Man Blog II

Working in London has been a real eye-opener. The Brits have a fundamentally different approach to the work environment. For instance, the open display of pornographic photographs in the work place is not considered de facto sexual harassment. Rather, its just good fun and only a girly boy would object. Only if someone makes a formal complaint and the employer fails to remove the offensive article does he or she have a case for a harassment charge. Another quaint custom is freaky-casual-dress-four- hour-Friday. The Brits somehow convince themselves that they work 9 hour days – trust me, Bechtel works 9 hour days in Houston, and what they do in London is nothing of the sort. So each Friday they show up at work in their trendy blue-jeans, crazy Euro-footwear and other nightclub worthy apparel and leave promptly for their weekend at noon. And this is all fine by me. I just take an early flight back to Holland and have diner with the family. However, today was a bit special. I had a late flight and could only leave the office at 2:00 pm. Needless to say I was there all by myself for several hours. I decided to have a quick bite to eat at the company canteen. The company store carries all sorts of healthy eating options as well as the traditional artery clogging British pub food. I chose a delicious looking and healthy smoked mackerel – beet root salad. Back at my desk I started to pry open the clear plastic dome that covered the salad and casually noticed that a fare bit of the crimson red beet root juice had migrated to the seam of the container where the clear plastic dome met the black plastic bowl. A fraction of a second later the seal on the bowl burst opened and spewed a not so fine mist of red beet juice all over the front of my brand new, French blue, Ralph Loren dress shirt. Argh!!!!! This was pure disaster. Desperately I stripped my shirt off and ran to the bathroom. I began furiously scrubbing the spots and eventually removed the great majority of the stain. But now my shirt was soaking wet. Lucky for me the Brits are very keen on the environment and insist on paper-saving devices like hot air blowers in the lu. So I spent the better part of the lunch hour doing my laundry over a sink in the bathroom. Lucky for me, no one was there, except the janitor who had a good chuckle when he saw me feverishly working over my shirt in the bathroom sink. He asked me what happened and I told him I was minding my own business when this bloody beet root salad attacked. The beet root salad went in the round file in the office next door. Didn’t want that mackerel stinking up my office.