Band Aid - Tuesday

A scream echoes round the office and nearly gives me a heart attack. At my age and with celebrities sharing the same birth decade dropping like flies, I can’t afford too many sudden shocks. As it turns out, F the idiot trainee, is the one risking electrocution.

‘What have you done now?’ I demand, as I enter the main office and see F hopping around his desk like some epileptic frog. 

The question is rendered as redundant as he should be, when I see a pool of hot coffee spread across his desk, seeping into his keyboard, as the free mug from a lending institution I really dislike, sits on its side almost empty.

‘He’s spilt his drink.’ Says negotiator S, as she moves to F’s work station and starts to dab at the puddle with some tissues.

‘Careful you don’t short-out the circuitry.’ Cautions assistant manger T, making no attempt to help. My circuitry is close to meltdown, I think uncharitably, and I can’t just be mopped down then switched off and on again.

‘How did you manage that?’ I demand, as F stops jerking around and patting at his sodden shirt sleeve. He won’t know.

‘I don’t know.’ He confirms, clutching at the dampened material, before saying pitiably. ‘I think I may have some sort of burns.’

‘Well it won’t be first degree.’ Suggests loose lettings’ lush B. She knows F flunked an expensive private education and is also well aware you don’t need any qualifications to become an estate agent.

‘You’ll be alright.’ Soothes S as she finishes clearing up the spilt beverage and begins to lift the dripping keyboard.

‘Careful.’ I tell her. ‘It might give you a shock.’

‘It’s low voltage. Shouldn’t be dangerous.’ Opines T still sitting in his chair, some distance away from any potential electrical arc.

‘I’ll get the first aid box.’ Says S, dropping the stained tissues into F’s waste paper bin and heading for the kitchen.

‘Slim chance of anything useful in there.’ Says obese mortgage man M. ‘Health and safety Nazis took everything out of the box, last visit.’

M is right. The paracetamol and Ibuprofen I left in the red plastic container were confiscated. The cream for minor cuts and abrasions removed, in case of allergic reactions and the scissors taken - presumably to stop me from stabbing someone from head office with a job title as meaningless as Esperanto.

‘Yep, he’s right.’ Confirms S, as she lifts the lid of the first aid box and pulls out a couple of faded bandages and square of linen that might double as a sling for a petite pantomime performer, should Snow White be playing at the local theatre.

‘About as useful as a chocolate tea pot.’ Confirms M, with a hearty chuckle.

‘That could cause even more nasty burns.’ Says T, with a smirk.

‘Good one.’ Says T.

If they high-five each other, I might really need to call casualty.

‘They’ve even removed the safety pins.’ Says S, with a shake of her pretty head, as she empties the useless contents on to the desk.

‘But surely….’ Begins F, still waving his arm around piteously.

‘Don’t even go there.’ Says T.

‘No point.’ Adds M, smugly.

Put your hand in the air and you’ll be needing a first responder, I think, scowling at the blubbery buffoon.

‘You’ll be wanting this.’ Suggests B, as she tosses an embossed A4 sized stationery item at me, while S tenderly inspects F’s arm, now his soggy sleeve is rolled up. Fleetingly, I wonder if I can produce a spillage she could attend to. Best not.

I Frown at B. She’s given me the company accident book. A journal where all incidents, no matter how trivial, must be recorded - for personal protection and insurance purposes. Translation: to cover the companies corporate arse cheeks, should someone wish to sue, retrospectively.

‘If I fill anything out there’ll be a load of pointless paperwork.’ I grumble.

‘Your shout.’ Says M, ducking responsibility with surprisingly agility, for one so bulky.

‘I think I’ll live.’ Says F, stoically.

I’ll be the judge of that.

I take a chance. 

If the ambulance chasers turn up, I’ll feign illness.

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Banking On It - Thursday

‘Now that’s what I’m talking about.’ I exclaim, brandishing two meaty completion cheques head high. Solicitors are slow to change - slow at everything now I come to think of it - but there’s something reassuringly solid in receiving a fat, touch it, feel it, sniff it commission cheque when a deal has finally ended happily.

‘Err, what are you doing?’ Asks negotiator S warily. I look at her, then realise I have actually, unwittingly, held the largest of the cheques to my nose.

‘The smell of money.’ Chuckles assistant manager T. ‘Gives old-time estate agents a hard on.’

I scowl at T and his head goes down. He’s been on the same HR courses as me and knows when a comment is inappropriate in the work place. Fortunately, I’m tucked well into the desk, so my excitement at receiving the funds is concealed by the aptly named modesty panel.

‘I do all my banking on-line.’ Says trainee F, with that vapid look I just didn’t notice when i interviewed him. I was too impressed by the fact he was one of the few who had bothered to wear a suit and who could actually speak audibly. I blame his mother, both for the tailoring and the wasted money on a private education. You can try to polish a turd, but it’s still crap at the end of the day.

‘I want the pleasure of taking the cash to the bank.’ I tell F.

‘It’s not cash though is it?’ Interjects B from her lettings enclave. ‘I get plenty of low-lifes bouncing cheques on me.’ She also had a Czech bouncing on top of her last year, if rumours about that tenant from Prague were true - but that’s another story.

‘It’s as good as.’ I tell her, my enjoyment slowly being sucked from me, in a way I wouldn’t normally let B do.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever written a cheque.’ Ponders F dreamily.

‘They’ll be consigned to history before long.’ Says T dismissively. ‘Everyone will bank on-line.’

‘No, this is tangible.’ I argue, waving the cheques once more.

‘Analogue man in a digital world.’ Retorts T pithily. It’s not an original line, but he deploys it well.

‘Don’t know why they can’t open a few more counters.’ Says the woman behind me in the long queue at the bank, later.

She’s talking to me, despite my body language screaming, leave me alone everyone. I glance at the array of tellers’ positions, most with their irritating little pull-down blinds deployed. I nod in agreement.

‘All too busy flogging policies nobody wants or needs, or out repossessing some poor businessman’s home.’ Sneers the woman, with the sort of venom that can only collect from being bitten personally.

I nod again, in what I judge to be a tacit agreement without the need for further discourse. It’s pleasing to note that bankers are below estate agents and jostling with politicians on the public hate list - it won’t last. To be on the safe side I clutch my company paying in book closer, I don’t want her to see who I work for, she might have had a pleasant moving experience but the odds are against it.

‘Sorry for the wait.’ Says the banker from behind her glass protection, when the cretin ahead of me - who seemed to be paying in the clattery contents of several stolen charity tins - has gone.

She doesn’t look sorry, she certainly doesn’t sound sorry, but that might be because I can’t hear her properly - despite the sound loop sticker that maintains her insincere corporate mutterings are allegedly audible to the deaf and the desperate.

I watch as the woman robotically stamps the counterfoils and processes the cheques. Eye contact lady, I think angrily, at least try to engage. But the armour-plated glass acts as a personality barrier as well as a physical one. Perhaps branch banking is as doomed as my staff maintain, I think dejectedly, as I trudge to the door only to walk in to the hobbling banker coming in. Damn he’ll want to talk reciprocal business.

‘How are things?’ He asks briskly.

Changeable.

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