Had lunch with main tool last week and he said that my "appointment" (i.e. associate tool) is supposed to start in May. Yes, that was five days ago. But there was no appointment letter no nothing, and already I had to assume my responsibilities and went to a meeting today in this new capacity. Only that I didn't go as associate tool, even though I was doing the job of associate tool, if you see what I mean.

Anyhouse, a bunch of other tools at the meeting, as usual, and most of them I recognize from other meethings. There was one woman whom I swear I had never seen her before. An elderly lady in a lavender coloured pant suit with a golden brooch on her lapel.

After the meeting, I had to go sit through my postgrad student's presentation. It was atrocious. I couldn't help but said something I shouldn't have said in front of everybody. Feelings of regret came as soon as I opened my gob but it was already too late. I had showed everyone in the room that I thought he was shit.

Still, my bad behaviour did not stop me from giving him a bit of a bollocking afterwards. He said he didn't sleep the night before for fear that he will not wake up in time this morning. So, the lack of sleep obviously made his brain mushy and he couldn't think straight. What kind of a lame ass excuse is this? I said to him. How old are you? Twelve?

At one point I thought he was going to cry - I can't really tell, he is one of those people who has a fixed grin on his face all the time, so it's hard to gauge if he is happy or sad or angry. Still, I didn't much like it the last time I made a student cry so I immediately changed tone and tried to be all positive as if everything is tra-la-la all of a sudden.

"It's now time to take stock, re-group, gather your strength and move forward!"
"You got nine chapters to write, if you write each one in three days, you will meet the deadline no sweat!"
"I have total faith in your abilities!" etc.

At the end of the day as I walked towards the carpark, lavender pantsuit lady spotted me from across the plaza and called out my name. She came over and started chatting to me as if we'd been friends forever. I had no clue who she is or what her name is or what she knew about me apart from my name but I played along as if I had all that information. This is the kind of thing you watch on Seinfeld or read about in other people's blogs but when it happens to you, it's not funny, at all just very frightening.