The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) Read online

  Chapter 4: Back to Work

  Monday, January 5, 2009 - 9.17am

  Drought Clock: 3 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes

  Monday morning. Back to work and in the office. The festive holiday was well and truly over, in more ways than one.

  It had been four days since I’d broken up with Stacey and stared death in the face. I had dared not tell the boys what really happened. They would crucify me with their taunts if they knew how the baseball bat-wielding Sophie had nearly decapitated me. I wasn’t quite ready for their onslaught of ribbing and banter just yet.

  But I had been desperate to talk to someone, and I knew I could trust Kelly to be the voice of reason and offer some words of consolation.

  “That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard,” Kelly somehow managed to get the words out through fits of hysterical laughing, holding her stomach. So much for being the voice of reason.

  “It’s not funny,” I smiled. “I could have been seriously injured. Or worse. Dead!”

  Kelly held one hand over her mouth to try and stem the flow of laughter while she waved the other hand at me apologetically. Her long brown curly hair bounced up and down as she tried to control her giggling. “I’m so sorry, babe,” she managed to finally calm herself down.

  I had worked with Kelly Campbell for a little over four months now after she came on board as a sales executive at Maxwell Media through a graduate scheme. We sold online advertising to a range of different industries across the three business-to-business websites. I had been with the company a little shy of a year, but I’d been bored shitless before Kelly arrived. She was bright, bubbly, and had this infectious laugh. She was an easy person to get along with. Before meeting Kelly I had never bought into the theory that a man and a woman could really just be friends. I’d had female friends before, but inevitably one person would always fancy the other person. Normally I was the one who did the fancying.

  But with Kelly it was different. Don’t get me wrong, she was attractive, but I think the fact we were both in relationships meant that neither one of us felt the need to try and impress the other person. There was no pretence. No bravado. Kelly had been with her boyfriend Paul for nearly a year now, and I had met him a few times when he had come to meet her after work. He was a good guy and they seemed really happy together.

  “So, how have you been doing?” she asked genuinely.

  “I don’t know really, it all feels a bit empty,” I said. “I still think it was the right thing to do, but it still feels a bit strange.”

  “That’s normal,” Kelly reassured me. “You were with each other for a long time. You get into a routine. It takes time to adjust to the change, especially when things happen so quickly.”

  Kelly was right. For the last three years my daily routine had always revolved around Stacey in one way or another. I was now in an unfamiliar situation not seeing or talking to her every day. With no contact, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing, almost like not being able to remember where you last saw your keys. But no amount of head scratching and searching under the sofa would remedy this issue.

  “I thought about contacting her but I’m not sure that would be the best thing to do,” I said.

  “Too soon?”

  “Gut instinct,” I said. “Plus this text I received from her last night.”

  I got my phone to read the text out to Kelly. “You will never find anyone as good as me. I can’t believe I wasted three years of my life with you. PS – your small cock never satisfied me.”

  Kelly burst into laughter again. “I’m sorry, babe,” she managed to say.

  “Got time for personal calls, have we, Hilles?” Richard Mussel slapped both hands on both my shoulders from behind. “Good strong shoulders,” he said massaging me. “I would have thought you’d have loads to catch up on after being out of the office for two weeks.”

  “Yes, Richard, I was just...” I tried to offer before I got cut off.

  “How many times do I have to tell you?” Richard said. “I prefer Dick.”

  It was bad enough having to call my boss Mr Mussel, even though he insisted it was pronounced Moo-Cell. Who was he kidding? His preference to the name Dick left me with a comical dilemma when you put the two names together. “Okay, Dick,” I said trying to keep a straight face.

  “I need those sales plans on my desk before midday,” Dick said in his irritating middle-class monotone twang before dashing off to ruin someone else’s morning.

  “Happy New Year to you too,” I said under my breath. Kelly poked her tongue out and flipped Dick the finger behind his back as he stomped off towards the editorial department.

  “Okay, Campbell,” I said in my best Dick impersonation. “Pick those phones up, update those boards. I want to see you driving this business forward. And will you please refer to me as Dick Mussel.”

  I insanely typed at the keyboard and picked the phone up and down during this little charade. Kelly laughed, but suddenly her expression changed, but I was too caught up in my improvisation to notice. Then I felt those hands clamp down on my shoulders for a second time.

  “Midday, Hilles. If I don’t have that sales plan on my desk we will need to have a little chat,” Dick informed me. “And update those boards.”

  “Why didn’t you warn me,” I threw a piece of paper at Kelly as Dick marched back to his office like a bear with a sore head.

  “I tried,” Kelly protested, throwing the piece of screwed up paper back in my direction with a wink.

  I smiled and got up to update the boards, grabbing a piece of tissue and wiping away December’s figures. I reached down for a red board marker and that is when I saw her. I froze on the spot. At that precise moment, nothing else mattered. She was a picture of pure unadulterated beauty. An untarnished image of an angel that would melt the coldest of hearts. Her black hair swayed like she had stepped out of the perfect shampoo advertisement, while her dark smouldering eyes burned a glowing passion inside her.

