Thumbers. Office pests.

I work in an office. A run of the mill office complete with pens, desks, seats, monitors and things that you would and could find in any office you cared to perhaps break into.

I have worked in offices since around 1999, and I daresay I shall probably be working in one when I finally have to retire on medical grounds (I'm hoping for a gammy leg rather than something cancerous).

Now there are things that make office work grand - air conditioning when it's hot, the ability to legitimately require internet access at all times, and the requirement to purchase new "smart" shoes every 6 months that otherwise you would not have.

Drawbacks; there are many. And these are usually centred around my inability to deal with people on a basic human level. People tend to annoy me. In fact I would go so far as to say the only person who doesn't annoy me at some level and at some point is me. I accept my foibles and failings without question and never tell myself off. I get around bad decisions and foolhardy choices by describing them to myself as part of a "learning curve". Therefore I never fall out with myself or have to secretly harbor a grudge against me. I'll never leave me.

Now I can deal with people annoying me - I know I am inpatient and have a feeling that I could always do everything better, however there are traits that are averages in office colleagues that make me want to purchase a hunting rifle and climb onto the roof of the house opposite to methodically pick them off.

1. Thumbers.

Thumbers cause me distress, mental anguish and they make me want to invent lasers for my eyes so that I can burn them with bespectacled stares. Thumbers insist on transporting that cup of hot office beverage to you that they have just (kindly) made by holding the cup handle in the traditional and pre-approved way, but to steady the delivery of multiple brews to the different desks they must visit, they subconsciously decide to use the thumb of their hand to steady the rim of your cup as it is placed on your ironic/old fashioned/dirty desk place mat thing. Part of their body - the same body that at some point that day has wiped their poo bum or washed their genitalia in the bath has just been at best rubbed and on a few occasions dumped either in my brew or around the rim of your cup. Perfectly usable cup of scorchy hot juice is now useless.

2. Flatulence.

When I fart at work it's funny and cute, and the smell is amusing to me. When you fart it's disgusting and foul and I'm reminded that the smell in my nostril must be some kind of stink particle that has originally emanated from inside your body and ultimately from your shit. In addition the actual smell has undertones of food that I haven't been party to eating, and that makes me kind of jealous.

3. Eye contact.

Everyone tells you that eye contact is of maximum importance and that you should do it all the time - never blink or look away even in a force 10 gale when someone empties a bag of flour face level in front of you.

Problem is, as soon as I am locked in conversation with someone I start thinking about eye contact and how I must maintain it, then this starts to freak me out and I begin worrying that I'm only looking at one of their eyes and that it's impossible for me to look at both at once without looking mental, then I worry that I'm looking at the wrong one or that the other person is wondering why I am staring at only one of their eyes. At this point I usually switch attention to the other eye, but then wonder if they detected my subtle change and are wondering why I broke gaze. At this point I'm not concentrating on what they are saying so I start to worry that at the precise moment I switched eyes they probably said something slightly contentious that they wanted to gauge my feedback on, and have taken my eye gaze switch as a prompt of hatred or disagreement. All in all, eyes are trouble, and I now realise why David Blunkett made it so far up the political ladder - no one fucked with his eyes.

4. Where is my pen?

My pen, I know for a FACT, never gets moved by me. It's never more than 3 metres away from me at any one time during a working day yet on occasion it goes AWOL only to be found 15 minutes later under my keyboard or tray or something. I know for sure that this is another member of staff trying to screw with my mind. DON'T TOUCH MY PEN. If you ever see another member of staff with your pen, even months after it originally went missing, then you feel a primal urge to maim them and reclaim your bounty (the pen I mean, not a sickly sweet coconut chocolate bar that leaves coconut shrapnel betwixt gums and teeth for hours afterwards).