Twinned with Waco, Texas

This morning at nine o'clock, I unlocked the door to my office, walked in and, as is standard practice, locked the door behind me. Pausing only briefly to ascertain that the rear exit was still nailed and barred shut and therefore not an exit at all (and making a mental note to bollock Maintenance for the eleventieth time in a fortnight), I picked my way through the debris of the weekend to my desk. It's best not to think about the whole fire-exit scenario, what with all the windows being nailed shut and covered in reinforced perspex and everything.

After removing a number of scrawled Post-It notes advising that we were all variously cunts, wnakers (sic) and tossers, I plugged all my network cables back in where they had been ripped out, replaced the broken desk phone and settled back to check the answerphone. That done, I sorted the post, checked the diary and tried very, very hard not to think about my in-tray, which is gaining mountainous proportions and is, I suspect (in my more paranoid moments), self-replicating every other day. Bastard.

The morning passed slowly, punctuated with the odd bout of door-kicking, vicious swearing and running battles across the courtyard. I ignored it, as best I could. I mean, it's just work, isn't it? I idly considered spending the afternoon clearing some filing. Happily, this wasn't an option, owing to me having to rush a member of staff off to A&E at the local hospital to have some drain cleaner flushed from his eyes. He was sprayed in the face with it just after lunch - lucky for him he'd already eaten as it was moussaka today, and he'd have hated to have missed it.

A couple of hours passed in the waiting room (some slight burns to his corneas but he should be fine, apparently), and it was back to work; me mentally calculating how much time I had lost, him wondering whether to press charges. Rounding the corner to the office, I could hear raised voices. What could be going on? Peering through the door, I saw about ten people thronging around my desk, only half of them staff. It seemed a bit, well, tense in there so I formed an alternative plan. Off for a cigarette, then. After that, the coast was clear and after tidying up again I managed to work for fifteen minutes before abandoning the office once more owing to some enthusiastic window-battering from an enterprising soul who'd appropriated half a telegraph pole from somewhere. Such initiative!

Five o'clock arrived too soon, and as I made my way to the car (parked a judicious distance from the office, naturally), calling goodbyes and being rewarded with obscene gestures and exhortations to fuck off (seeing as I am a cunt and all, who could blame them?), I sighed happily and thought, do you know what? If I don't ace that fucking interview I've got tomorrow afternoon I'm jacking it in anyway and getting a fucking paper round.

Wish me luck.