The Skiver

The Monday morning blues were getting heavier. Most of us had to battle the peak hour crowd and drag ourselves to work. Starting the week is never easy. It is so much different from ending the week on a Friday. For some reason, most of us are more productive toward the end of the work week rather than the beginning.

I glanced around the stillness of the office as I turned on my computer. Most people were late as usual. I saw the boss making his usual rounds as he headed out to take the lift down. God knows where he heads to every morning at 8.30am. I wonder what is usually on his mind when he's walking around the office in the morning. Does he make a mental note of the early birds and the latecomers every day? Does he count the number of cups at the sink before tossing them into the bin? Lately he's been having this fetish for trying to make the cups disappear from the sink that's been left around for too long. No matter how many cups he threw away, they just kept reappearing the next morning.

By 9.00am, the row of desks near me slowly came to life with keyboards clacking, CPUs beeping and phones ringing - an indication that work had finally started. At 9.15am I walked past the front desk and noticed that it was still in another time zone. Perhaps that area was an hour behind our local time. The place was still in darkness. It was still Sunday in this part of the office. A dispatch guy impatiently dumped a parcel on that desk and strode off.

At 9.15am, I could finally hear the whirling of the PC behind me. The sound of the flask and the smell of bread and coffee told me that the person behind was having breakfast. Ah, the luxurious smell of someone having breakfast at this hour. The email finally came at 9.30am. It was from the one who had just finished her breakfast. The lady in front was not coming in for the day - again. It was either Laura or Hardy who had to help out and they had done so many times already. They were fed up. The bitching and complaining would come shortly. It was dreadful but there was no running away and there was nothing much I could do. 'Why couldn't Flip-flop lady be in the rotation?', they would ask. They had seen her taking frequent naps, surfing the net, looking at photos and watching videos while claiming to be extremely busy. They simply detested the Flip flop lady. The breakfast lady always turned a deaf ear. Flip Flop lady and Sour faced slob (a.k.a. lady in the front) were her best friends. She would never betray them. Never. This was work not kindergarten, she ran the team like the latter.

Reluctantly I got up to present the problem to her. It wasn't the first time and it would not be the last. It was going to be a waste of energy but Laura and Hardy wanted me to something badly. I saw the look on her face. It didn't look good. She would avoid me if she could. I could tell that she wished that the floor boards below us would swallow her up whenever I came to her with a real life problem of what was happening. "Could you put Flip Flop at the front desk today instead? The others feel they could use another hand." I asked her the forbidden question again. She didn't seem to know the answer to that one though.

"I will look into it," was the famous reply. She needed some time to think as always. (Translation: I hope to escape this one again. Well, I just like to sit on problems and wait for them to vaporize into thin air. Why, is there a problem with that? )
"When would that be?" I asked.
"Maybe I'll let you know next month." (Translation : I'm waiting for the cows to come home. As you know they have four stomachs and they need to eat grass like forever. So that would be like never and then I wouldn’t have to come back to you at all. )
"Can we not wait too long?" (Translation : Is that a cobweb that I see on your face? Oh, there's even a fly caught on it. Eww!)
"I'll get back to you. I'm busy" (Translation : Scram!)

This scene would always be like another ground hog day whenever Sour faced disappeared from work. It was frustrating. Do you know that we actually have people who do not work 47% of the year on the payroll of our organization? I bet you wouldn't believe it but I actually did the math and worked it all out. No kidding! Sour faced lady only worked 53% of the year. Just add the total annual leave, unpaid leave, medical leave, public holidays and weekends and you'll know what I mean. *
Does the boss know? If I told on her, would he believe me? There could be bigger problems with her later too. What about Laura and Hardy? We can't go on like this forever. I'm in a tough situation here. Help me pray for a miracle. God, please show me the way. I really don't know what to do.

* The calculations:
1) Number of days during weekends = 52 weeks x 2 = 104 days
2) Public holidays = 10 days
3) Annual Leave = 14 days
4) Medical Leave ( yes, she actually consumes all of it for the whole year.) = 30 days
5) Unpaid leave = 15 days
Total = 173 days
To work out the % , take 173/365 x 100% and you'll have 47% or thereabouts.