Skip The Budgie

I take a well-earned holiday during which I manage to finish off our dining room and paint the extension. It DOES count as a holiday, because I am not running around panicking and being at work until 9pm trying to get the little bastards’ results out on time.

That’s all over now.

I return to the usual piles of paper work and hundreds of emails inviting me to this retirement party and that pile of cakes in the kitchen. One of the good temps has moved out of my office and one of the bad temps has moved in. At least there will be plenty of entertainment as I slowly pick apart his misplaced confidence and try to teach him how human beings are supposed to behave.¹

Towards the end, there are hysterics and tears and tempers soar. After we surface and realise that nobody actually died my boss says that she is very pleased with my efforts and that I have really borne out her confidence that I could do the job. Aww. So pleased in fact, that they are considering swapping me into doing enrollment in September because I’m so laid back about everything – there is no pay rise for this you understand, just a satisfied feeling that I (probably) won’t have to worry about resit exam boards.

The big boss tells me I should take up bell ringing, which is incidentally where she buggers off to on Thursday night while the rest of us scream bloody murder in her absence.²

Today I am required to produce a detailed statistical report³ on all the students we have had this year. How many were under five, black, blue green, you know the score. Normally this takes me about two weeks. Normally I’m not asked to do it when there are 50 employers screaming at me for references and 500 students after certificates and a nice stack of minutes to write. Normally I say it’ll take two weeks and then play on the internet.

That’s all over now, too.

I do it in one day. Next week, I will probably have to do it again, but I might just get away with it so I figure it’s worth the gamble.