I work with morons (Episode II - Attack of the Drones)

So another week has passed of working too hard and having no time at all to post. At least I'm still going, unlike most people.

This also brings us to the latest episode of 'I work with morons', and one that is truly dear to my heart - Billy Bullshit.

Billy won't shut up. I mean he really, really won't shut up. He just goes on and on and on about either nothing in particular, or maybe the latest in a long line of totally bullshit stories he has just made up. Nobody is quite sure why he lies so much - maybe it's a desperate attempt to be loved, maybe he just can't help himself or maybe sometimes he actually believes what he's said; but the certain truth is that most people in the company just want to disembowel him.

Let me provide you with a list of some of his bullshit stories that I can remember off the top of my head. Bear in mind that none of these are true and the large majority of them have been properly discounted:

• Having had wild monkey sex with the 18 year old shop assistant that works opposite my companies house in Paris within 10 minutes of meeting her. Disproved and subsequently denied
• Regularly going for beers with the local policeman in Paris, despite professing a hatred for the police. Disproved Also worth noting that for some reason the police feature very heavily in these stories.
• Getting stopped by a variety of authority figures on an almost daily basis in France, and every one of them speaking 'perfect English'. Status pending, but unlikely
• Knocking someones car door off with a lorry. Bonus bullshit point for fighting driver of other vehicle. Disproved
• Driving round Paris with a policeman who carried with him a box of rotten eggs that he threw at 'rotten drivers' Status pending, but unlikely due to translation of 'rotten'
• Breaking nose of Customs officer who asked to look in the back of his truck. Status pending but unlikely as not in prison
• Being strip searched and anally probed by another Customs officer. Status pending - too disgusting to investigate
• Naming a list of people who had complained to management about me for telling them what to do at work. Disproved
• Telling a driver that another member of staff carries round a piece of pipe ready to hit him when he's not looking Disproved
  
• Finding a driver who had left the company stealing his teabags from the Paris house and then chasing him down the road with a chair leg. Too ridiculous to investigate

Now these are just a small selection, but you can get a bit of an idea. He also was blessed with absolutely no sense of direction, and happily drives round in enormous circles to make linear deliveries and then a) refusing to take advice on how to do it properly b) complain about how long it takes.

Rib Shack verdict: Moron

I work with morons (Episode 1 - The Spanish Menace)

So, this is a post I have promised for some time now. It was only as I sat down to write it that I realised I work with far too many morons to squeeze into one post. Therefore I have decided to write it in a number of parts which each one dedicated to a certain member of staff.

The first one I shall deal with is one of the more recent employees. I say more recent as it is very hard to tell who was the last person to join as the staff join and leave so quickly you wouldn't believe it. The main reason for this is the fact that the management refuse to get involved in training anyone, as it would involve them actually finding their passports and coming out to do an honest days (nights) work. As a result the new people are trained by whoever is available to do the shift that night, which means that new staff are indoctrinated into the dislikes and management slagging off of the existing drivers. As a result they tend to leave quickly.

So, part 1 is someone I shall call "The Spaniard". He is a guy who apparently used to live in Spain, although you certainly wouldn't know it from his Spanish skills. One of his more endearing, or should I say annoying, habits is to speak remarkably poor Spanish to everyone in Paris. When questioned as to why he does this, he replied "well, I don't speak bloody French do I?". Well actually, you don't appear to be able to speak Spanish either. I can only surmise that he is using the basis of "if it's not English, it's 'foreign', therefore anyone 'foreign' must be able to understand it.

For the last couple of months he has been doing the same shift to the same place day in, day out. If you listen to him complain about this, it is quite obvious that he detests it, at least until he is swapped off it. Then he kicks up the most almighty boo about it and gets himself back on it. At which point he bitches again constantly. Fine with me, Spaniard, I hate that shift anyway.

However, by far and away my favourite characteristic is the stamp. He doesn't sign for shipments, it would be far too much hassle to carry a pen round with him. Instead he carries round an ink pad and rubber stamp of his signature. I'm not 100% sure why, he's not particularly famous, so I find it unlikely he's going to get asked for autographs by a horde of screaming girls thus giving him writers cramp, but he seems happy with it. However, when I asked him why he had it, he said that someone had made it for him from his signature.

He must be the only person I know whose signature you can actually read, but is in fact spelt wrong.

Rib Shack verdict: Moron

Bizarro-World

I know this is an odd way to break a blogging drought, but I just had to share this with you before I forget.

I just woke up, and I had the strangest of all strange dreams. Certainly no meaning to it, just the revelation of my deep-seated psychosis.

The dream started when I pulled up outside of NASA Space Centre (in my work van, for some reason). I was there as I had been selected as part of a new program to include civilians in the space program to fly to the moon in a two seater spacecraft. The reasons as to why I was selected remain unclear.

I received my equipment and was told that I would get a full briefing from the other crewmember in the hangar area. I went through to where the ship was (nice ship, too), and looked at the crew manifest. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the other crewmember was George Bush. Now imagine my surprise that I was put down as Mission Commander, with the Prez as my copilot.

After a bit, the Prez comes in, and he's properly stinking drunk. He looks at the manifest and then says that he's the commander as legally it's his spaceship as Commander-In-Chief. I pointed out that it was all written in black and white that he was my bitch and he got a bit upset. He scribbled the names out on the manifest and wrote them in the other way round (he also spelt his name wrong). Then he jumped into the pilots seat and strapped himself in while he locked the canopy saying he was the pilot now and there was nothing I could do about it.

I was about to argue with him, so he got on the radio and said that I was a terrorist, which cued up a Benny Hill-esque chase through a maze of corridors. I was being chased by James Woods and the actor guy from 'The Game' (James Rebhorn, thanks IMDB), along with a scientist with a limp who was that fat cooking detective from 'Pie in the Sky' on UK TV (Richard Griffiths, thanks again).

The dream ended when I was helped to safety through an emergency exit by John Cleese. Then I woke up.

Seriously odd.