mydaysasawageslave.com

I continue to dig my own grave. It's like I can't help myself.

After a particularly rowdy midweek drinking session I couldn't manage to drag myself into work on time.

I did manage to text ahead to one of the other wageslaves and say I was running late and cover for me but unfortunately, I was confronted by my boss (Number 1) within touching distance from my desk.

I had managed to make it through reception without being seen and couldn't believe my luck as I realised he was on the phone with his back to me.


"Glad you could make it!" boomed THAT voice from his ever open office door. He looked through me before glaring knowingly at his watch.

"Don't mention it." I blurted out with a huge grin. I turned to my chair, threw down my bag and decided that what I really needed was a good, strong cup of coffee. Lunch time was only 2 hours away but it was going to be a long 2 hours. Especially with that freak boring holes into the back of my head.

Thank God for hangovers. I fear no one when I have a hangover. After lunch though I'll probably get paranoid but until then I'm going to be too busy thinking about eating stodge to be afraid of the sack.

Now I've just got to look like I'm working for the next 3 hours.

I am sitting in a room where people go to the 'UK' for meetings and say 'Alrighty' or 'Righty' when agreeing with each other.

The meeting is already on 5 to 10 minutes by the time I slink in the door and push my way into a spare wall space, all the seats having been taken by the various layers of lower and middle management, prefect's in past lives surely?

I turn to discreetly ask the girl next to me had I "missed anything of note? Anyone else hand in their notice yet?"

Her snigger momentarily distracted Number 1 in mid flow on the merits of contacting old school friends who may be in positions of influence in the world of commerce. Golf being his preferred method for bonding and bringing in potential revenue streams for 'the company'.

His glare was psychotic. He looked through us with a contempt that only a bully who has never been challenged or had a fight in his life would consider. He was headmaster to our naughty pupils. He was omnipotent. He was Number 1.

After a measured pause, he continued.

Apparently there was a slush fund available to finance these little outings.

One of the familiars from his inner circle had apparently led the way in this area over the weekend and so pleased was Number 1 by this show of ingenious brown nosing that from now it was to become official company policy by diktat.

His flunky, who I call Smithers after guy in The Simpsons, was beaming with pride. I noticed that he had somehow managed to co-ordinate the same pink polo shirt as Number 1 (having already mastered the same haircut the week previous. I had taken to wearing black again.

As the topic went on to marketing institute Power Breakfast's and the like, my mind drifted off to MY old school friends.

I wondered if I could round up a few of them would we have access to this slush fund?

I know a few of them are in prison (although I think they're out now). Most of them are probably builders and engineers, musicians, drunks and unemployed.

I couldn't think on anyone who would be deemed suitable for a round of golf and a chat about marketing over some Chablis.

I was glad.

Another part of me left today.

But I'm still a wageslave stuck in marketing hell.

Help.

Today got off to a strange start. A friend of many years sent me an email to tell me that Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie out of Dallas) had just died.

As I read through the mail it occurred to me that he was part of a Barbara Bel Geddes web ring. Before I got a chance to ask, his email went on to clarify that 'yes, he was on the mailing list'.

I took this as a clear admission that he was indeed gay. A sort of coming out of the email closet if you will.

Nowadays it's kind of trendy to be bi-curious, camp or at the very least, have a token gay friend.

According to my research, all the marketing girls here (alright the 4 that I bothered to ask), have stated that they think gay men make better friends than straight men. Almost as good as best girl friends in fact.

Sample reasons given included better fashion sense. Interest in shoes. A love of 'girly' films and actresses. Cleanliness and generally more sensitive to a girl's needs.

When pushed, it turns out that only one of the girls actually knew a gay man and that he was her brother, which I think should automatically rule him out as a 'gay man friend'.

I have a 'gay man friend'. He is small, round and bald yet very hairy in a nose, ears and back kind of way. He usually wears the classic white collar desk jockey uniform of slacks and shirt. Jeans and jumper at weekends. Similar to bank clerks and call center employees the world over.

In regards to a love of girly' films, I know that he did go to see Titanic but hated it. He thought Leonardo Di Caprio was a ride though and went off on a crude tangent about what he would do to him if he had him drunk and / or immobilised in his flat late one hypothetical night.

He prefers 'The Soprano's' to 'Sex and the City', which he doesn't get, it being "too girly".

When in the company of women he is inclined to gloss over with a disinterested detachment. Whenever I've brought this up, he merely replies that he just doesn't "get Women. They're too ... I dunno, girly". I think it's because he has no intention of ever shagging them. In any hypothetical scenario.

