Things I’ve noticed at work this week……………

I don’t get the lift up to the third floor anymore. It seems I’m the only one that doesn’t. Maybe it’s my conscious effort to do exercise. Maybe it’s the fact that you seem to wait ages for a lift that never comes. Maybe it’s the forced silence, triggered by the personal space invasion. Maybe I’ve had enough of those guilty looks when someone says “I did press the up button” when the lift suddenly starts to drop.

Maybe I have got tired of the “no you go first, no after you” routine. Or maybe it’s the office whispers of lift failures causing twenty minute entrapments (I’ve already decided there is only a 2% chance of being stuck in a lift with someone I actually want to be stuck in with, and 100% of them work on the ground floor). Or most probably it’s my inability to cope with my unnerving ability to snigger when I’m not meant to. And I’m not talking about when a women asks me “are you going down” (they stopped doing that after I smiled too many times).

I had two cups of coffee in my hand, so I decided to take the lift. It seemed a good idea at the time, there was no one else there. I had it all to myself. Then the crowd came. It turned into one of those “oh, is there room for a small one” type situations as we crammed in the lift. Silence. Some people looked at their phones, some people looked at the walls, some people looked at their feet. First Floor, Second Floor, oh dear. Oh no. The silence was broken by Flatulence. Then the silence was worse than silence, everybody came the accused. My snigger broke the silence, a snigger that could be construed as a guilty snigger. I was biting my lip but I could see the victim, a deeper shade of red. I felt sorry for them. Okay, maybe I didn’t feel sorry for them.

The lift doors opened. Everyone scampered. I’ll be taking the stairs from now



I’ve also noticed.............

The huge amount of people coming in for interviews every day, sitting in reception first thing in the morning. Yes, the nervous ones. I don’t know what they have got to be nervous about. It’s not like my interview last year for the furniture store Ikea. Some people.