In which I document a Very Bad Day

It was bound to happen eventually, and today I got my comeuppance. I’d made a fairly fundamental error on a Board report, and it was picked up by one of the directors. In my defence, the document in question is a twenty-four page, extremely detailed report, compiled in Excel with a great deal of manual input required. Since a) every so often someone will request a change which will be immediately reversed by the first person to notice it, and then defiantly reinstated when the person who originally requested the change notices that it’s been reversed, ad infinitum, like some horrible version of Mornington Crescent; b) I’ve been “relocated” to a part of the office that houses the call centre, with people quoting prices and therefore shouting numbers at each other all day so it’s hard to concentrate, and c) I’m not a robot and have never claimed to be infallible, mistakes may sometimes be made. However, it’s my responsibility to ensure the accuracy of the document before publishing. Well actually it isn’t, it’s the director’s, but since he didn’t spot the error until after publication he was irrationally annoyed and I found myself in a meeting this morning listening to my manager explain that I was a whisker away from a verbal warning on the matter. This strikes me as a little harsh - after all a typo is a typo is a typo. Also, if you ask me to justify my actions it might be a little unfair to then condemn any response I make as an “excuse”…..still, that’s the way of things here so I made my apologies and retreated; stung, yet undeterred in my quest to find another job and fast. On top of this, my car died on its arse on Tuesday, and after some laughably bad customer service (nice cars but Seat after-sales service is presumably an elaborate Beadle-esque hoax being perpetrated on a grand scale) which I won’t bore you with, but which netted me twenty quids worth of vouchers by way of an apology, I finally got it back today. This made me late back from lunch, which was not helpful on a day when I’d have preferred to be a little more inconspicuous. Also, the Other Half has been in hostipal today, having three of his six (see the freak!! the freak!!) wisdom teeth out, so I’ve been anxiously expecting a call. His Mum’s called me twice today, which does my head in as I keep expecting her to develop emotional Tourettes and screech “homewrecker!!” and “slut!!” at me in the middle of our conversation. I finally had a call from Himself, in which he explained that he felt like he’d been kicked in the face by a horse, and that if he didn’t eat his biscuits he wouldn’t be able to take his painkillers orally. Faced with the prospect of either receiving or administering a suppository, both he and the nurses were naturally hopeful that the biscuits would go down a treat.

So, in summary, the sort of day you might reasonably hope would end in a pleasant, beery haze. Instead I’ll be offering milkshakes and sympathy to a sore and swollen Other Half, whilst idly dreaming up ever-more unpleasant ways to off the management.

I hear garrotting’s nice at this time of year.