Out Of Office Assistant

There’s a reason that the acronym for the Out Of Office Assistant is OOOA. Apart from the fact that it is just a fact

OOOA is the noise I make whenever I write a “professional” little note on my email such as “Party Spanner is currently out of the office on annual leave. Please contact the office on 01234 5678910 with any urgent queries. Kind Regards”

OOO AHHHHHHH

I usually sing a bit as I’m doing it as well. Usually to this tune:

I usually change the words to “OOh AAH, Office Assistant, OOH AAH take my emails, OOH AHH, Cos I’m not going to be here, YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SEARCHING FOR!”

This is why I don’t have a proper job doing Important Stuff.

Dog Days at work

I woke up late this morning. I hate it when I do that, it throws me off course for the whole day…

Except it didn’t today because when I got to work, my boss had brought his dog to the office.

HOORAY!

WHO'S THE BOY?! WHO IS THE BOY?!!!!?

I love it when Digby comes to work. He’s the friendliest, most cuddliest, most sweetest, most LOVELIEST mental dog in the WHOLE WORLD; and when he comes to work I get to fuss him and stroke his beautifully soft ears and say things like “Whatchooo doing? eh? Diggs? WHATCHOO DOING THEN?” *happy sigh*

I am “training” at the moment for the Race For Life, which means I am spending every lunch trudging around the local green space like some kind of Janet Street Porter wannabe, but today I got to take Digby! DOUBLE HOORAY!

So, Digby jumped into the boot of my car “CLEVER DOG, aren’t you a clever dog then? WHO’S A CLEVER DOG THEN…GOOD DOG!” and we drove to the green space (I say “we” but it was mostly me; Digby just sat in the boot gazing at me mournfully in the rear view mirror)

I didn’t have a lead and I couldn’t trust that Digby wouldn’t think…”ROWF! CARS, FRIEND? ROWF? *SPLAT*”…and he proved me right when I opened the car boot and he went snooker-loopy in the car park. I somehow managed to get across the car park and onto the grass without us both ending up as a red smear on the road and Digby…Well, this is what Digby did:

GRASS!

DIFFERENT SMELL OVER HERE! LOOK! SMELL IT!

SMELL IT! IT'S GRASS AND DOG PISS!

TAKE THAT! SO CALLED OTHER DOG'S PEE SMELL!

These photo’s were taken in…ooo, about 40 seconds, before he spotted another dog in the distance and he was OFF. He ate up 200 metres in seconds, it seemed that he bounced about half of it, and the dog at the end of his run just stood, rooted to the spot, with his little eyes growing bigger and bigger. I shouted in vain, and then started giving chase. BIG MISTAKE. HUGE (uh, Yeah, OK, settle down there, Julia Roberts)

Digby now thinks that the game is “Car Park Death” and he bounds back onto the car park tarmac like an Olympic sprinter breaking the tape at the end of the race.

I should maybe point out at this juncture that I haven’t walked a dog since my old dog died in 1996. I’m not a total Dog Walking Virgin – more of a Born Again one.

The owner of the dog shouted “Stand still and call him to you”

So I screeched: “DIIIIGBY!!!!”  I think Digby heard “RUN LIKE THE WIND! RUN INTO THE PATH OF A CAR! ‘TIS A NOBLE DEATH!” and just carried on bouncing and whirling and leaping.

Suddenly, I heard a deep, loud, growly voice say “DIGBY! GET HERE NOW!”  and Digby’s ears finally pricked up and he raced over to me…It was then that I reclaimed my Dog Walking Voice and remembered that Dogs are all sexist bastards who only respond to gruff male-type voices. All Dogs are Jeremy Clarkson.

The owner of the cowering dog, nodded approvingly and I said “He doesn’t belong to me…he is my boss’s dog” as if I had been forced to take my Evil Overlord’s canine out for a walk in my lunch hour, and we skittered off towards a quiet towpath by the river.

It was nice by the towpath, there were no other dogs and Digby could indulge himself in a little light sniffing without the distraction of other dogs or people or benches or anything else that might take his attention momentarily away from the sniffing.

He's in there somewhere

And we walked and sniffed and took photos and chatted, we were having an all round good time.

WE HAVING FUN!

Until the towpath ended and we were back onto a large open field. A large open field with other dogs running around. Oh God!

Digby bounded off in the direction of the two closest candidates for a bit of Bum Sniff Speed Dating and I shouted in a Loud Gruff Man-Voice and the owners of the other dogs started running toward their evil dogs…and it was at this point that I thought “I’m probably going to lose my job”

The two horrible dogs set upon Digby, and as he tried to get away from them, the more they snarled and bit. He finally broke free and came running over to me and I checked him over and he had been bitten on the ear! That lovely velvet ear had a little cut on it! And I suddenly felt all Daily Mail and railed inwardly about bloody ASBO dogs and the bloody idiots who…didn’t keep their dogs on a lead…and then I looked at myself and really felt like a Daily Mail reader.

So, we hurried back to the car, Digby stayed nice and close the rest of the way back to the car, and he only went and smelled one other dog’s bum and he did that with my permission, and the permission of the dog owner and , maybe more importantly, the actual dog herself.

As I shut the boot of the car, and started the engine, I noticed that we had only been gone for twenty minutes.

We got back to the office, I checked his ear again and showed the Evil Overlord, who told me he’s be taking the vet’s bills out of my wages. (I think he was joking, but we’ll see) and I got back to work.

This is what Digby did

"BAD DOGS BIT ME AND I SNIFFED SOME HOT DOGGIE ARSE"

The day wore on, I fed Digby some peas fresh from the pod (you can read about my weird POD ADDICTION here, but I swear that I haven’t made this bit up in order to post a link to a former post. I really DID have pea pods at work today, and I really DID feed them to the dog) and we had an important chat about Who the boy is? and also Who is the BEST dog in the world?

We both agreed it was him.

And then it was five O’Clock and time for me to go home. Digby was OK with it, even though he stared at me as I got in my car and drove away

She's Leaving...I can't believe it's true...

And that is the end of the story of me and Digby and our day at work today.