Once in a life time -

The writer would like The Office Bastard - TOB fans to take a moment, and enjoy this "Once in a life time" moment.


1:23 - 040506
It is 1:23 am 4th of May 2006.

It will never happen again dudes!..

Enjoy the minute!

“Good Morning Vietnam!”

The office is going to try a new thing starting from next week:

It is going to start staggering its working hours as requested by some of the “Parents” of the office.

This is perfect as The Hero can now leave the poisonous place earlier. The Hero will be able to buy more ‘time’ in the day. Most importantly, much to the happiness of The Hero, this can also add on to his list of home made prescriptions ( see blog "Prescriptions") on ways to reduce contact time with The Office Bastard.

After much mingling with the fellow colleagues, The Hero finds out that The Office Bastard will be coming in to work at 9am. The Hero has opt to arrive at work from 7.30 am. (that being the earliest any worker in The office can start working).

Official working hours will be 7.30am – 4pm. This may just be a look like a regular morning shift to the naked eyes. But read between the ‘time’.

Translation of starting work at 7.30am:

The time between 7.30-9am is a whole 90 mins.

The Hero has also opted to go for lunch ONLY after The Office Bastard has returned from his lunch/confessing his sins to the Father. That is a whole 60 mins. ( Could be more)

This equates to: A total of 2 and a half hours of definite NON-Contact time with The Office Bastard!

The Hero has also come up with ways to manipulate the time:

By going to work in another work station to look and sort out documents. The Hero has managed to take off 3 hours of contact time with The Office Bastard.

This translate not just pure 15 hours of non contact time. But also 15 hours of sanity per week. Yes sweetness. Pure sweetness.

The Hero has never been a morning person. However, with the new found motivation, he just cannot wait to start work next week, bright and early.

“Good Morning Vietnam!”

Lunch Break

The Office Bastard has been feeling troubled in the last three weeks. He has been losing sleep. He has been bothered by a certain issue concerning The Hero. Everyday he comes to work and he will be extremely disturbed by it. He seems to be especially uptight and visibly annoyed whenever The Hero returns from his lunch and when The Hero is finishing off work. This will be the time when The Office Bastard calls The Hero into his office to discuss this issue. As a result, The Hero will chalk in that extra time, which The Hero has now taken it to be one of his ‘appointments’ with his patient.

The problem has escalated and he has been calling The Hero to come into his office to discuss this matter almost everyday. Every time they start discussing this issue, it will go on for at least an hour. The Hero has tried unsuccessfully to reason with The Office Bastard. He insists that The Hero has to seek the approval of BDM Manager and it is of urgency that he does so. Every other day, The Office Bastard will harass and pester The Hero:

“Have you spoken to BDM Manager about the issue?”

“Have you talked to BDM Manager?”

“When are you going to speak to him about it? You may think this is not important but it is.”

“I have been asking you for days to speak to BDM Manager you know?”

“I have been asking you for weeks to speak BDM Manager!!!”

With what is going on with the world right now; vicious cycle of aids, poverty and famine, you will think the issue that has been occupying The Office Bastard’s head has similar importance and urgency or at least work related. But no, the problem that has been bothering The Office Bastard is

The Hero’s Lunch Break.

Yes. His Lunch Break.

The Hero has always had a 30 minutes lunch break. Being a contract staff, he is being paid by the hour. To an educated person, it doesn’t make sense for The Hero to have an hour lunch break as he is being paid by the hour. The manager from the previous department did not have a problem with that. In fact it is within the guideline of the local labor law. The Hero attempts to educate The Office Bastard of the labor law by making a print out and showing it to him. Obviously insulted and about to implode, The Office Bastard says to The Hero,

“Don’t tell me about the labor law. I don’t care about the labor law. All I care about is the law in this department. Not what goes on in the other department downstairs. You know, people are asking me why you are taking a 30 minutes lunch break?”

“Really? Why don’t you give me their names and I will explain to them my 30 minutes lunch break if it is necessary. If they are concerned that I am not having my lunch, I will reassure them that I am, and that they should not worry.” The Hero calmly replies.

The Office Bastard stares at him blankly.

Why this mundane issue eats into The Office Bastard when there are other issues in the office that urgently needs to be addressed, The Hero will not and can never understand. The Office Bastard hates it that The Hero takes a half an hour lunch break. He feels by doing so, The Hero is breaking The Office Bastard’s law.

