Adapting to Change

I was recently informed that it was deemed necessary for me to move desk at work. Presumably after the usual consultation of the innards of a slaughtered goat combined with the positive alignment of the planets, all set against the cosmic hum of the music of the spheres, this was seen as a somehow beneficial move. Good for me and good for the company. I received a series of emails updating me on the nail-biting news accompanied with pleasant homilies saying that they hoped that it met with my approval because I had no choice regardless. I was initially put out it's true, as I had made a comfortable enough nest for myself in my little area and had spent the past 6 months demonising in my head the people who dared to work on the other half of the floor, where fates cruel trajectory sent me now. Why I demonised them so voraciously is unclear, though I assume it was some sort of psychological tactic to convince myself that I was better off on my half of the floor, that no matter how crappy it got at least I wasn't with pigfucking troglodytes beyond the divide.

But anyway, now the move is complete here are my initial thoughts. My new desk is a window seat which appears to be an improvement on my previous position by the walkway. However my view is of the white washed walls of what appears to be a neglected prisoner exercise yard scattered with abandoned metal pipes and planks of wood from a long dead construction project. 20 metres above the floor wire netting cuts across between the walls where the sad corpses of pigeons hang, bobbing sadly in the breeze. This isn't the first time I've noticed them, you get a fairly good view of them from the kitchen, but I really have a premium view of their inevitable purification from here. Down in the yard 2 plastic wrapped baguettes float on a sea of stagnant, filthy water which has collected over the months from the rainfall which gathers thanks to the total lack of drainage or sunlight. They drift with the wind like ships long bereft of their crew. At first I only saw one of the baguettes, but a couple of weeks later it had been joined by it's friend. I felt pleased by this, as it seems like a lonely life down there, with nothing to keep you company apart from the odd rotting pigeon leg.

If I momentarily let my gaze wander from my dead eyed examination of my computer screen, I am swiftly brought back to earth from whatever unicorn riding soldier of fortune fantasy I'm involved in with a barely suppressed shriek of testical reducing terror, by the severed Deer's head which stares at me without relent for ever and ever and ever!

This macabre horned god which I have deduced is some sort of alter for sacrificial offerings is made largely from heat blasted sugar, with candied sultanas for eyes and horns made from the frozen tears of crucified children. There is a sign warning curious passers by not to touch it, presumably because that would invoke the wrath of Baphomet and lead to the flesh being stripped from your fingers by the suddenly alive, hideously alive, beast of sucrose horror, with gnashing teeth and a serpents tongue.

This is not the most terrifying presence in my new office though. Most of my new colleagues seem like mild enough and pleasant individuals, nothing special about them, just people, but one of them distinguishes herself by her ferocious approach to everything and everyone. This sour faced women can be seen with a face that appears to be sucking on a lemon that has been soaked in piss, marching up and down between the desks shouting insults and orders at people seemingly at random and terrifying the weak and unfortunate that get in her way. I watched earlier as she shouted at an elderly women for not hobbling fast enough towards her to carry out some unimportant errand which she, a fit women in her 30's, would be capable of doing within a minute. But why do it herself when she can enjoy the sadistic pleasure of watching a women who should be retired panting and wheezing on the floor, scrabbling for files. I get the feeling if we weren't all here as unwilling witnesses, she would have happily punched her to the ground and shat on her face as punishment for her slow reactions. As horrific as this would have been it would have certainly given me something more interesting to talk about when people politely enquire how my day was.

But really this office is much like the old office which is much like every other office I've ever worked in. The same weird soup of gurning Essex boys and misery faced close to retirement parents, reptile faced careerists sliming their way over every surface and bespectacled office jokers with nasal voices spewing out Christmas cracker quality jokes.

Out with the old and in with the new shit like that song on the old PS1 Tony Hawks once said