To tell you the truth, he's just as shallow, self centred and sex obsessed as most of my other friends, which makes him great craic in my book.

It would also suggest that most of the marketing girls I work with don't know what they're talking about.

But i suspected that anyway.

I'd taken to missing my monday morning team meeting lately but it was beginning to attract a few comments.

In a tragic effort to avoid being outed as a chronic slacker, I figured I'd better attend this weeks little get-together.

If you can remember morning assembly from your school days, you'll have an idea as to how these meetings went. Headmaster (Number 1) waffles on about stuff, while we (his pupils) sit and variously accept his praise or criticism depending on his mood. In all my time as a wageslave here I hadn't said more than 2 words, (when asked was there anything strange or new in my department that I wanted to share with the rest of the company, I would invariably answer 'No').

This weeks meeting was as mind numbingly boring as all the others.

Half an hour of day dreaming, drooling and drawing murderous cartoons in my notepad, whilst a variety of wageslaves vied with each other for Number 1's affections this week. Laughing louder or longer at his jokes. Looking increasingly pensive at his misgivings or nodding approvingly as he espoused his views on world domination in the field of marketing and sales promotion.

In doing my caricatures I realised that the people who weren't women were beginning to look the same to me. It was as if I had drawn 4 cartoons of the same guy on my note pad, even though I had actually drawn 4 different people. The only differentiation being the large dagger going through the head of one of them. (funny but I always finish my drawings of Number 1 with a large dagger going through his skull! What does that say?!)

In the way they say owners begin to look like their dogs, I'm pretty sure now that Numbers 1's begin to look like their wageslaves. (or vice versa).

It's a given that the people who aren't women in the company begin to assimilate in terms of their dress code, that classic office casual look of straight jeans, tucked in light blue stripey shirt and slip on shoes but it would appear to have moved up to the next level of evolution. Four guys, one haircut.

To cap it all, it would appear that they are all developing the same bald patch. It's like some kind of weird cult around here. I hear that women's periods start to align if they spend a lot of time together but I had never heard of the male equivalent. Although, technically I refer to these guys as the people who aren't women in the company, seeing as how the field of sales promotion isn't exactly renowned for producing the most manly of men if you know what I mean.

I was getting freaked out and I knew I had to get out before I too, was assimilated, Borg style, into the fold. Get out of the company but more importantly right now, get out of the meeting.

I waited for a lull in the conversation before getting up to make my excuses, at which point I noticed a few other desperate souls spark to life at the prospect of getting out of the room.

I muttered something about "...leaving now if that's OK. Work to do..." Number 1 looked at me aghast. In my panic to get out I had forgotten the company's golden rule -You can't do anything without Number 1's permission first. And in a sad desperate act of compulsive disorderal behavior, he had to give me permission to leave the room before I got to the door. My hand was on the handle when I heard him say.
"er... hold on." I stopped to look back at him and the roomful of matching hairlines. "OK you can go then." he blurted out. Panicked at the thought that he had momentarily been caught of guard.

The door hadn't time to swing closed before a deluge of wageslaves were pouring through the door after me. Jumping at the chance to escape.

I made straight to the bathroom and a mirror. I had to reassure myself in regards to my hairline.
Yup it was sufficiently different. I was still human. Unassimilated.

But I had something new to worry about.

I had to escape soon.

mydaysasawageslave.com: August 2005

Late today. Well 12 minutes late to be precise. The production line was held up from doing whatever it is that it does. The work is second only in importance to looking like you are working. Stay busy. Be at that desk. Put in the hours. Always be available for work related activity. And most importantly, be enthusiastic.

Your owner's and fellow wageslaves dislike nothing more than someone who displays unapproved emotions such as cynicism, depression, irritation, flippancy or willful independence.

Being late hints at a lack of commitment to the company.

Look around you. Those who do well as wageslaves are always at their desk or have their mobile glued to their ears, spouting a mantra of work related new speak to a client. There is a feeling with these people that if you snuck back in to the office at night they would still be there. If after a nights heavy drinking, you left the early house and went straight to work, they would already be there, at their desk. Smiling. Happy. Working.

The deadwood, on the other hand. Will be seen to be late. They may put in as many hours as the model wageslaves but they don't broadcast it. Their owners probably aren't aware of it and on the one day they decide to come in early they catch you coming in late. After that you carry the mark of Cain. Worse still they may once have walked past you as you were busy on the phone making arrangements to meet a non work related friend.

Taking personal calls is almost as frowned upon as being late.

I am now officially a dead man walking. It is just a matter of time.