By the 14th session, The Hero realizes that reasoning with The Office Bastard is like swimming against a current- frustrating fruitless and completely waste of time. One of the reasons for not speaking to the BDM Manager as soon as The Office Bastard tells him to is because he does not want to give The Office Bastard the satisfaction that he will do whatever The Office Bastard tells him to do. Besides, this is such a ridiculous issue to speak to the BDM Manager about. More importantly, it is just amusing for The Hero to see The Office Bastard getting all flustered for the most ridiculous reasons. At this point, this litte game has become boring for The Hero. For his own health and sanity, The Hero knows he has to bury this issue. But not before presenting to BDM manager with his findings for the department and how he can further improve it.

The next day, which is also Time Sheet day, The Hero makes an appointment with BDM Manager to discuss his findings. After that, he casually brings up the topic of lunch break.

“Just like to confirm with you again that I will be taking a 30 minutes lunch break.”

BDM Manager nods and from the look of his face, The Hero senses the sentence coming out of his forehead like the teleprompter……“Why are you telling me about your lunch break?”……..

“Can you also run by The Office Bastard about this? You know he treats your words as gospel.” The Hero jokes.

BDM Manager chuckles and nods.

The Hero then prints out his Time Sheet and hands it over to The Office Bastard and tells him

“BDM Manager has no problems with my lunch. Feel free to double check with him about the laws of this department if you need to.”

“Oh he says OK? Alright then” The Office Bastard disappointedly replies.

The lesson to be learned is: “Never argue with morons and imbeciles. First they drag you down to their level. And they beat you with their experience.”

The War of the Blinds

The Hero has been coming to work feeling more relaxed now. The Prescription has worked wonders, especially “The Blinds” pills. But that lasted only for a few days.

The blinds are now almost 80% shut. Either The Office Bastard is blind or that he doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about it. He is probably doing the dance of joy as he can happily do his personal stuff in his somewhat ‘closed’ cave without anyone catching him. The Hero isn’t bothered by it. As long as he doesn’t have a view of The Office Bastard or knowing that he is being ‘watched’ all is good.

Of course this isn’t until The Fat Lady realizes what is going on.

When The Office Bastard went out for lunch, The Fat Lady looks at The Hero and asks

“What does he think he is up to?” She starts toggling with the blinds.

Good god! The Hero says to himself. After all that effort.

The Hero then says

“Just leave it, he might not be happy about that.”

“Well, that’s not my business and really is the least of my concern. My business, however, is to see what he is up to whenever I walk past his office to go to the restroom,” The Fat Lady says

“Fair enough” The Hero says.

Tomorrow, he will aim to shut it another 10% so he can’t see The Office Bastard, but it will be tilted such that The Office Bastard can still be seen by the world. Good thing The Hero was good in his physics during his high school days.

Prescriptions

Over the weekend, The Hero has come up with a list of must-dos or ‘pain-killers’ when he is in the office starting the new week just to keep his sanity in tact.

Dosage: 3 times daily – more when necessary.


1. To go for lunch only after The Office Bastard has returned.

That way, there will be a complete full bliss break from the sight and smell of The Office Bastard for at least an hour + (from the time he leaves to the time he returns.)

2. Never ever take a seat offered by The Office Bastard.

That is tantamount to sitting on the ‘electric chair’ for more than 1 hour

3. To take the opportunity to do other paper work in another work station by saying the current computer hangs all the time.

- Or to deliberately on purpose log himself out of his system so that he can work on another work station as they are all ID- specific. *nice*

4. To eagerly volunteer to look for documents in the filing room.

5. To further shut the blinds of The Office Bastard’s office gradually.

- So as to decrease the sight of The Office Bastard even by the slightest percentage. This has to be done before The Office Bastard comes to work. If any questions were to be asked, direction will be toward the cleaner.

6. To be an ‘earnest’ learner and ask The Fat Lady and The Closeted Drag Queen to explain everything and anything relating to work.

- So as to ‘buy time’ in their offices.

7. Long term plan: To try to change work station with Brown Noser.

The challenge will be to come up with an excuse to change work station: Possible Excuses:
- That Brown Noser and The Office Bastard are really close and hence they should sit closer to each other?
- To play a “post” April fool’s joke in the office?

Time to straightened that thinking cap.

Combover - Strike 3. Enters THE OFFICE BASTARD

Combover has been making muffled noises of exasperation in the office.

"Do you have a minute, please."

Here we go again, The Hero thinks.

"Why did you do this?" Combover asks The Hero in an accusatory tone.

"Why did you use this code for this invoice and why did you do what you did?"

