Perks of the job
On Wednesday and Friday lunchtimes, the company provides a bus into town.
This is described as a “perk”. It isn’t. Well I mean it is, in terms of free transport into town, but it isn’t in terms of, say, having a pay rise instead, or a pay rise*. The bus provided usually looks as if it has spent the last thirty years or so transporting rowdy pensioners to and from the incontinence clinic. The seats are torn, the windows are smeared and dirty and the suspension is shot to pieces. The whole thing smells faintly of kagoules and wee. It is driven by either the mad lady bus driver from South Park, or Les. Les is a maniac, and thinks nothing of hurtling down a bus lane before swerving violently into oncoming traffic. He spends the forty five minutes between dropping us off and taking us back to work asleep on the back seat of the bus and has startled more than one person by rising, corpselike, from behind a row of seats in a rather abrupt manner.
So anyway. That’s the bus. It’s also rather small (a demi-bus?) which leads me to the point of my story. GBF and I were last on the bus this lunchtime, and by the time we got there no double seats were available. GBF was ok, as he bagged a spare seat next to a friend. My options were rather more limited.
I spent the ten minute journey into town perched uncomfortably next to the grey, anonymous man from the planning department. We are not close personal friends, and he was as unhappy with the arrangement as I was. There is something deeply, horribly discomfiting about feeling the warmth of a colleague’s thigh seeping through your trouser leg**.
* I need a pay rise. I am unlikely to get one. Bah.
** Unless it belong to the Other Half. I rather enjoy it then.
This is described as a “perk”. It isn’t. Well I mean it is, in terms of free transport into town, but it isn’t in terms of, say, having a pay rise instead, or a pay rise*. The bus provided usually looks as if it has spent the last thirty years or so transporting rowdy pensioners to and from the incontinence clinic. The seats are torn, the windows are smeared and dirty and the suspension is shot to pieces. The whole thing smells faintly of kagoules and wee. It is driven by either the mad lady bus driver from South Park, or Les. Les is a maniac, and thinks nothing of hurtling down a bus lane before swerving violently into oncoming traffic. He spends the forty five minutes between dropping us off and taking us back to work asleep on the back seat of the bus and has startled more than one person by rising, corpselike, from behind a row of seats in a rather abrupt manner.
So anyway. That’s the bus. It’s also rather small (a demi-bus?) which leads me to the point of my story. GBF and I were last on the bus this lunchtime, and by the time we got there no double seats were available. GBF was ok, as he bagged a spare seat next to a friend. My options were rather more limited.
I spent the ten minute journey into town perched uncomfortably next to the grey, anonymous man from the planning department. We are not close personal friends, and he was as unhappy with the arrangement as I was. There is something deeply, horribly discomfiting about feeling the warmth of a colleague’s thigh seeping through your trouser leg**.
* I need a pay rise. I am unlikely to get one. Bah.
** Unless it belong to the Other Half. I rather enjoy it then.
posted by surly girl at 6:11 pm
16 Comments:
The words "seeping through" kinda worry me.
Buses are for losers. I like to cruise around in my Jaguar chucking pound coins at doleites and pensioners shivering at bus stops.
its like a special bus.
for special people.
do they make you wear a helmet and your address on a card round your neck?
ewwwwwwwww for invading heat seepage.
Do they make you go on the bus? I had a vision there of herding and a roll-call.
And what do you do when you get there?
Um why does it smell of wee? That's just gross.
There is one particular colleague of mine whose warmth could seep through any part of my clothing. He is just dreamy.
Are you actually writing from Broadmoor? It sounds like day release.
I actually feel the need to tell you this. I'm sorry. The really little buses are called mini's (obviously) and the slightly bigger one's that aren't quite full size are midi's. All that is quite irrelivant when a grey person is seeping on to your thigh, I guess you should just be glad he's not obese? and it says giz at the end of my word verification.
that bit of the bus reminds me of a driver we had, drove like maniac. i asked, he apologized politely and told us that he "used to drive for the city morgue"
do i look dead?
i sure am not.
oh maybe.
And see, in the US, it's called a 'short bus'.
As in, "He rides the short bus".
See First Nations' comment for more clarification (ie: helmet).
Was said colleague wearing his Wednesday cardigan?
I'm actually a little worried about Road Rage Les at the moment. He seems to have stopped producing clip art notices, and he failed to remind us to do the seat belts up last week. It's like he's gradually giving up on life. One day he'll just give up completely and plough straight through the double roundabout.
You didn't want to hear that did you?
um...not really. altho the terminator shades and robocop bluetooth earpiece were present and correct, so he's not quite at the lying-dead-in-a-bedsit-being-eaten-by-alsatians stage yet.
as for the grey man - it was FAR too hot for a cardigan. are you mad?
as for the rest of you - don't think we haven't dubbed it the special bus. or the variety club sunshine coach, as i like to call it.
stupid place of work.
"There is something deeply, horribly discomfiting about feeling the warmth of a colleague’s thigh seeping through your trouser leg"
That often happens to me on a busy bus. You have to sit next to someone and they act all annoyed because they wanted 2 seats to themselves and you end up half-way out in the aisle to prevent them brushing against you and get in the way of people getting off the bus. I hate buses.
"Wednesday cardigan' - does he have a different one for each day of the week or does he just wear one on a Wednesday? I imagine a maroon home-knit for some reason. Jesus Christ - how can you stand it?
He's just a little grey man with a lot of cardigans. Think George from Men Behaving Badly but witout the sparkling personality.
I think I come from a different planet - I can't imagine ever doing that bus thing - it sounds like something really strange, like those buses that pick people up and take them to Marks and Spencers. I just can't imagine who these people are that want to go there.
Is someone going to come on here now and say 'you'll be old one day, then you'll undrstand'. Please shoot me if you see me getting on one of those buses, whatever size it is.
Men always spread their legs as far open as they can, even when it involves invading personal space.
It seems to be a kind of sport.
Maybe they get Man-Points for it in the gentleman's club, when they finally are old enough to join;
"How many bodies did you press your revolting varicosed legs up against, Major?"
"Twelve thousand, roughly, on the tube and seven thousand eight hundred in bars and restaurants. I also pressed my crotch into 400 hundred childrens' faces in queues and festival gatherings."
"Well done, my man. Have a Gold Membership".
So many double entendres. Sigh.
Get a car.
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