Hater

crawl but I find myself staring at her rather than my computer screen. She's back at her desk now and Barry Penny, the office manager, has suddenly appeared. Her body language has completely changed now that she's speaking to someone who's higher up the council pecking order than she is. She's smiling and laughing at his pathetic jokes and generally trying to see how far she can crawl up his backside.
    I can't help thinking about what I've just seen happen outside. Christ, I wish I had that bloke's umbrella. I know exactly where I'd shove it.

    Sometimes having such a dull and monotonous job is an advantage. This stuff is way beneath me and I don't really have to think about what I'm doing. I can do my work on autopilot and the time passes quickly. It's been like that so far this morning. Job satisfaction is non-existent but at least the day isn't dragging.
    I've been working here for almost eight months now (it feels longer) and I've worked for the council for the last three and a half years. In that time I've worked my way through more departments than most long-serving council staff manage in their entire careers. I keep getting transferred. I served time in the pest control, refuse collection and street lamp maintenance departments before I ended up here in the Parking Fine Processing office or PFP as the council likes to call it. They have an irritating habit of trying to reduce as many department names and job titles down to sets of initials as they can. Before I was transferred here I'd been told that the PFP was a dumping ground for underperformers and, as soon as I arrived, I realised it was true. In most of the places I've worked I've either liked the job but not the people or the other way around. Here I have problems with both. This place is a breeding ground for trouble. This is where those motorists who've been unlucky (or stupid) enough to get wheel-clamped, caught on camera or given a ticket by a parking warden come to shout and scream and dispute their fines. I used to have sympathy with them and I believed their stories. Eight months here has changed me. Now I don't believe anything that anyone tells me.
    'Did you see that bloke this morning?' a voice asks from behind the computer on my left. It's Kieran Smyth. I like Kieran. Like most of us he's wasted here. He's got brains and he could make something of himself if he tried. He was studying law at university but took a holiday job here last summer and never went back to class. Told me he got used to having the money and couldn't cope without it. He buys an incredible amount of stuff. Every day he seems to come back from lunch with bags of clothes, books, DVDs and CDs. I'm just jealous because I struggle to scrape together enough money to buy food, never mind anything else. Kieran spends most of his day talking to his mate Daryl Evans who sits on my right. They talk through me and over me but very rarely to me. It doesn't bother me though. Their conversations are as boring as hell and the only thing I have in common with them is that the three of us all work within the same small section of the same small office. What does annoy me, if I'm honest, is the fact that they both seem to be able to get away with not doing very much for large chunks of the working day. Maybe it's because they're friendly with Tina outside work and they go out drinking together. Christ, I only have to cough and she's up out of her seat wanting to know what I'm doing and why I've stopped working.
    'What bloke?' Daryl shouts back.
    'Out on the street on the way to work.'
    'Which street?'
    'The high street, just outside Cartwrights.'
    'Didn't see anything.'
    'You must have.'
    'I didn't. I didn't walk past Cartwrights. I came the other way this morning.'
    'There was this bloke,' Kieran explains regardless, 'you should have seen him. He went absolutely fucking mental.'
    'What are you on about?'
    'Honest mate, he was wild. You ask Bob Rawlings up in Archives. He saw it. He reckons he practically killed her.'
    'Killed who?'
    'I don't know, just some old woman. No word of a lie, he just started laying into her for no reason. Stabbed her with a bloody umbrella I heard!'
    'Now you're taking the piss…'
    'I'm serious.'
    'No way!'
    'You go and ask Bob…'
    I usually ignore these quick-fire conversations (most of the time I don't have a clue what they're talking about) but today I can actually add something because I was there. It's pathetic, I know, but the fact that I seem to know