Spread your wings

Like a butterfly, Donna is emerging from her chrysalis and starting to look halfway decent. Fake tan is being applied at a sensible level so she looks less satsuma and more sun kissed. Make up's looking way better and she's actually started applying for beauty therapy courses. The only sticking point is the hair but we've found a good hairdresser and the bleach blonde hell should be banished soon. It's like a makeover show happening live in front of me.

I think I might actually miss Donna when she spreads her wings and flies off into the sunset. The way she asks me questions and cocks her head to one side when I answer is quite cute. But leave she must. I'm not sure when this is going to be as Donna is still very frightened of telling her mother she's ditching the City life for the world of beauty. I hope I've got a good hiding place when the shit hits, because I know I'll get the blame.

I have been for a couple of drinks with Matthieu, the French junior partner, and he's very nice. I made sure that Donna and a few others came along so that it doesn't look like a date- I don't date colleagues from assignments as a rule just in case I want to come back- so he doesn't get the wrong idea. Or maybe it would be the right one- he's fucking hot. I'm not sure how I feel about him though. Donna was making cow eyes at him all night but the transformation hasn't been that effective. Unless Matthieu is blinded and loses his memory in a terrible accident- along with the ability to feel, smell and taste- I doubt he'll be getting busy with her, no matter how long her tongue hangs out at the thought of it.

My agent rang yesterday and asked if I was happy in this job and you know what I actually am. She said something ridiculous like "Oh darling you can't be a temp forever, isn't there something else you'd like to try? A permanent job maybe?" Does she think I want to make a career out of this? Be stuck on a 12 month contract with conditions like giving 2 months notice if I want to quit and being paid monthly. She's mental. What other job could I bail out of if I decided I hated it? Of course I don't want to be a receptionist forever, but that's kind of the point of temping.

The problematic PA

Things are going slowly but surely with my new protegee. Donna is lapping up my supercool fashion and beauty advice and is now fully committed to becoming a beautician. She's wearing decent make-up, has splurged on the MAC and Benefit counters and is already dressing a bit better. She has yet to tell her mum of her plans but I'm priming her to tell all within the next few weeks. Jeannie's not been in the best of moods this week and has been stomping about the place like a pit bull with a twisted bollock, so Donna needs to tread carefully.

I got my first telling off the other day for connection a client through to a lawyer who is avoiding her calls. She's refusing to settle her bill but keeps calling for advice etc anyway. She sounded genuinely upset so I connected her to the guy's PA who went fucking nuts at me. She's the type that needs to dress you down in person so within two minutes of me connecting the call, she was in reception stinking of fags and Anais Anais with her eyes boring into me. "Which one of you stupid tarts put Mrs X through to Colin's office?" she screamed. Donna was halfway through a chicken sandwich and couldn't respond so I smiled and said "I think I'm the stupid tart you're looking for." She then railed at me for a few minutes about how Mrs X was never to be connected and what an idiot I was and best of all how she'd wasted 10 whole minutes of her time trying to get rid of the woman off the phone.

I didn't want to lose my job so I had to be calm but this PA's lawyer isn't that important and I reckon the bitch can't handle her job anyway so I hit her with a scale 4 glare and calmly smiled. Glancing at my monitor which tells me what calls have come in when and where they went, I said "That call came in at 14.50 and was transferred to you within a minute. As you appeared in front of me I had just ended a different call, this was at 14.53. It is now 14.59, so unless you have a Tardis or live in an alternate reality, you didn't spend 10 minutes on the phone to this enquirer. In fact, you seem to have spent the majority of this mythical 10 minutes shouting at me for doing something I hadn't been told not to do. I have to treat all enquirers to the company with respect and carry out their request unless otherwise instructed. I'll now note that Colin's PA doesn't have time to take Mrs X's calls. Now, if your time is as precious as you say it is, you'd better back to your desk in case any more calls come through for Colin that you're too busy to answer." Her mouth flapped up and down like a goldfish for a few seconds and then she turned on her heels and got in the lift. As a mark of respect, Donna put her sandwich down and said "Well done." She then finished the rest of it in one mouthful.

So far I've had no comeback and the PA has been scurrying past my desk so fast you'd think she'd been shot out of a canon. I sense it's not the end of the matter but I'll get Donna to lie and say she saw the PA threaten me if a stink arises.

My new project

I couldn't help but notice that there were hardly any clients or visitors booked to come in this afternoon as I had a look at the schedule. Donna- sweaty from her usual lunchtime session in the gym- tells me it's due to the world cup football match today. It starts at 5 but the lawyers will probably have been getting pissed since lunchtime and will be watching the game on the huuuge screen in one of the boardrooms from kick-off. I was quite shocked by this- I mean I've worked with some skivers in my time but lawyers are usually more interested in charging the hourly rate rather than watching a football match. Donna tells me they'll bill for this anyway and call it research or something. All the clients are so stupidly rich they probably won't care anyway so I guess it's karma- too much cash and too thick to keep track of it, you deserve to be relieved of it in my book.

