Irritable Male Syndrome

OK I going to admit it, come out of the closet, bare my soul to the world, I think I’m suffering from Irritable Male Syndrome – there I’ve said it, happy now? It seems nowadays that the smallest thing can make me irritable. It’s like if Kylie was lying there, naked, on my bed, covered in chocolate sauce, I’d be ‘o Kylie, now you’re dripping on the quilt cover, stop writhing around, I only changed them last week – I think’! See, where Irritable Bowel Syndrome can have the effect of not releasing anything, Irritable Male Syndrome means one has to vent one’s spleen and it all comes out!

Take yesterday for instance, I had to go into town (to the bank) it was a nice crisp spring day here in Plymouth, the sky was blue, the sun was shining – I needed a sandwich, so I decided to repeat my earlier ‘Subway’ experience. I went into the shop and ordered their veggie option, I asked a question about it and the girl was sarcastic to me, like I was some no brain who couldn’t understand the pictorial menu on the wall. So of course I remonstrated with her and reminded her that all I wanted to do was buy a sandwich and I didn’t need the sarcastic wit of somebody who thinks being able to cut a bread roll in half will look good on her CV. And I got irritated. Even more so when I went along the line and noticed that the woman serving the meat, was, after smearing the meat onto the roll, diving her hands into the various boxes of salad thus cross contaminating them with every thing from the black death to animal fat (eeyuuu). By this time I was truly irritated. So I asked for the manager. He/she was out on lunch and if that’s not some sort of sign, when the managers go out for lunch and not eat in, I don’t know what is.

Now take the wife….no skip that

But let’s talk about teenage boys, why o why o why o why can they not ever flush the toilet after taking a wiz. I’m sure it’s not some sort of water saving campaign they are on, lets get to it, it’s just plain laziness isn’t it? They cannot be bothered after pointing percy to reach out 6 inches and flush the goddam toilet, how many times have I told them – its irritating.

There’s a million and one things about work that’s gets one’s gander up but that’s par for the course I guess. People say well move jobs if you get so irritated, but moving jobs just changes the nature of the irritations. There’s still going to be those annoying people who can’t do the simplest things right which makes your job ten times more difficult. And of course there’s the technology.

Take this laptop I’m working with, yes folks I have a laptop not a desktop because I am mobile and need to work on the run – hah! Last year, not six months ago I had a lovely Toshiba laptop, it was my friend, it worked, and nothing ever went wrong. Then the institution I worked for decided to have all their laptops provided by a contractor on a lease.

Lets get things into context here, before I become irritated just writing about my computer. On Sunday I went to a car boot sale. While I was there I bought my 6 year old daughter a Vtech (childs) laptop for £3. It’s great, it works, it’s more reliable than this heap of black plastic sat in front of me. My computer crashes, hangs up, takes for ever to load, isn’t it strange now how we can even get irritated if a computer takes five nanoseconds longer to load that your old one? I want to throw it out the window – but I can’t I’d get the sack, the problem is even if I were to get it ‘stolen’ it would be replaced with a similar piece of junk as per the spec of the contract.

I’m sure being irritated all the time is not good for ones health and perhaps I should do tai chi or something, but doesn’t it make you sick seeing all those goody goody two shoes doing Bruce Lee moves in slow motion, reminding you what an unhealthy layabout your really are and anyway what’s the good of it being in slow motion? If I was a mugger, I’d have their handbag and be 300 meters away before they got into the ‘heron’ or ‘snake’ posture.

I even irritate myself. And that’s not good is it?