Career Woman versus Kept Woman

Have any of you ever worked in a kindegarten? Or a zoo? Or even a loony bin? Well, I am unfortunately in the position of working for an amalgamation of all three which masquerades as the Retail and Online Marketing department of a large pharmaceutical company in the UK.

I have six immediate female colleagues and one male boss. He hides in a goldfish bowl behind us and never hears the cacophony of burping, belching, farting, impressions of Borat, choruses of Fraggle Rock and the ubiquitous 'baby talk' which comes mainly from my 30-year old 'assistant' (I use that term very loosely - if she understood the meaning of the word, no doubt she would choose to ignore it in favour of sucking her thumb).

She is not one of the slimmest girls, nor was she first in the queue when God was handing out good looks. Consequently, she garners attention by behaving like a two year old having a temper tantrum most of the time. In order to show she is happy, she skips her 20 stone frame down the corridor, singing songs from The Muppet Show (her relatives, probably), which makes my coffee pound in a way reminiscent of the glass of water in Jurassic Park when the T-Rex is on its way. If she is cross that we are not paying her attention, she falls off her chair in the middle of the room and petulantly pouts, You weren't listening to me! Look what I had to do!
I've even known her to faint when she trapped her finger in a door. Poof? Probably...Put on? Yup...

I feel like ramming my fist into her mouth half the time, and I deem myself a bit of a pacifist, deep down...

Another girl suffers with IBS and don't we know about it! We hear, in minute detail, about her daily bowel movements, smell and hear her flatulence problems, and are subjected to her medical history with vivid, gesticulative accounts. She is marrying her long-term partner in July. I guess OK! magazine will hear about it at some point, because, by Christ, we do, in stultifyingly dull detail, every five minutes. I, conversely, keep my mouth well shut about my own nuptials. Nobody knows much about my wedding, apart from the date and venue, and none of them are getting an invitation, either, let alone organising a Hen Night for me.

If I am asked about my own arrangements, and answer honestly, I discover next day, that she has done the same, but bigger and better. Boring? Yes. Irritating? Most definitely. Resolving to keep my mouth firmly closed? Absolutely.

She bought her wedding dress a few weeks ago. It fits her perfectly, we are led to believe. However, oddly, she is now trying to get pregnant. Now, call me old fashioned, but weren't children supposed to traditionally come after the wedding? And is there anything more off-putting than seeing a Bride, in virginal white, waddling down the aisle with a 6-month lump protruding from her dress? Yes, I know it's the 21st century, but I know what looks good and what doesn't!

Then we have Animal. I call her that in my own head because she reminds me of Animal, the Muppet drummer. She even talks like him when she is on the phone to her father. She has a very chequered love life which involves jealous lesbian ex-wives, homeless criminals, men on the verge of drawing their pension, and her most recent, a white Aborigine (her words, due to his plethora of tattoos). She regales us with her most recent 'romantic' mishaps (again, I use that word loosely because any story of love punctuated with every expletive known to man doesn't exactly conjure up images of doves, red roses and Barbara Cartland to me) in an exceptionally loud voice every Monday morning. I find them amusing to a degree, and somewhat smug in that I have been lucky enough to only ever get embroiled with peaceful loonies as opposed to violent ones. There but for the grace of God go I, I guess...

Out of the other three females, one is part-time, a new mother, and exceptionally quiet. I like her. Another is a middle-aged harridan who has had a sense of humour bypass and has become a bit of a diet bore. She goes on a new diet every month and has lost a grand total of 3lb. The last girl makes me laugh, but has a tendency to get rather over-emotional from time to time and can take off into day-long crying sessions. It must be her hormones, I reckon.

The boss is the best of them all. He possesses a fantastic sense of humour, is one of the laziest blokes I have ever met, wants us all to do his work for him, and effs and blinds like a Merchant Seaman. For some reason, he appears to view me as 'One of The Lads' as opposed to one of his 'Bitches'. He also told me at my staff review that he found me one of the scariest women he had ever met - Psycho Hose Beast were his exact words, which threw me marginally, until I recovered and held a carving knife to his throat until he retracted.
I've never had a boss like this before, and I would be very, very loathe to leave him...

And then there's me: The Techy Freak. That is their name for me because I understand what an XML feed is, I know how to write in HTML and I remember ALT functions. I also say very little because I realise that my sense of humour simply wouldn't be understood by them and it is easier to keep my thoughts to myself than to attempt to make some intelligently witty remark which would only be assimilated if they could interpret words of more than one syllable.

I actually enjoy my job - it is stimulating, full of new things to learn, and fantastic opportunities to develop oneself, but I cannot abide working with Morons. You never know until you get there, though, do you?

I continue to press home to Mr Parsnip that I would make a fantastic Retro Housewife as I enjoy having a clean home, can bake bread as well as The Dough Boy, and would love to wear gingham dresses, and sport a demiwave and bright red, indelible lipstick. I can also grow my own vegetables, shoot and gut pigeons, and dig over gardens, all whilst wearing aforesaid gingham frock. He doesn't seem to take the hint, so if there are any gents out there who fancy making me their 'kept woman', drop me a message with an outline of your earning potential, your bank account details and PIN number, as well as a photograph, and I shall assess your competency as My Hero and let you know...