Reverse Perkology

SJ and I must have reputations as workaholics who don't, in fact, spend most of the week working from home because Head Office sent us both an expensive BlackBerry - hereafter "Strawberry" because the notion of paying more to recieve email on-the-go and outside of work hours when I'm really not that committed and I have a phone for emergencies is ridiculous to me. (Breathe.)

The week they arrived we got a memo to go easy on the expenses* for a while. Sweet irony. Boss Man is all up into being in touch all the time (though he is paid to feel that way) and he got jealous at my shiny new slice of technology compared to his black plastic brick. I told him he could put it on the desk near me in meetings and I'd make it look like mine belonged to him. He threw me out.

I've identified a colleague who goes to more meetings than me and I'm trying to pass the Strawberry off on her so I don't have to carry it around. I'll offer to reconfigure it for her and then work out how to do that.

For no particular reason other than she could, HK applied for membership at a cash-and-carry outlet for the whole office and eight cards arrived by return of post. They must need the business! But I need to go there and buy things within four weeks to activate my memberhsip, making it less of a perk and more of an unwanted bill.

*The last thing I want is to start a rumour that U.D.E. is in trouble and I'm some kind of corporate jinx. Just last week my office achieved its annual operating target with three months of selling still to do. We're tightening our belts to ensure we have a profitable year, which is the kind of forward thinking my last employer could have benefitted from (and that's so easy to say in full hindsight).