Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Battle lines

My incredible shrinking office is at war.



In spite of the much-reduced number of people working in the office, it seems that one microwave is not enough to deal with everybody's lunches. Nor is the cooktop an option for heating soup, it seems. Because every day sees a new skirmish in the battle for kitchen supremacy that HR is waging on the rest of the company, with specific reference to my team.



See, we know that the line for the microwave still gets out of hand. So rather than waste precious lunchtime minutes, we tend to head kitchen-wards a little early. We're there every day except Friday, in some way shape or form. And now, so is HR. It's becoming ridiculous. We know that she hears us head into the kitchen. And then she pounces. But it's not to tell us off for jumping the gun on lunch - although we have a feeling that if she wasn't carrying a tin of soup in her hand she'd like to. It's to complain about the fact that we have yet again beaten her to the microwave. She sits within 10 metres of the kitchen. We sit in another building. How we 'beat her' remains a mystery to all of us. Today, she beat us to it. Perhaps she's finally snapped and has put CCTV cameras in our area.



Tomorrow, however, it's a new round. We will fight her in the kitchen. We shall never surrender our right to use the microwave as and when we see fit. It is not the beginning of the end, merely the end of the beginning. The battle has been lost today, but tomorrow the war rages on. And next week, we're moving back into the main building, where we won't be walking past her desk to get to the kitchen. Then, my friends, then we shall see who the true victor will be.

Yes, I've been taking too much cold medication. I will stop. I promise.