Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening
My name is Paul Cree, and yes indeed, it is Lager Time. Patrons of the Lager Verse we gather, and let our collective hair down (what’s left of it) which is what Lager Time is all about. Large up Ganley’s in Morden, where the seed of this idea was born a few years back. Large up Nat, The Shamen and my old part-time partner in rhyme, Boogaloo Dee aka Boogbuster Video. Had a good chat with him yesterday.
It’s been a strange old week, what with the all the madness in the wider-world right now, and the earth-shattering news that Gary Rowett has left Millwall by mutual consent. Not sure how I feel right now, but we all know it weren’t going anywhere. Question is; who’s next and where can they take it?
I don’t know if it’s this gloomy weather but I’ve feeling off-kilter all week, tired one-minute, stressed the next. This time of year makes me think of someone shoving a potato up a car-exhaust; which in turn makes me think of an old memory from years back at some sort of school Christmas carol concert, at St John’s church in Crawley. Me and a couple of other little tykes, snuck out some mince-pies from the church hall and went round the carpark inserting them into cars. Apologies to the Catholic communities of Horley and Crawley who had to scrape off the short-crust! And also, as an avid mince-pie eater; what a shameless waste! The day of judgement will come, no doubt.
Alas, we crack on, though. A little bit of news before I introduce this week’s story. I will be performing on the 31st October, at the Pleasence Theatre in North London, for the annual Anti-Slam Halloween event. For those unfamiliar, it’s a satirical poetry event; where you have to perform your best-worst poem; the worst one on the night wins. I first performed at this gig ten years back, in what I believe was the first one in London before it went on to become much bigger and tour. It was somewhere in Bethnal Green I think. Large up Paula Varjack and Dan Simpson for pulling me back in for this anniversary addition, ticket link at the bottom of this.
I don’t remember much about that first gig, other than feeling I wasn’t that great, despite going into it confident. I seem to remember the others went all-out with it. Amy McAlister smashing it out the park, who I think won it, with a Sainsbury’s carrier bag on her head. I also remember Niall O’Sullivan being there, who I know sometimes listens to this. If you’re listening Niall, large-up, also the Prince of Penge himself, Peter Hayhoe. Well worth checking Niall’s Substack, which is Rusty Niall. He also does a live-stream on Twitch I think. I know he recently made an existential Gameboy game, set in a supermarket, which was quite amusing. You can find that on his Rusty Nial Substack
So yep, come down 31st October, Pleasence Islington, there’s a link at the end of this. I’ve put together a little piece this week, never know, maybe I’ll drop it on here in a few weeks (if it goes well) – also, last large-up of this week goes to my good-pal Gary From Leeds (await the second coming), who’s been consulting on my anti-slam work! He is also a very skilled-writer; who writes about insects and also football and occasionally absurd existential stuff; on his amusingly named blog Insects and That. Links at the bottom, mate
So down to business. This week’s Young Unprofessional will be the penultimate one for a bit, so I can sit down, have a look back through it and see where I want to go next with it. There’s some more older stuff which I’ve found in the last week, which I’d like to put on here at somepoint. Anyway, this week Reece gets sent on a Time Management course at work, and is then inspired to document his working-day.
Enjoy
Don’t forget to subscribe and all that, and if you think a mate might like it, let ‘em know. Check the links at the bottom for other ways to support my work
Have a banging weekend
Peas and taters
Paul
LINKS
Anti-Slam @ Pleasence, Islington 31.10.23 T
https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/anti-slam
Paula Varjack – Writer and performance artist
http://www.paulavarjack.com/
Dan Simpson – poet and writer
https://www.dansimpsonpoet.co.uk/
Nial O’Sullivan – Rusty Niall
Gary W Hartley aka Gary From Leeds (await the second coming)
https://medium.com/insectsandthat
If you’re able to, these are ways you can support my work
THE SUBURBAN BOOK
My 1st book collection of stories and poems
Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy
2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray
https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy
STREAM TOAST IN THE MACHINE EP
https://paulcree.hearnow.com/toast-in-the-machine
BUY-ME-A-LAGER
Time Management
At the end of our last team-meeting, my supervisor Pria announced she was booking some of us onto some courses as part of our professional development; what that really meant was that she’d booked one of us onto one course, which was me and the course was Time Management; there was no other people mentioned on the list, and no other courses. I immediately deduced that this wasn’t about my punctuality, as I’m early, pretty much every day, or my sickness, as I’ve not gone sick, once, well, apart from that weekend where I went back to New Town and on the Sunday, met up with Gary and Big Del. Ended up on a bender, which ended up with me falling asleep on the train and ending up at the end of the line; somewhere on the Kent coast; had to kip at the station; never been so cold.
