The Meal from Hell

Today Tigger and I met at the nearest Starfleet Space Port and spent several hours preparing the Enterprise for our latest mission ...

... basically you need to use your mind's eye to picture the gleaming Bridge of the Enterprise, displays throw coloured highlights and there are those reassuring chirrups from the bridge infrastructure. Periodically there is that paper pulled from envelope sound as the Bridge doors open and an ensign in an attractively short uniform comes in to present Tigger or me with a tablet showing vital status information.

I am sat in the Captain's chair with my little Pooh legs dangling over the edge. Tigger, on the other hand, has no problems with his seating options due to his innate bouncing ability.....

... "Fuck me Tigger it's a bit different to the Hundred Acre Wood in here" say me.

"Pooh, my bear with little brain, they have only done it again and totally forgotten that we are stuffed toys and have given us another ginormous project to manage" replies Tigger ...

... "Oh, and don't swear so much. Lt Uhura doesn't like it and it makes you sound like a cu ...."

Yes, we are teamed together again and are trying our very best to cram a quart of workload in to a pint pot of time using fluid ounces of resource.*

 We had a fairly strenuous day of wrestling with costs, dealing with SMIs** and playing the system to ensure that our Technical Review is realistic rather than a punitive rating just because we hadn't filled in the right form and sent it to the right bunch of people.

At the end of the day we left the Space Port and joined a few colleagues from our last Mission for a couple of drinks and a meal. WHY DID WE DO THIS ?

We had dined out with some of them at the beginning of August and  they thought another team meal was a really good idea so we pitched up. It needs to be stated that we had just had a very intensive day and Tigger was still suffering from near fatal alcohol poisoning after a week of Beer and Golf in Marbella.  We arrived at the Pub and rapidly realised that everyone else at the table had a complete Personality bypass. It was dreadful, it was like wading through treacle. All they wanted to do was talk about work and none of them had the interpersonal skills to engage in any sort of social conversation.

At one point I went for a pee and sent Tigger a text to see if he was hating it as much as I was. His reply of "Kill them all" suggests he was of a similar opinion.

The meal itself was lovely. We went to a Mediterranean Restaurant called Gallu's in Leamington Spa and the food was really good. I had Piri Piri Chicken Livers followed by  Pork and Mussels in a white whine sauce as a main and was really pleased with the choice. I only wish that, with the exception of Tigger, the company was better. At times it felt like we had been invited out as the evening's entertainment but we were far too fatigued and sober than do anything more than try to keep the conversation from stalling.

My personal High / Low Point was when the subject of China came up and a colleague advised that his daughter was adopted from China. He added that he already had two sons and that he and his wife really wanted a daughter ... I managed to insert the quip that he "sent out for a Chinese"....

... we thought it was funny.

Eventually we were joined by the Exec that I travelled to Switzerland with a few weeks ago and he was a real breath of fresh air. We had a drink and a reasonable natter with him before making polite excuses and disappearing back to my favourite branch and the Hollowed out Volcano. It had been a long day and neither of us needed an evening like that. I have a phrase that really fits my opinion of the evening...

... I would have rather shoved live wasps up my arse!.

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* to use the vernacular "we are so fucked".
** In the old days these used to be SMEs (Subject Matter Experts). Nowadays we are given SMIs (Subject Matter Idiots). These are people that are paid at least £30K but think like they are  paid minimum wage.