Monday’s Deadly Sin: Anger
That was my initial reaction when I discovered I’d been made redundant. I knew what the first meeting was about before I even walked in there (restructuring of the company), but I’d assumed customer service was a department that was kinda un-cut-outable. Obviously not. I walked out of the first meeting feeling slightly smirky, presuming that I was safe, but later realised that it wasn’t the case after a particularly confronting second one-on-one meeting.
The manager who so sickly-sweetly informed me of their decision took great delight in doing so, as whenever I had previously spoken in his presence, he reacted as if my mouth was not a mouth at all, but an orifice which performs a different function entirely.
To conclude our meeting, the manager did not thank me for my contribution to the company. He did not wish me well in my imminent search for employment. He instead leaned over to shake my hand, then withdrew the limb in question and laid a wet sneeze to rest on my leg instead.
I walked out of the exit interview with a redundancy package in my hand, a pair of pants which appeared to have glistening morning dew on them, and a head full of rage for the manager’s methods.
Tuesday’s Deadly Sin: Sloth (and Daytime Television)
Where I live, sloth is a verb. Adam and I will often declare that we’re just going to ‘sloth around the house all day’. If someone sits in front of the TV for hours on end, they’re ‘slothing’.
Adam tried his best to disturb my slothing when he woke at 5.30am that morning, but it didn’t phase me. I had a very succesful day’s sloth – even moreso because it was raining. Rainy weather induces sloth.
Wednesday’s Deadly Sin: Covetousness
I realised I couldn’t sloth all week, so I decided to spend some of my redundancy. Now that I had a nice payout, I could afford to buy a few CD’s that I’d had my eye on.
I caught the train into the city and snaked around the underground shopping centres which intertwine the city centre. Emerging for air on George Street, I ran through the rain towards one of my favourite ever music stores – Utopia Records.
Any record store which has legitimate gold record awards for over 10 bad 80′s ‘big hair’ metal bands on display scores ten points in my books.
I pottered around the store for around ten minutes before realising a heavy music store is not the kind of place you potter around. I began drooling over the range of hard-to-find imported music that was before me, and collected a pile of far more CD’s than I really should have bought.
I waited at the service desk while a staff member floated around behind the counter, looking like he was trying to avoid work in general before flitting towards the staff-only area at the rear of the shop.
A young man with dreadlocks moulded into a pineapple-shaped form appeared before me. ‘Did that guy just walk past you before?’ he demanded.
‘Which guy?’ I asked, dumping the CDs before him.
‘The guy with the ponytail and the goatee,’ he hissed. ‘The fuckwit,’ he added, as if this might jog my memory somewhat.
‘Oh,’ I realised. ‘The guy who went out the back before? Yeah, he walked past here.’
‘Fuck,’ the guy in front of me spat. ‘Fuck, FUCK!’ he doubled over in disbelief.
‘Er… um?’ I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.
‘Some people just don’t know how to fucking serve people,’ he shook his head.
‘Actually, I’m looking for a job at the moment,’ I meekly spoke, hopeful. The man behind the desk slowly looked up at me from behind two pierced eyebrows.
‘Fuck, FUCK FUCK!’ he shouted.
‘You really do work in a heavy music store, don’t you?’ I noted.
Thursday’s Deadly Sin: Lust
Rick the Pimp had Thursday work-free, so he suggested we visit the city together. I wasn’t really up for another day of sloth, so I took him up on his offer.
After wandering around the city looking at numerous electrical items we couldn’t hope to afford (even with Rick’s prostitution business – not even my sexually, er.. ‘unique’ body could bring in enough bucks), we stumbled upon a retail outlet for Virgin Mobile at the entrance to the Centrepoint shopping centre.
I understand that Virgin, as a company, try to project themselves as a very unique organisation. However, there’s something that’s just a bit weird about the Virgin Mobile store.
‘There’s something just… a little dodgy about that store,’ Rick muttered to me as we walked past it.
I studied it for a few seconds and quickly realised. ‘All it needs is shagpile carpet, and it’d be a brothel,’ I decided. ‘One of those giant sofas shaped like a pair of lips wouldn’t go astray either.’
‘Wow,’ Rick murmured in disbelief. I could tell he’d already started falling in love with the location and was plotting his next brothel location.
Friday’s Deadly Sin: Wildcard Sin
I don’t actually remember most of Friday due to being drunk, but I’m sure I committed most of the deadly sins anyway.
Saturday’s Deadly Sin: Schwarzenegger
Adam and I hired End of Days and – the shame – we enjoyed it.
Sunday’s Deadly Sin: Considering Employment by Microsoft
I’m not going to hide it – I have a job interview with Microsoft tomorrow. However, I can tell you now I’m not going to take this job – it’s not so much the company as the position on offer that I don’t like. This interview also involves me wearing a suit and tie for the first time in over seven months, so it’s a little worrying.
The overriding and ever-continuing sin is, without a doubt, sloth. Slothing is the most fun (and the only sin to involve Ricki Lake and beer!)
Oh, for a job where I could be paid to sloth.