PICT, Interns and The Ugly Game

The office was an uncomfortable place to be today for several reasons. Firstly there was the sodding rugby and my male colleagues were arguing about who were the better team.

I know that disliking the rugby and the cricket and horse racing and all other sports makes me a bad Tory. I don't care, not a bit. There are far more rewarding ways to get out of breath and sweaty, thank you very much. That grown men threw pens, box files and eventually a tea cup at each other has put me off even more.

Secondly there was the intern issue. The boss pulled me to one side and asked if we were paying Rachel at all. His ‘hands off’ approach is a bloody nuisance sometimes. I reminded him that we had started paying her daily travel about a week ago and I occasionally brought her lunch if I had felt that I had been particularly mean to her. This happens quite a lot.

I don't mind paying interns but I do hate the paperwork. It's just another form to fill in and send off to IPSA which they then process and use to magically suck the life from the poor soul who filled it in. I know this to be true and as such, have had a priest in to bless the IPSA filing cabinet.

According to the tech guys in PICT (Parliamentary Information Communication and Technology) one of the severs went down and this resulted in a number of MPs not getting their emails. So if you emailed an MP on Tuesday and thought 'that arsehole hasn't got back to me and s/he has a Blackberry!' then it will because of that. Possibly... 

The boss made reference to two MPs getting a bit touchy-feely in the chamber at the start of the week but he wouldn't say who it was. If any dear readers know, please do tell.

Had an email from a constituent asking why their local supermarket had put 1p on their petrol prices last week. Our response was mainly made up of the supermarket's customer service contact details and a 'feel free to ask them yourselves.' People are getting lazier, I swear.