Donna and I have had a breakthrough. She confided in me the other day that her actual dream is to be a beautician- the mind fucking boggles, even a burns victim would have second thoughts about the ability of this girl to make anyone look like hot stuff- but her mum evil Jeannie has made her get this proper job and she's been stuck here for 3 years wishing she was applying lipstick or mixing foundation. Well, some old fucker once said divide and rule is the best way forward so rather than alienate Donna I'm going to be her mentor. I'm going to give her what she's never had- no, not cosmetic surgery, even better- a bit of encouragement. I've already been scouring the internet for courses she could do and I've brought in a few samples for her to try from a beauty therapist friend of mine. I'm going to do my best to empower my little charge so that eventually she'll be strong enough to stand up to the evil Jeannius and go for her dreams. And THEN, I'll be top Receptionista- until I get bored anyway.

It feels very weird to be doing something nice for a rival- I think it's a nice feeling, I'm not sure. Anything that's sticks one in Jeannie's bloodshot eye has got to be worth a try.

Hot hot hot

It's very very very hot in London today- feels like more than 30 degrees- and so everybody's walking round with pink faces. Donna's no exception. She was at a barbecue on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and in between putting away ten tonnes of the cheapest frozen burgers she could find, she managed to bag herself a new man and in great detail has been telling me about the revolting sex she's been having. I'm no prude, but just seeing Donna in short sleeves makes me crave the solace of a psychiatric ward so imagining her naked is not what I need right now- or ever.

So much for these ultra glam offices- the air conditioning is fucked and so I've been dousing myself in Magicool to avoid matching Donna's beetroot red chops. It's at times like this when you wish you didn't have to dress up all the time. The last thing I want to do on hot days is cram my feet into heels but any Receptionista worth her salt knows that the haughty authority you need when you're manning the desk and meeting clients can't be achieved in flat shoes.

One amusing thing about being on the desk today has been watching people walk in expecting the lobby to be air conditioned. The look of horror on their faces as they step into this oven has been priceless. You can almost see them sweat out their spines as they stagger up to the desk.

Keeping mum

And so Donna's raison d'etre becomes clear- her mum works here. As somebody commented on the blog the other day "The corporate empire would crumble if it weren't for the mortar of nepotism" and it seems it's true. Fuck.

Donna's mum is a thoroughly nasty piece of work called Jeanette or Jeannie to her friends- i.e. nobody. She's tasteless, tattooed and tedious and I'm shocked that she even got a job here. She's obviously been here for years and works –surprise- in personnel. She's too disagreeable for words, so let's not waste any more on her here. All I'll say is that it's obvious where Donna got her lack of brains, class or beauty. She's her mama's daughter, alright. They'd make magnificent gargoyles.

Four days in and I've spotted my Office God. In every job I get, I find a new victim for one of my hopeless and usually temporary crushes. By being surrounded by munters all day, you suddenly begin to find the oddest men appealing. Our lucky contestant this time on Blind Date is called Matthieu and oui, oui, oui, he's French. He looks very French but in a good way and to be honest the accent had me before I even looked up from my desk to see those dark eyes glinting at me. He's a junior partner and specialises in entertainment law which sounds exciting but in reality is negotiating crap like how big Jordan's allowed to have her tits- well not quite but it's all very mundane or so he was telling me. He's quite fit but not as gorgeous as I'm giving him credit for. I saw a better looking guy behind the fag counter at Tesco last night. What Matthieu does know how to do is dress. Suit dry-cleaned to perfection, crisp white shirts and understated, expensive ties. Nice one.

He also appears to be Donna's Achilles Heel- she practically slipped off her seat when he came over to say hi- so this could be my 'in' to getting her off the desk. Mind you, while Jeannie the bulldog is around looking she's trying to shit out a tampax wrapped in razor blades, I'm going to have to watch my step.

A little competition

Not that anybody reads this anyway, but sorry for the lack of updates. The new assignment is quite intense, so it's taking me longer to settle into my usually daily routine of bidding for court shoes on eBay, getting my groceries online and booking flights for friends who can't be arsed surfing the world wide web.

This assignment is probably in my top 10 already for sheer swankiness alone. I'm sitting at a lovely desk in the hugest of huge lobbies. It's all marble, as these places tend to be, but with lots of glass and mirrors, too. Because it's so sucking sunny at the moment, the countless reflections off the white surfaces make me feel as if I'm sitting surrounded by snow, but it's better than my last job- and my chair is brand new and lump free. Yes!

My supervisor is female, which is a bit of a drag, but she seems OK so far. The only drawback to my position is that I'm not the only receptionist. I share my colossal desk for some of the day with Donna. Donna is one of those people you always get in an office but they're usually nowhere near me so my exposure to them is brief. Donna is in her early 20s, is from Essex and is a casual racist who, from what I can gather, does nothing but argue with her neighbours because they look at her dog the wrong way/ object to the endless parties she has/ complain about her smoking dope in the street. She's a real treat and I am mystified as to what she's doing here. She must have sucked some serious cock to get here because this is a classy joint and despite the fact that most of the City is overrun with coarse, ugly Essex types, the few ladies I've seen stepping out when the lift doors ping seem pretty respectable. Who has hired this troll?

My strategy is to watch silently for a few days and then use my usual psychological warfare to get her out of my way. This desk is not big enough for the both of us.