Although this is a nation of beggars, slaves and paupers, one does one's best. Okay, so I've landed myself in £15,000 worth of debt only to end up in the precisely the same job I did when I was 14, now I am 43 (twelve years of university education well spent!). One must make do with the best one has. If the best I can expect (in this country at least), is being at the behest of uneducated teenagers, so be it - this is not the heyday of Cosimo de' Medici, evidently. It's Dark Age Britain.
After the fiasco the other night, I have had to be very careful about what I say at that... place. This evening, I decided to stay silent, and simply get on with doing my work (remember that I am the guy that cleans the gunk out of kitchen utensils over a sink, when I am not serving fast food - you know, with my master's degree in Classical Latin: that guy). Me being me, decided to break my own vow of silence (which lasted only an hour or so). There is this loud, annoying, lazy teenager (the worst kind of employee). I decided to pay him a compliment. I said to him, in all honesty, "I missed you yesterday when you left, because it became extremely busy the moment you left." (Please bear in mind that it was the start of the bank holiday weekend and the few staff we had on consisted of (1) a new girl from Columbia whose English is not the greatest, she works hard but is new and (2) an extremely tardy and idle young simpleton from the village [small hands, eyes too close together: you know...]). For my compliment, I was "rewarded" by a little vitriolic outburst from this rather spacious (in the Latin sense of the adjective) and ignavus young man. By all accounts, the little poisoned dwarf that I had been at cross purposes was showered with compliments by this young man straight afterwards. (This is extremely unusual, because said young man never has a good word to say, about anybody), to which he recieved a firm dressing down by her "older" sibling.
I felt that the dressing down he got was a little over the top, but the boss is still quite young (not yet twenty), so this is only to be expected. That's what happens when you put a teenager in charge of a team of workers. As one fellow classicist quite rightly pointed out recently, "At 18 I couldn't manage myself, let alone an entire workforce!" In any case, whether I utter a Latin curse from Plautus, or offer a fellow colleague a compliment, sincerely, deservedly, it seems that whatever I say has a negative effect. The spacious young man got in a huff, and stormed out on a busy Saturday night, then and there.
Well well well. The last time a member of staff stormed out in the middle of a busy Saturday night, he was fired. This chap may or may not survive this ordeal, maybe. The big boss likes him, because of his caustic and acrid sense of "humour" (something they share in common, both being brutish, uncaring and sarcastic - the very basest form of humour, much of it salt in the gutter spoken by hempen homespuns, to use a phrase of Shakespeare's). We'll see. In any case, it is not so much a case of, "If you're going to say something, say something nice, or don't say anything at all" (the way it should be), but instead, "Don't say anything, or you'll get either yourself or someone around you fired." So much for liberal democracy and free speech! Surely this is some kind of obscure time, perhaps even a Dark Age, where duct tape is silver, but silence is golden...
In any case, I am ploughing on with my "big project" (this is the big one). This little project is so secret, that I even blog about it (it's that secret). Seriously though, I dare not even mention the very name of this work (it is known by many different names, thankfully, and indeed the main name it is known by is the same name of a similar, later work: thank God, as this confounds search engines across the internet). I should get back to translation, but will probably roast some Empire TW. (I'm playing Great Britain of course: as always). I've just put down a French rebellion, and am now looking at expanding into India. One is reminded of that excellent sketch on The Fast Show by Paul Whitehouse. "India, the Raj. I was very, very drunk." I say! Pop that chap somebody! (Jolly good! Rather).
Max.
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