SparkyCentral

November 4th, 2005

Suits you

It takes something worth ranting about to kickstart blog writing when it hasn’t happened for a week or two.

They say bad luck comes in threes, but I didn’t really believe it until today. Firstly, my train to work was delayed by nearly 15 minutes again today. Not that surprising you might say, but 15 minutes delay on a 20 minute journey is quite a lot.

Next came a run-in with a suit. In my experience people who wear suits to work are either poor souls whose profession of choice requires them to wear this uniform under the misguided belief that suit wearers somehow look more professional or respectable, or they are people who believe the above and enjoy wearing a suit as it gives them a feeling of power and superiority. The latter are usually complete cocks, and so was the case with my fellow traveller in the ticket queue at Charing Cross this morning.

My first mistake was to not realise that there is one queue for two windows. When the window in front of me became empty and I made a move toward it the guy next to me pushed past muttering grumpily “Would you like to wait in line?”. I explained that it was a mistake and that I thought there were two queues. His response was to attempt to belittle me by sarcastically pointing out the obvious instruction above the windows. “That told you!” said the bewildered but smiling non-suit behind me, at which point I made my second mistake.

“Yeah, I know” I said with a surprised tone and laughed slightly. “You’d better stop laughing at me if you know what’s good for you” said Mr. Suit as he lurched towards me threateningly. “Are you threatening me?” I inquired, a bit bemused by the guy’s sudden bad attitude, and gave another laugh. “Laugh one more time and I’ll twat you” he shouted as he turned back to his ticket purchase. Raised eyebrows and a shoulder shrug were shared by myself and the now rather concerned looking guy behind me.

At this point the other window became free and I got on with the job in hand, opting to ignore Mr. Suit and let him wander off, red mist in tow. There’s not really any excuse for unprovoked threats of violence at 9:30am on a Friday morning. Maybe he was also pissed off (in a more dramatic fashion) that the trains were delayed. Maybe his whole family had just been hit by a stray comet. My instinct tells me that he was just a cock trying to assert his manly, suit-induced authority over me and that my audacity in making a simple error had resigned me to his wrath, and his poor work colleagues to a day of untold grief.

Reaching Pret I realised that I was lacking in breakfast money, but to complete the trilogy the cash machine on Broadwick Street was empty. So, late for work, stressed out by a verbal battering, and no breakfast. Luckily the rest of the day has been OK so far.

Categories: Rants, Day-job