Paperjam

Everyone you work with is a cock - part 2

Rant // Jim // 16th October 2007

Facilities Management

Lazy, sweaty men in bad suits whose responsibility extends to hiring caretakers, looking after some sets of keys and forgetting to get your twatting radiator fixed.

Tend to labour under the misapprehension that because they have some kind of minor property surveying diploma, from some no-hoper FE college in Fuckstead, Arsehampton, that they are in fact a major architectural talent. If you phone up to report a stiff window handle don’t be surprised if they get all Richard Rogers and tell you that what you really need is some kind of baroque balcony bolting on to the side of your office.

Security

Generally the domain of people who have been thrown out of the army, or are just too fucking weird to get into the police, but would still like to wear some kind of quasi-military uniform everyday.

In any career in any organisation you are likely to have two encounters with the security department. The first will be when you start and they take the most unflattering picture possible for your ID badge. The other contact will come in the form of a spectacularly illiterate e-mail telling you that:
a) That someone has broken into the building and stolen some company property or some poor bastards wallet.
b) It is the fault of staff for not being a bunch of uber-suspicious vigilantes who shoot on sight anyone a bit shifty looking.

A reasonable person might well ask where these guardian angels were during such a crime wave. The answer is that they were in their “Security Bunker” carrying out “pro-active security and surveillance practices”. In other words they were sat in a pornography-adorned room somewhere in the basement – smoking, sleeping and wanking over CCTV footage of the managing director’s personal assistant.

IT Support Blokes

There is an old cliché that IT departments are full of gawky, twenty-something males with the social skills and personal hygiene of a dead dog.

These days, nothing could be further from the truth; many of the gawky, socially inept males in the IT world are now well into their thirties and only smell as bad as a terminally ill dog (albeit on a very hot day).

Of course their nervous anxiety goes out of the window if you dare to question them on a technical matter. Such as how come your fucking computer still doesn’t work after they have spent two days in your office, supposedly fixing it, but actually trying to take photos up some girl’s skirt. At such a time they will address you with the sort of condescension you might expect from Steven Hawkings if he were explaining quantum physics to Paris Hilton and then eventually re-install your PC, making sure you lose all your work to teach you some sort of lesson.

Project Management

Choosing a career in project management is a bit like carrying around a big sign with “I HAVE NO DISCERNABLE REASON FOR BEING ALIVE” written on it.

Never, ever pay any attention to anything that a project manager says, they don’t know what they are talking about. Don’t be deceived if they wave a diagram at you or some sort of plan, it is all a charade to try and make it seem like they serve some purpose, which they don’t.

They will use stunningly boring terms like “Baselining”, “Exception reporting”, “Business Case” and “Gantt chart” – all designed to make you think they are doing something. The truth is that you can replace a project manager with a pack of post-it notes and a biro, the only perceptible difference is that things will get done quicker.

Programme Management

Project management but on higher wages, pretty much exactly the same except that to replace them you will need a family pack of post-it notes and two or three biros of different colours.

Secretaries

It is often said that it is the secretaries who actually keep any business organisation running successfully. This is certainly true if you work in a company who’s continued profitability is dependant on factors such as:
- taking three hours to type a letter.
- not even nearly understanding how a computer, photo-copier or fax machine works.
- going out for a fag every twelve minutes.
- having the highest possible percentage of desk and wall space being covered in pictures of children.
- acting like being in charge of the cupboard where the post-it notes are kept is a solemn duty, vaguely akin to guarding the nation’s nuclear deterrent.

Secretaries are now oftenknown as “Personal Assistants” a genius piece of management bullshit to make people feel more important while, crucially, giving them more to do and not paying them any more money. Unfortunately this also has the effect of making the PA think that they are somehow superior to everyone - apart from the person they "Personally Assist". This despite the fact that they are in essence a glorified typist who gets to answer the phone (in a put-on posh voice) and check a diary now and again.

Most Secretaries are living vicariously through the lives of their teenage daughters. You will have to listen straight-faced while they boast endlessly about how young Kylie is going to be doing A levels and is going out with a slightly older, professional man, despite the fact that you know that their little princess was getting spit-roasted round the back of the boozer the other night by her drug-dealing beau and the local college admissions tutor.