Baffled, The Hero looks at the transaction and wonders the very same thing.

Combover grows visibly impatient.

"I'm not sure. I don't even remember doing this," The Hero says, puzzled.
"What do you mean you don't remember? This is your code isn't it? You did this!"

Now, The Hero has an elephant's memory. With the lack of training provided by Combover, he still manages to figure his way through the dark hallways of departmental procedures. In fact The Hero can proudly say that he is self-taught on 80% of the work that he does today.

The Hero tries to reason with Combover, saying that if he has done this, he would at least have a recollection of the invoice. However on this occasion, he has no recollection whatsoever.

They continue to debate for about half an hour, with Combover vehemently insisting that The Hero should have asked him if he was in doubt about any transaction. The Hero tells him that it is impossible to ask Combover anything if The Hero has not in fact done the transaction. Just when The Hero thinks the combover on Combover is about to mutate into a raging furry beast, he says,

"Go and retrieve the supporting document!"

Still confused, The Hero complies and hands the document over to Combover. Within minutes of looking at the document, the mutation stops and the combover shrivels visibly. Something from that document has shot tranquilizer darts at the mutating Combover beast and tamed it. The subdued beast declares,

"You know what? Let's forget about it. I'll rectify it. Not to worry."

The Hero is baffled. After all that hooha, Combover decides to forget about it? Has he gone bananas or is he suffering from a male version of menopause? Or is The Hero out of his mind?

The Hero rejects the beast's attempt to cover up the issue.

"We should figure this out to prevent this from happening again," The Hero says.

"No, let's just forget about it. Continue what you were doing," Combover says and picks up the phone, dialling a random number.

This is really strange, The Hero thinks. Obviously Combover has discovered something that he does not want The Hero to know. The Hero is not about to let this go without getting to the bottom of the matter.

When Combover goes off for his lunch, The Hero retrieves the supporting document and looks at it, wondering what Combover saw that made him retreat from his attack. There on the document was a written comment from Combover pointing out the transaction error done on that day.

The Hero feels his blood boiling as he recalls what happened a few weeks ago.

During one of their short training sessions, Combover went over to The Hero's work station to 'guide' him in a transaction. This explained The Hero's ID code on the transaction.

On that occasion, Combover made a mistake in the system. He panicked for a good half hour while The Hero watched, totally amused. He finally had to 'confess' his mistake to BDM Manager. At this point, The Hero realizes that Combover must have put the blame on him so as to cover his own ass in front of BDM Manager.

The Hero looks up. Combover has returned from lunch.
The Hero steps into Combover's office with the supporting documents and coolly says,

"Do you want to apologise to me or do you want me to jog your memory as to what happened?"

For a split second, Combover contemplates reaching for his handy excuse of ignorance. But on seeing the look on The Hero's face, he decides against it. "Oh yes yes," Combover says shamefully. And again, proceeds to dodge the bullet by talking about something else.

WHAT A BASTARD, The Hero thinks to himself.

*Strike 3* Combover strikes out. He is now officially:

THE OFFICE BASTARD

Combover- Strike 2

The Hero’s phone rings. It is a manager from interstate. She has called to enquire on a certain payment issue. As The Hero isn’t sure to whom he should direct the call, he makes the mistake of asking Combover about it.

“ xxx is calling and asking about ABC. Who should I transfer the call to?” The Hero askes Combover.

“About ABC? I am in charge of that. Transfer the call to me,” Combover tells The Hero.

(FYI: xxx happens to be much higher in rank than Combover)

“Hi! Good morning to you xxx. How are you? I hope you are really well. Oh you are calling about ABC? The Hero thought you were asking about XYZ. I am not in charge of XYZ. I will transfer you to the right person. My sincere apologies about that. The Hero is new in this department so he is still raw and green.”

The Hero is stumped. He had repeated exactly what xxx told him to Combover. It was Combover who was mistaken and once again, did not aknowledge it as his fault.

The Hero has had it. This time, The Hero says to Combover,

“ I don’t think it is fair for you to say that I made the mistake. I repeated exactly what xxx asked and you said to transfer the call to you.”

Combover replies,

“ Oh? I told xxx “We” thought you were asking about XYZ.”

Again Combover clearly thinks everyone is hard of hearing.

“I hate to break this to you, but I am only "this" ( The Hero stretches his arm) far away from you. I can hear you perfectly from here, Combover.”

“Oh? I thought I said “We”. My apologies,” and he giggles shamefully.

*Strike 2*