Hanging At The Mall

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellow,

Fazzy was still a little low today. In part it is due to work. She is not alone, I find most of the permanent employees are grumpy at present. 

A new structure has been imposed. But here's the problem, no-one knows how it is supposed to work or what they are supposed to be doing. 

Like NO-ONE. It's almost comical. We've gone from a highly motivated, busy department to a ghost town almost overnight*.

Fazzy, in particular, was always busy with her finger in lots of pies. Now she feels like she's being treated like a highly-paid PA because they don't know how to use her. 

I gave her a speech. I told her to TAKE CONTROL. To help EVERYONE by understanding and explaining the change. And if her boss complains, tell him THIS IS HER EFFING JOB.

"You can be the hero we need right now!" I told her. 

It was a great motivational speech which was so wonderful it caused her to sigh and roll her eyes at me. 

I was casting PEARLS, I tell you.

So then I asked Fazzy if she wanted to look around the shops. She brightened almost immediately. "We could go to the food court and do people-watching and MOCK randoms!" I suggested. "Like Mean Girls!"

She liked this idea. 

We looked at handbags. She held up a sparkly silver bag for me. "I think you should get this," she told me. 

"But what shoes would I wear?" I asked.

"Sparkly silver ones!" she replied.

"Sparkly silver shoes?" I echoed, horrified. "I'm not a WHORE!"

It took Fazzy a while to recover. 

After this we went to Farmers which is sort of like British Home Stores. Fazzy went around smelling perfumes. "This one is nice!" she said.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Are these diffusers?"

"Uh-oh, I think they might be," she said.

"Oh Fazzy, what a lovely fragrance," I said. "You smell just like my toilet."

She continued to explore and got a free sample that was so strong it made her eyes water and her nose run. She asked me to take it from her and I slipped it into my pocket. 

After this, we went to a corner shop so I could buy Fazzy a bar of chocolate. We bumped into Nathan the Australian in there. 

Fazzy and me worked with him years ago and back then he used to love it when he came across a Chinese person. His wife is Singaporean, and he speaks fluent Mandarin. He was chatting to the Chinese lady behind the counter when we entered and said something to her as he left.

She gave us both a funny look. 

But Fazzy got her chocolate and we tumbled out into the street, still laughing and wondering what Nathan had said. We walked back to work, past the Rydges hotel, where we bumped into Office Gossip Kristine. 

"Oooh, did you two just come out of the Rydges together???" she said. "And do you SMELL of Fazlyn, Symon??"

As it turns out, I DID. I still had her perfume sample in my pocket. 

"It's not what it looks like!" protested Fazzy. 

I got rid of the perfume sample but continued to smell of Fazzy all afternoon.  

And as it turns out, Nathan had told the Chinese lady that I am, "The Master of The House".

As if. We all know it would be Fazzy. 

S.

* Except for me. As the lone Data Analyst in the whole of the organisation, I'm busy all the time. This is a good thing.