Not That We Were
However - that must be a record of some kind, having this be the first word of an Intro - I do have to introduce the subject matter of 'Beryl' because this is central to the Malicious Compliance we are going to detail. Okay, rooting around in my new 'Collins Concise English Dictionary', the definition for 'Beryl' is: "A white, blue, yellow, green or pink mineral, found in coarse granites and igneous rocks. It is a source of beryllium and is sometimes used as a gemstone." Art!
To clarify further, I would guesstimate about 95% of the Malicious Compliance stories I normally relate are narrated by males and set in South Canada. This tale is narrated by a female and is set in The Allotment Of Eden, This Sceptred Isle and other frothy names for the United Kingdom. Art!
More like it
So! Let the MalCom begin.
The narrator here is Temp Worker In Need. TWIN hereafter. She was employed as a temp by an agency that contracted to do admin work for other businesses. As she puts it, all the work that nobody else could be bothered to do, so usually boring and repetitive. This particular contract involved 150 hours of work over a 5 week period, with no details about what it entailed, which is always a bit of a worry. When TWIN arrived, she found the business was a small building at the back of an industrial estate, and Lo! the first person she meets is a slovenly-looking miserable Resting Bitch Face middle-aged lady, puffing away on a cigarette. Readers, meet Beryl. Art!
Beryl didn't bother with social niceties like saying hello or asking for names, merely took TWIN inside, pointed to a gigantic stack of boxed paperwork, explained it all needed to be scanned in on the two scanners, which were attached to a computer.
Also relevant is that TWIN and Beryl were the only women on-site, which meant the young men were always making excuses reasons for visiting and having a chat. Beryl did not like this and told TWIN to stop talking whilst she was working, a self-defeating statement as TWIN was able to hold a conversation with Beryl whilst still scanning. Art!
A scanner
Some of the young men who came to chat informed TWIN that Beryl was always like this when the agency sent a young woman, feeling a touch of the green-eyed monster.
SO! TWIN exhibited the first MalCom by getting dolled-up each day: make-up, curled hair, dress and heels, none of which Beryl could complain about, thus only able to sit and scowl.
Next up was the issue of stapled pages. These could not be put through the scanner or they'd jam, so TWIN was extracting staples, scanning and then re-stapling them. Of course - obviously! - this annoyed Beryl. To be honest, doing anything but sitting stock still and breathing seems to have annoyed Beryl. Art!
The existential evil of a staple remover
By this time TWIN had reached the older documents, which were often creased or folded, causing the scanner to jam. TWIN simply opened up the scanner, removed the jammed paper and re-scanned it.
Beryl, upon seeing this, went beserk. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!" was her choice of words. Do you get the feeling that she was unhappy? "AT NO POINT WERE YOU INSTRUCTED TO CARRY OUT REPAIRS! WE HAVE SOMEONE FOR THAT!"
She then had to admit that the IT chap wasn't in that day so the scanner wasn't getting unjammed. Ooops. Art!
A scanner, darkly*
The second scanner jams the next day. Beryl is nowhere to be seen and doesn't answer her phone, so TWIN sits and chats all day with the other workers. She learns that the company has been bought out by a much larger South Canadian one, that the English CEO is retiring and Beryl has been made a director. This meant she had a definite end date in the near future, which made her even less pleasant to be around.
Then came the opportunity for a UK team to visit the parent company in South Canada; the sole IT worker responsible for unjamming the scanners went with them and so did Beryl. A huge batch of handwritten papers came in to be scanned, ON SOUTH CANADIAN-SIZED PAPER. The scanners jammed immediately they were fed this new batch, expecting UK-sized paper.
Ooops.
TWIN rang Beryl in South Canada, and thanks to the time difference, got through to her at 05:00. Cue an unhappy Beryl. TWIN replied to all the insults and cajoling that she wasn't allowed to touch the scanners so they weren't getting fixed.
Ooops.
Art!
Confirming her position as a Champion Bottomhole, Beryl attended one day of the five the team were supposed to be present at. Then she disappeared to have a spa day, going shopping and sightseeing on the company dime before flying out early on day five.
Those scanners and the South Canadian documents were Beryl's responsibility. They were time-critical and - they weren't getting done. People began asking questions about where she was and why data wasn't being processed. Previously she had been up for redundancy with a pension and severance payment.
When it was discovered what she'd really been up to on her jolly across The Pond, they fired her on the spot. No redundancy. No pension. No severance. I'd like to see how bad-tempered that made her. Tee hee.
Ooops. Another triumph for MalCom!
Transformer
NO! Not the Lou Reed album. Art!
This is what I'm talking about; those curious cylindrical devices sitting atop poles across South Canada, tied into an electrical grid. Pretty obviously these things are hazardous, which is why they're positioned at height where accidental contact is impossible.
'Accidental', mind you, excludes idiots whom deliberately target these utility objects, such as the Darwin Award winner described by a power company worker. DAW used to steal power, so often that his home was disconnected from the grid. Art!
Then, a massive thunderstorm rolled into town and knocked out power in DAW's neighbourhood. Guess who thought the cover of night would be simply spiffing for a bit of electrical larceny?
Power company worker had to help the county coroner pry DAW's casseroled carcass off the transformer next morning. No date or location given so I cannot back this tale up with any facts. Avoid current to avoid becoming a currant.
NOPE NOPE NOPE
This one confirms Conrad's sense of self-preservation, which other folks are quick to condemn as 'fear' or 'cowardice'. No, it means I'm not going to go anywhere near the spillway of a dam in a small boat. Art!
Conrad is guessing that their engine died, they were too close to the spillway and the river looks to be in spate. They were there for hours before a rescue boat got to them and hauled them away. Art!
Just checked a BBC item on this event and yes, their engine failed. The dam is Grootdraai in Mpumalanga province. Art!
No, This Isn't A Crisis - THAT'S A Crisis
Your Humble Scribe was rather baffled at the alarmist tone of a sidebar item on my news feed. Art!
Why? Do they hang out in car parks and mug old ladies for their bingo money? Do they give off toxic fumes? Are they a leading cause of male-pattern baldness?
THIS is concerning. Art!
Pedestrians and drivers aren't going to ague with a herd of elephants, even if they're not following the Green Cross Code.
Parakeets! Don't make me sneer.
Finally -
Another Biercism, because it ups the Word Count and I find him amusing.
"Comet,n. An excuse for being out late and night and going home drunk in the morning."
* You knew that was coming.
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