Paul On The Road - Part 2

So I had my second driving lesson on Saturday, it went ok actually. I was just left to get on with driving whilst we chatted about football and stuff. All the crap the previous week about crawling to junctions in top gear was forgotten. Went through all the standard moves that you have to do for your test and then never do again but was pretty good at all. I did screw up badly my first attempt at a left reverse into a road, I could almost hear my dad laughing (he spent many years driving HGVs across Europe and often reverses into tiny spaces with one hand on the wheel whilst smoking a fag and singing whatever western tune he is listening to at the moment). I swear I could hear the tutting over my shoulder, the second time was sweet as a nut. Other than nearly being wrote of by some prick in a BMW on Douglas prom the 2 hours passed quickly, probably too quickly considering how much it cost.

That wasn't much of a rant really was it? Well......i've just had a bastard stinker of a day in work, and i'm pissed, If I had a cat it would be dead, luckily enough we only have fish and not even i'm stupid enough to kick the 120 litre fish tank in our front room.

I work in an office, it's quite a big office (about 15 people in my immediate area). Of these 15 or so people only I and myself do my work (one of my work buddies covers when i'm not there, but only when i'm not there). My work MUST be done all day, every day. Most other people have shared work. Work is split into four seperate areas (accounts, payables, receivables, payroll), I do bits of the first 3 ONLY, anything that falls under those three headings and i'm quite flexible. There are about 10 people who do payroll, 4 of those doing nothing else but payroll. They are a dedicated payroll team. Hope this all makes sense, me on my own doing my work with all these other people providing cover for each other doing payroll. I have nothing personally against any of the people in my office, really I haven't, professionaly, thats a different matter...

So today the boss grabs a chair and pulls up to my desk. I know enough to know i'm about to be asked to do something else, again. At this point I should add that i'm always busy, at least 40 hours a week busy. Some days I don't get time to have a shit. Anyway, he is working on "optimizing" a work process and needs me to do something. Already i'm a bit pissed, at this point I should mention that most (not all) of the other people in my office are not that busy (yes, I know everybody says that, but seriously these girls are reading magazines and talking at least half the day). He can see i'm getting annoyed so decides to put me out of my misery "What we (I) want you to do is go up the road pack up the payslips and post them out directly rather than have the post office do it". Hmmm, this sounds very much like payroll i'm thinking (the word payslip was the givaway). In fact, sod thinking, I ask "Why not get some of these other lazy gits get of their asses and do it?" Of course they are far too busy to be burdened with extra work, funnily enough no matter how many magazines they read, how much of the day they spend gossiping, they are always too busy to do anything other than count their beans. I do feel sorry for the boss in a funny sort of way, he only needs to mention to one of the girls about doing something different (not even extra) and you would think that he has just asked them to pleasure themselves on a traffic cone for the entertainment of the office by the response he gets. After a few more questions the truth finally comes out, the reason I'm needed to do this is because there are a lot of pay slips (about 30 kilos), in a sack that needs moving from one office to another. It would take 3 women to carry this (so i'm told). So thats it then, i'm being penalised for being a man, who the hell do I complain to? Bloody women and their equal opportunities, there is no work in the office that i'm not capable of doing, yet they can be selective because they are all delicate little flowers. What a load of bollacks, pay cuts for the lot of them I say.

Seriously though, i'm a little mixed up here. I get paid a fair wage and it is in my nature to work hard for my employer. I could do it. On the other hand EVERYBODY else in the office gets paid more than me (by virtue of the fact they have hung around for 15 years, none are even remotely qualified) and is doing sweet FA most of the time, so why should I lower myself to doing yet another shitty job because they can't be bothered? Hopefully i'll have calmed down enough by tomorrow to have come up with a reasoned argument. My initial thought is that I should do it, get a back injury (very hard to disprove) and have a few weeks/months of sick catching up on my own website stuff. Now if only I was that dishonest!