Besides the point, though. This Time Management thing was a comment on me as an employee, and whether or not I could manage my workload. Clearly not. I clocked Dianne look at me with a smile. Even Boring Keith had a grin on his face, which double-pissed me off, because not only does that boring prick never emit any sort of emotion, except when he’s talking Golf, Boring Keith works in accounts! He shouldn’t have been in our team-meeting, he was only grabbing his Golf magazine that he’d left in the meeting room; during working hours! I had a good mind to grass Boring Keith up to his line-manager for time-wasting; either that or take the train down to Purfleet, find his local Golf Club and take a shit in the 18th hole; then watch him pick the ball out; in the weird scissors-legs thing Golfers do when they bend down.
I didn’t mind Dianne laughing at me so much, because Dianne is fit, and any excuse to have any sort of communication with Dianne is a good one, even it was non-verbal and essentially her laughing at me. Pria made her announcement at the end, and then promptly shuffled out, eliminating any opportunity to discuss this mug-off in front of my teammates. I was humiliated.
But at the same time, I couldn’t escape the fact that it was a day out the office; and that in itself was probably worth the gross-disrespect of my supervisor and colleagues and the complete undermining of my professional abilities. She had a point, though, I’m shit at this job.
So I did the training, over in Bank somewhere. It was alright, started off quite well, took a lovely big dump in the toilets; very spacious and clean, even had hand cream available to moisturise with. I was enjoying it so much I ended up being five minutes late into the session, despite arriving early, which I suppose was ironic. At first it was quite interesting. Gave me some good ideas about organising my day, but then about an hour in I just got a bit overwhelmed with it all, and bored, too many handouts and diagrams. Just switched off, choosing instead to work on my old tag, Clue, that I shared with that dickhead Stuart Simmons. I’d not drawn it since I was about 14 when me and Gary graphed-up the carzis in the Littlewoods café, using one of those giant pencils that Stuart Simmons had bought back from his holiday to Weymouth.
However, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to spend one day this week writing down my activities, hour to hour. From there, I thought, maybe I could identify where I could be more focused with my use of time. Mate, I didn’t even need to go and do that melty course, must’ve cost the company a few hundred squid. Mugs. Not telling Pria that, though. Shouldn’t have mugged me off with it. So this was the results of my findings.
8.30 – 10
Arrived, said hello to security. Got in the lift and wasn’t paying attention again, so wound up going to the wrong floor. Didn’t get to my desk until 8.45 – said hello to Pria, nodded to a few other bods. Noticed Boring Keith sat at his desk reading his Golf Magazine, knowing full well at 8.59 he’ll log in. Swicthed my PC on, letting Pria know I was logging in, even though I had no intention of logging in yet. Went to the kitchen, made a tea. Chatted to Kemal about Chelsea and that was I soon to be going on a date with some teacher called Alice, but played it down like it was nothing. Like it was a regular thing. Put my tea on my desk, clicked on the mouse and pressed a key on my keyboard, for no other reason than letting Pria think I was ready to start work. Slipped-off to the carzy to curl one out, it was a good-one. Reappeared at my desk about 9.15. Finally logged in. Looked at my case-load spreadsheet, first customer to investigate was some geezer from Inverness, putting a claim in for a prang in a carpark. Decided it was pertinent to have a good-old-look on Google Maps at Inverness; never knew quite far north it was, it was like the final frontier, beyond that must’ve been the polar ice caps. Noted they had a Lidl next door to Sports Direct and a Trampolining Centre called Spring. Pertinent.
10 -11
Looked on BBC sport and checked the latest transfer news on Chelsea. About 10.20 I decided it was time for the carzi again. Got in there, didn’t even do anything, just sat on the toilet with the lid down, beatboxed a bit, imagined me and Alice on holiday in the South of France. Came out, made a cup of tea, made sure to offer Pria one. Walked passed Boring Keith’s desk, saw his Golf Magazine on top his in-tray, considered nicking it, hiding it, then leaving a series of post-it-come-ransom notes throughout the day. Came back and looked at another customer in the claims que.
