"What's jangling?" - the past week at work

Monday

Yvette (agency head) is becoming more and more anxious as the end of the month approaches and it is clear we are not going to hit our billings target. She was extremely rude to Andrea (Account Director) interrupting a 'phone call to ask her questions (it had been a personal call, but Yvette wasn't to know that). She switched off a fax transmission left by Rachel from the PR division upstairs (we have the last fax machine in the building).

Lunchtime Yvette's friend from the Sunday Express came in and they both disappeared into Yvette's office with two bottles of wine, their laughter heard all over the floor.

Terry (MD and our ultimate boss) came down and asked me to do some PR for a French bathrooms client, although I have only the sketchiest idea what he wants me to do.

Tuesday

We had back the results of the psychometric tests we did with Jess Lewis last week. Yvette went through them, making all sorts of snap judgements. "You obviously want my job" she said to Andrea.

We were quite busy this morning, with two quite big campaigns coming in, but they will not be billed until August, so no use for this month's figures. One of these campaigns was the German advertising for our toy client. As I had done most of the work on the proposals, it put me in a good light.

Wednesday

The working day ended, but we had to stay on for another of the Jess Lewis training sessions. Aged in her late fifties, Jess Lewis wears a dark suit (looks very Marks & Spencer) and has short blonde-grey hair. Her training style is very pedestrian, and she will make a bland statement and then pause, as if expecting us to gasp in admiration.

Thursday

Very tired this morning because of the late night yesterday. I was twenty minutes late getting to the agency. Eleanor was half an hour late and Andrea rang in sick.

No more money came in today. July looks as if it is going to be a major failure for Yvette. Jonathan (copywriter) is openly pleased about this, even though it may have serious repurcussions for staffing levels (Jonathan and Yvette have completely fallen out, and they are no longer even polite to each other).

Neil (graphic designer) seems to have wiped lots of artwork from the system when loading some new software. I suggested that it would all be on the back-up, but he became very mysterious and said "Backing-up is not as easy as it sounds". He is supposed to do a back-up every evening.

Eleanor wearing lots of bracelets.

"What's jangling?" said Yvette.

"My nerves" said Eleanor.

Friday

Yvette not in until midday, which made everyone feel relaxed.

Nothing to do, so most of the time we just sat around talking and drinking coffee.

At 5 Martin, Andrea's boyfriend, turned up although Andrea had told him not to. She stayed in the general office and wouldn't come into Reception. Eventually Eleanor told him Andrea wasn;t feeling well.