Barrister

I spent some considerable time last night seething. I love the word seethe, but I don't love seething. Especially when trying to sleep. It's not soothing, seething.

The reason for the seething was just one of many reasons I'm a supporter of trade unions (this doesn't necessarily mean being a supporter of Bob Crow, any more than saying you're a people person compels you to like Donald Rumsfeld). But you really shouldn't be able to fuck people over when it comes to jobs. A very good friend had been offered a temp job doing some clerking for a barrister (I think he's a barrister - I'm very hazy about this things. Apparently there's things called "laws" and stuff). Unfortunately she spent the entire weekend before her first day with a stomach bug that left her vomiting like a lawn sprinkler, aching in places that didn't ought to have ached, Mr Frodo, running a scary fever and being semi-comatose.

Come Monday morning, she got up, vomited again, made her sandwiches, vomited again, put on her jacket, fell on the floor for a while, then got up and went to work. After 400 yards she nearly collapsed in the street, so she phoned her boss to explain, was nearly sick over her phone, left him a message and staggered back to bed.

She kept calling to try and get hold of the barrister, but he didn't answer his phone. She called a mutual acquaintance who managed to get hold of him and see what the situation was.

He replied with a single message: "No longer required"

Now, I appreciate the frustrations of someone trying to do a job when someone helping them doesn't turn up, but anyone who isn't even prepared to listen when that someone tried their very best and just physically could not manage the journey is really just a spiteful cunt. He probably feels a lot better about his life now, grasping at the illusion of power in a vast and uncaring universe. That's nice. I'm sure he gets a warm glow. Hopefully he'll get so excited about it that he'll drink too much on his own in his kitchen, and run skipping happily into the street, where he'll slip on a discarded used condom, crack his head on the pavement and wake up hours later with all his fingers eaten by rats.

You can but dream.

Hmm. Actually, this probably puts me in the same camp as Bob Crow and Donald Rumsfeld.