Night at the Art Gallery*

*It's like Night at the Museum except none of the exhibits come alive and we all drink heaps of Powerade. Lack of Ben Stiller made up for by existence of aftershox (it's how the cool kids are spelling it) & my tendency to do Blue Steel at the blond British boy at the desk facing mine.

This post got really long. Sorry. Maybe you could tackle it in two parts, like a long novella or a particularly rich dessert.


Still working nights at the Art Gallery.

There are 2 teams - one data entry, one 'special projects'. We in data entry know we're the lower rung because the special projects team don't talk to us and refuse to tell us what they're doing. You ask them and they mumble 'special things' or change the subject, which leads me to believe it's either M15-level data entry or something Not That Special After All. Probably the latter.

Google Image Search doesn't think much of Special Projects either.

I posited aloud that they were entering things into Excel, as in the group interview they split us off into those with Excessive Excel Excellence and those without, but a special projects team member who I had not realised was there said, "Actually, there isn't any Excel at all" in a self-important manner then wandered off, spreadsheet fingers twitching.

I guess we'll never know.

There are between 15 and 36 data enterers on each night shift - the crew is extremely mötley but about 5 of us have formed a posse (Data Entry Posse would be a good title for a very boring Western) and support each other as colleagues and human beings. Except for when it is 4am and the youngest member of the posse has lost the plot and is cry-laughing over a mildly humorous street name and cannot be quiet, at which point we all throw things.

Have learnt lots about buildings through phrases like, "Building generally structurally sound, avoid chimney breasts." Did not even know chimneys had breasts, let alone that they were something to be avoided!

Pictured: not as exciting as I had hoped.

Also, that search gave me 13 pages of Google Images before I saw my first pair of actual breasts. And they were on a man. I didn't even know you could do a search without stumbling across breasts in the first 5 pages. I thought it was a rule.

Top three favourite phrases from building reports:

• "Brick wall fall off cracks need fixity." Who is writing this report? Mary Poppins? I now imagine building inspectors tripping about in little lace-up boots, prodding buildings with their umbrellas and singing things like Fixity Brickety Crack and Roof-fell-over-fragile-bricks-hit-neighbour's-yellow-Rover. Which seems unlikely as most of them have names like Steve. (I hope you liked that song title because it took ages.)
  
  
• "Walls appear straightish." HOW VERY REASSURING.
  
  
• "House ok but lose chimley." Oh no! Not the chimley! Tell me you didn't lose that! Now all that remains is a chimney... it's a bit loose though. Sigh. You would think that if you were a builder/engineer/assessor you would have at least a vague knowledge of how to spell the bits of the house. "Went in front dor and worked on warl for a while, eventually leaving via the wyndoh." Wyndoh! Why is it not spelt like that?
  

It's four days on and four days off, so now I need to find something to entertain myself for the next four days, unless they call me in. Rent as many seasons of Boston Legal as I can find, stock up on whiskey and cigars and have a booze-soaked Denny Crane marathon. Yes?

"Women!"
"Can't live with them."
"Can't take 'em quail hunting."