Basic bloke psychology

My colleague, Pav, seems to be quite perturbed by the fact that I know when he's letching: every time. He thinks that I'm psychic but all I'm doing is applying basic "bloke psychology". All blokes are the same, if I'm letching then it's probably safe to assume that all the other blokes within eyeshot (is that a word?) are doing the same.

In fact, this is basic "people" psychology!

In my estimation, you can't teach an old project manager new tricks

In a giant leap forward we have convinced the powers to be that rather than having an impossible deadline imposed, we will provide an estimate of how long we believe that the piece of work will take. We'll do the analysis, decide what is required and how to do it, then we'll work out how long it will take. Boom tish, tadaaaaaa! We will provide real, achievable estimates based on facts. The programmers get enough time to do a decent job. The project managers get some realistic numbers to work with. The project sponsors know what’s going to happen and when. Everyone is happy, right? Wrong! In order to feck it all up, they have imposed an impossible deadline for the delivery of the estimate.

Information at the speed of thought

Just overheard in the office, "If I want to check someone's surname can I look it up on the electrical roll?"

An interview with the Christmas fun police

Allow me to set the scene. The Christmas fun police are patrolling the office trying to press-gang everyone into participating in the company fancy dress day on Thursday. They are on the side of the righteous, they have that disturbing zeal of those who know that He is on their side. Our department is, apparently, doing nativity type of stuff: this is due to nobody wanting to dress up as Christmas presents. The amount of effort being put into getting us all dressed up as shepherds, wise men, virgins, inn keepers and turning one of the offices into a stable is, quite frankly, annoying the crap out of me.

The following conversation may, or may not, have happened…yet!

"What are you dressing up as on Thursday Steve?"
"I'm not."
"You have to, it's compulsory."
"Say's who?"
"Well you have to take the day off then."
"No I don't, there's no clause in my contract saying that I have to lose a day's pay because you lot want to get dressed up and piss about all day."
"Well, you probably won't get your contract renewed next year then."
"Don't be silly."
"You have to join in, it'll be fun."
"No I don't and no it won't, you can't force people to have fun: that's not how fun works. Coming to work in your dressing gown with a tee towel on your bonce, just to suck up to the boss, is not actually fun. Spending an afternoon off in the Savoy, in your dressing gown wearing a tee towel on your head, with a large plastic sheet, a family sized bottle of baby oil and Elizabeth Hurley wearing a PVC mini dress, patent leather thigh boots and a highly polished fireman’s helmet would be fun."
"You're a miserable bastard then."
"I'd be the least miserable bastard on the planet, actually! Now fuck off and let me get on with the very importance piece of work that you need me to get done as soon as is humanly possible."