December 15, 2007
And it all began so well.
A gentle afternoon meal at the local Chinese. A few drinks. Some idle banter. Musing over the year gone, thoughts of things to come.
And then the advertising girls at the next table started showing pictures of cocks they'd shagged on their mobile phones.
It was a little after 3pm when the conversation moved away from the actual cocks themselves - "long, but thin", "like a wet sponge roll", "jackhammer", "useless - but rich", "black", "makes me get a wide-on thinking about it", "funny aftertaste" - to the "jap's eyes". Specifically, insisted one diminuitive property advertising rep, whether it was possible to put a fist down one. (Which is when we got involved, naturally, shouting "no fucking way" etc across the restaurant, no doubt to the joyous amusement of the restaurant staff).
At the end, when no one wanted anything else other than to move next door to the bar, we were each handed mugs with Chinese "year of" inscriptions. So then 30-odd people trudge out into the howling cold wilderness of Birkenhead, pissed, clutching unwanted mugs that we all then start handing to homeless people, such was the Saint Nicholas-height of our sozzled benevolence. ("Er, any chance of some fucking tea in it?" japed one grateful vagrant who, it has to be said, smelt a little of stale cider wee.)
To the bar, where the natural jostling of position began:
Buy the boss a drink, as you'll wait forever for him to buy you one.
Insert oneself at left-of-centre of attention in order to provide witty, entertaining one-liners while not putting oneself at risk of falling flat.
Buy girls drinks.
Feign vague detatchment.
Thus gain interest from anxious - and pissed - female colleagues.
Feign interest.
Buy more girls drinks.
Speak to boss.
Manage not to call him "a cunt".
Feign understanding at fear for his job.
Manage again to avoid the word "cunt".
Spot unoccupied centre of attention.
Confuse pissed self with amusing sober stand-up comedian of repute.
Get away with it, as everyone too drunk to be any funnier.
Have annual row with advertising over who's more important than who.
Me, obviously.
Nod sagely at boss as discuss profit margins and revenue streams.
Look down top of ad supervisor.
Look down top of ad rep who didn't get the superviser's job and is complaining to me about it.
Send blank texts.
Offer useless advice to junior colleagues about career direction.
Feel a bit sick.
Switch from wine to vodka.
Stare fixedly at bottom of ad rep.
And the other one next to her.
Remember vodka is easier to slug than wine.
Repeatedly.
Break up row between reporter and ad rep over the forthcoming collection for a soon-to-leave colleague.
Hear noise about taxi headed to Hoylake.
Enter taxi.
With boss.
And ad rep.
Arrive Hoylake, depart taxi. With no boss. But with ad rep.
Stagger into bar, where ad rep meets ex-ad rep who worked with me in a previous life.
Send more blank texts.
Drink more vodka.
Realise (in extraordinarily rare moment of employment clarity) that oneself may have bitten off more than can chew.
Leave bar.
Fall over bin.
Get up, to the sound of regaling laughter.
Go and knock on a door of someone and ask to be let in.
Get let in.
Wake up several hours later thanking my non-existent lucky stars that I didn't.
So, I am the Master Of The Work Do once more.
But.
There's another one on Wednesday.