11 – 12
Took myself a little break, went and stood outside where the smokers go. Don’t even smoke. Saw that nob Simon from Claims – Disputes chatting to some bird who works in the office above us. Sent Gary a text, just said he was a cunt. Usual stuff. He sent me one back, straight away, with one of those pixilated-numbers-pictures that took me a few minutes to realise it was a vagina. Gary said my mum sent it to him. Got back to my desk about 11.30 – logged back in again. Looked at another customer, this one was from Aylesford. Realised I didn’t know where Aylesford was either, so thought it pertinent to check this on Google Maps and enquire as to what kind of local-shops it had, and if so, what sort of juvenile entertainment facilities were on offer there. Turns out they had bowling alley with an arcade inside. Good to know.
12-1
Actually needed the toilet in this time, went in for a Pat Cash, all that tea. Walked in and Tim, one of the directors walked out of trap 2, and it fucking-stank, like he’d been eating dog-food or something. He knew that I knew, but he was stone face. Mumbled hello, made some small-talk about the weather whist Tim washed his hands. I was at the urinal, trying to have a piss, but the stage-freight had kicked-in, must be a hierarchy thing. Tim was taking a long time to wash his hands, must’ve been a messy one, but he was irritating me, he needed to go because I needed to piss. Nerves had got the better of me, no sound was being made of the piss hitting in the porcelain. I was rapidly running out of time before a geezer moves into that dangerous territory of another geezer realising you’re just standing there, with your wanger out and nothings happening. So I did what any self-respecting geezer lacking self-confidence would do, and pretend to do the shake-off, wash my hands and slipped out. That prick Tim was re-doing his tie or something. Wanker. I was now bursting. Got back to my desk, logged back in, looked at another customer then Pria came over and wanted to go over some other customer I’d previously looked at and query why I hadn’t noticed he made 38 claims in the last two weeks. All I could think about was a golden-Niagara falls, gushing onto Boring Keiths Purfleet golf links.
1-2
Lunchtime. Bopped into a nearby Starbucks and spent way to much money on lunch, eating some not very nice ciabatta or whatever it’s called, along with a Rockey Road which probably constituted about a good half an hour worth of my wages. In an act of retribution, I went in the disabled toilet and did a nice ‘Clue’ tag on the back on the door, using a marker-pen that I taxed from Boring Keith’s desk. In order to balance the aesthetically pleasing with the political, though, which I realised in that moment has always underlined my artistic practise, I wrote ‘Fuck Capitalism’ but not only did I spell it wrong, I felt it wasn’t quite having the desired effect, so I crossed it out and drew a dick and balls instead. There was 4 people queuing for the toilet when I came out. I put my headdown and pretended to look at my phone. At least they had some artwork to look at.
2-3
At this point my Time-Management was sublime, as I arrived back at my desk at 1.59 and by the time I logged in it was 2 o clock. Checked the spreadsheet and look at a another customer. 2.30 I wanted anther cup of tea but figured it was too close to lunchbreak for me to get out my seat again. I looked at my screen, pretending to be reading some client information, but really I was looking beyond my screen, at the blinds whilst simultaneously imagining me and Alice walking along the South Bank hand in hand, then going to the Trocadero to play Time Crises. I won of course. 2.45 I went for a tea. Saw Pete in in the kitchen, casually mentioned I was going on a date with this teacher called Alice but I played it down as if it was nothing.
3 – 4
Took a carzi break, went in Trap 1. Someone was in Trap 2, I could see some black shoes and could hear a bit of shuffling. I then hear a slap on the floor and a flush of a chain, I could just about make out the top corner of a Golf magazine. Got back to my desk about 3.25 – Pria weren’t around so I decided I’d go and make another tea. Saw Richard in there and causally mentioned that I was going on a date with this teacher called Alice, played it down though.
4 – 5
The home straight. The last hour and a half; had to really dig deep here. Looked at another customer but could barley focus. Ended up talking with Diane about Anynappa. Loved it.
5 - 5.30
Almost there. Contemplated going to the carzy again but Pria was glued to her desk, so I looked at another customer claim; this one for a key scratching, somewhere in Essex. Figured it would probably look the same as New Town anyway; so didn’t bother Googling it’s local amenities. 5.25 Priah comes over and tells me she just wanted to touch base with how my course went. Swimmingly I said, really useful. 5.31 I was out like a shot. Got in the lift, and just as it was about to desced, Boring Keith gets in, with his Golf Magazine under his arm; merrily on way his back to Purfleet. Dickhead. He asked me how the course went. Great I said and asked him when he was next going to the Golf range and what was it like when you pull the ball out of that 18th hole.
To conclude my findings, I’m doing fine. Didn’t need that course after-all.
Young UnProfessional - EP 5