface first, and fighting over the last freeze-dried chocolate Hob Nob.
It’s the same wherever you work. It’s all so bloody depressing.

“Bollocks!” I say aloud but Keith doesn’t notice.