Suze Appleton

Office politics

Here they come again. John really should check his appearance before he comes in to work in the morning. He's got dried egg on his tie today, Paul is going to give him stick for that, he always does. He thinks he's the office funny man although he's anything but. Even I can spot his jokes coming a mile off. And Jan thinks he's so stupid, I can tell. The way she rolls her eyes every time he opens his mouth, you'd think he'd have noticed by now but if he has, he takes no notice. I suppose he thinks that any attention is worth having. He'll never spot that she's having a relationship with Peter, the quiet one who always sits at the back. Of course he doesn't have to compete with the younger men, he's already caught the office glamour girl, but he treats her horribly. It beats me what she sees in him. I'd call him ugly myself, but it takes all sorts.

Now we're in business. Here's Steve to whip them into shape. Okay, business begins. This is where I watch their faces. They're so funny, some of them. The young guys doing their best to impress, the girls batting their eyelashes, all apart from Sarah. She's very intense, determined to prove she's as good as the guys. I love the way she nudges her glasses up her nose when she's getting excited. And I hope Damien gets a chance to show what he can do without fluffing it as usual. He has some really good ideas but nobody takes any notice of him, poor lad. From what I've seen of the talent that comes in and out of this meeting room, he's better than most. He definitely has the brains if not the style. Although I have got to say that it seems to be cheek rather than brains that gets you on in this company. Steve is only the boss because he married his secretary, who just handily happened to be JP's daughter. Mind you, if Steve had heard what JP thought of him he might have thought twice. But now they're looking for JP's successor Steve thinks it's going to be him. If only I could tell him what I heard when the board met in here the other day. The words 'snowball' and 'hell' were bandied about a lot in relation to him. Like I said, cheek can get you a long way inthis company but only so far. After that you've got to come up with the goods or they're ruthless, they'll prune you down to nothing. Like that girl that comes in to water plants. She's a bit heavy handed if you ask me, I didn't like how roughly she cleaned my leaves this week, and I hope she didn't mean it when she talked about clearing out the deadwood. Not that I can do much, I'm only the plant in the corner of the office.