  “Dan, close your mouth,” Kelly whispered. “You’re practically drooling.”

  I knew Kelly was speaking because her mouth was moving and words were coming out, but I was completely transfixed with the vision before me. She wore a white silk shirt, unbuttoned to the third button, hugging her slim athletic body. It was tucked into a tight-fitting black skirt that forced her to take each stride like a catwalk model.

  And then it happened. It might have only been a split second, but at that precise moment it felt like an eternity. It was a moment I would later relive over and over in my head. It was a story I could boast about to the boys down the local. Hell, I might even tell my grandchildren about this one day. Because at that moment, as this vision of sex on legs walked past, I swear to God she looked straight at me. And it wasn’t a run-of-the-mill type of look either. It was an eye-fuck – a 100 per cent genuine bona fide unspoken look of lust.

  “Who was that?” I gushed.

  “That is Dick’s new PA,” Kelly said. “Her name is Shaila Saxena.”

  Shaila Saxena. Even her name was hot. She looked like an Indian Goddess. The type of girl you fall in love with the moment you lay eyes on her.

  “Did you see that?” I asked Kelly. I needed confirmation that someone else had just seen the future Miss World give me the look.

  “I saw you standing there with a strange crooked grin on your face and your tongue hanging out of your mouth like a demented dog,” Kelly replied raising her eyebrows.

  “No way. She looked at me. She gave me the look.”

  “What?” Kelly said in a slightly high-pitched voice. “She barely glanced at you.”

  “Hey, it was a look, okay?”

  “Daydreaming again are we, Hilles?” I turned and saw Pete Crowford the IT geek. He was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt with four different coloured biros in his top pocket. His five strands of hair were stuck to the top of his head in a Bobby Charlton style comb-over.

  “What do you want, Crowford?” I aske
d.

  “That is one sweet piece of candy,” Pete said pushing his thin-framed spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. “But word of warning,” Pete continued, straightening my collar. “I saw her first.”

  Kelly let out a laugh and Pete shot her a look. “Don’t worry, Kelly,” Pete said, tilting his head so he could look over his glasses at her. “There is plenty of love to go around in the IT department for you too.”

  “Oh, please,” Kelly said almost insulted, flicking her hair back.

  “Get the hell out of here, Crowford,” I said pushing Pete away and kicking him up the backside in the process. He threatened me with a back-hand before slowly slinking off back towards the IT department gently rubbing his butt.

  I turned my attentions back towards Shaila who had now taken her seat at her desk outside Dick’s office. “I’m telling you, Kelly, she looked at me.”

  “Well whatever it was, it’s probably not going to get Dick off our back.” Kelly paused in thought and then turned back to me. “You know, it doesn’t matter how often I say that sentence it still sounds wrong, you know?”

  I finally snapped back to reality and looked at Kelly who was grinning. “You have got a filthy mind, Campbell,” I smiled as Kelly pulled a face as if to say what me? “Come on, we’d better get on the phones then.”

  Like so many graduates fresh out of university I had no idea what to do with my life and had fallen into the career path of a Media Sales Executive. Searching for that perfect job in the Media Guardian I’d stumbled across Media Sales. The job descriptions sold themselves fantastically well. Looking back I shouldn’t have been surprised seeing as they were written by sales people:

  Develop new business dealing directly with those responsible for advertising and marketing budgets. We are looking for someone who wants fast career progression with high levels of drive, enthusiasm, initiative, and commitment. You need a strong personality and a determination to succeed, and will be working across both digital and print media.

  Technically that description is true. However, in the case of my job it failed to mention one or two important aspects:

  Far from being glamorous as the job title suggests, your soul will no longer be your own. You will be working for a slave driver, who will constantly berate and belittle you. You will be speaking to arseholes on the phone all day who will treat you like a piece of scum on the bottom of their shoe. You will slowly start to loathe your boss and your job, and become one of those zombies who live to work.

  The first day back at work after a holiday always drags, but today was particularly bad. I managed to complete the sales plan by 11am and had emailed it to Dick. I spent the next hour on the phone. The most annoying part of my day was trying to speak to the person who held the purse strings. The key was to get past the gatekeeper, in most cases some low-ranking jobsworth who follows their instructions and procedure to the letter. Often just to piss you off and to make them feel important.

  A typical conversation goes like this:

  Me: Good morning. I was hoping you may be so kind to help me out. Who do I need to speak to with regards to any decisions on advertising?

  Jobsworth: I’m afraid I can’t give out that information.

  Me: Is it possible to be put through to the marketing department then?

  Jobsworth: You can email me the information and if the marketing department is interested they will be in contact.

  Me: And who am I speaking to?

  Jobsworth: My name is Jayne, I work on reception.

  Knowing full well that Jayne the Jobsworth would never pass my email on, I take a new approach. Type in the company name and “marketing manager” into Google and chances are you will find a contact. We then have to go through the process again.

  Me: Good morning, could I speak to Mr Matthews please?

  Jobsworth: Who’s calling please?

  Me: My name is Daniel Hilles and I am calling from Maxwell Media.

  Jobsworth: Mr Matthews is not interested.

  Me: You don’t even know why I am calling.

  Jobsworth: What is the nature of your call?

  Me: Advertising.

  Jobsworth: Please hold.

  At this point I would like to take the opportunity to point something out to all the jobsworths up and down the country: just because you put your hand over the receiver, it doesn’t mean I can’t hear you asking Mr Matthews if he will speak to me.

  Jobsworth: I’ve just checked and Mr Matthews is not in the office today.

  Me: But I just heard you speaking to him.

  Jobsworth: If you would like to email me the information I will forward it to him and he can then decide whether or not he would like to take you up on your offer.

  It doesn’t matter how long you work in the job, that conversation will always leave you seething with the same level of frustration. If I had my way, that conversation would go a little more like this:

  Me: Good morning, could I speak to Mr Matthews please?

  Jobsworth: Mr Matthews is not available. Please email the information to me and...

  Me: Listen to me bitch. If you screw with me, I will come down to your office, bend you over and screw you right back.

  Jobsworth: I beg your pardon?

  Me: Beg? You’ll be begging alright, you minimum-wage old hag. Now put me through and don’t make me come down there and shove that headset straight up your....

  “Hilles!” Dick interrupted my daydream by bellowing across the floor. “My office. Now!”

  Kelly raised her eyebrows and stretched her mouth to the side. “Good luck,” she said as I took a deep breath and made my way across the office. Whenever I was summoned by Dick I swear I could hear the death march whistling through the wind outside the window. I readied myself for the inevitable. It didn’t matter how good my sales plan was, he would find something wrong with it. I often wondered if he had any work to do himself with the amount of time he kept me locked in his dungeon.

  “Sit down,” Dick instructed as I entered his office. I closed the door, took my seat, and braced myself.

  Dick leaned across his desk, peering over his glasses, his eyes levelled straight at me. “This is not what I asked for.” He waved the sales plan in his hand before throwing it into the dustbin at the side of his desk. “Are we jousting with feather dusters here, Hilles?”

  I had absolutely no idea what he meant.

  “I have been looking at last year’s figures and is it correct we missed budget by £4,000 in quarter four?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “The credit crunch really caught up with us in the build-up to Christmas.”

  Dick shook his head and held his finger up to his lips. “There is no recession,” he announced. It was one of those ridiculous statements he often made. While the rest of the world suffered from the economic downturn, Maxwell Media was oblivious to any financial constraints in the world of Dick.

  “The problem is you are not hungry enough. You do not drive this business forward out there on the floor,” he sat back in his chair, his hands locked behind his head in one of his typical power poses. It was a line I had heard all too often. It was all part of the so-called motivational repertoire he had in his locker.

  “In all seriousness, that is a sackable offence,” Dick announced pointing towards my screwed up sales plan now taking pride of place in the dustbin. “Missing budget by such a small amount I mean.”

  “Don’t worry, I plan on missing budget by a much larger amount in the next quarter.” I couldn’t help myself. He sat forward, both hands on the desk, glaring at me. I attempted to hold my ground and hated myself for diverting my eyes.

  “I want you to go back and do this report again, this time with a plan on how we are going to make up the money you lost!” Dick snapped at me.

  “Yes, Richard,” I said, and got up and left his office.

  “I prefer Dick!”

  I stepped outside and Shaila was staring straight at me. She must have heard the whole sorry thi
ng. I tried to shrug it off and hand gestured how Dick had droned on by bringing my fingers and thumb together. But Shaila simply turned her attention back to her computer screen and went about her day. That was not a good sign.

  My face must have given it away when I came back to my desk.

  “That bad huh?” Kelly asked.

  *

  Lunch break could not come soon enough. I needed to get out of the office and cool down. I headed towards Liverpool Street. I had quit smoking about eight months ago, but at that moment I was tempted to buy a packet just so I could have a quick puff to de-stress myself.

  “Hi, excuse me,” the gorgeous brunette startled me. “Have you got five minutes?”

  Five minutes? I’d give this girl five hours. “Yeah, of course. How can I help you?”

  “I’m working for a charity helping children in Africa. Did you know that 19,000 children die in Africa each day?”

  Bollocks. I’d walked into a minefield of charity street workers – charity muggers or chuggers. Groups of animated young people, carrying clipboards and trying to separate you from your money, all in the name of a good cause. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a heartless bastard. I give money to charity. Three pounds comes out of my wage packet each month in a Just Giving scheme set-up by work. I felt terrible that there were children living in Third World countries who were starving.

  It’s just that I only had an hour for lunch.

  I kicked myself for being duped by her looks and fantastic legs, exposed by black leggings under a frilly mini skirt. The blue bib with the name of the charity scrawled across it in big bold white writing should have given it away, but sometimes you miss the small details.