Palpable Loss

If you’ve visited here for even the shortest period, you will be aware of my offsider, Smurf.

Smurf wasn’t born Smurf. He was issued that name by accident.

To get a horribly large work project done, I had been given extra head-count. My boss told me to hire the best-of-the-best to make it happen. I said I would find a suitable Smurf.

Calling someone smurf was a professional discourtesy to my HR department. Whenever I was in conversation with them I always called staff either Muppets, Pumpkins or Winged Monkeys. (Dependant on dysfunction.)

My boss said, “Stop that! I don’t want to front the legal department because you keep calling people horrible nicknames.”

I said, “Your standards are too high. But, I will do your bidding and find me a smurf. A proper one. And I will love him and pet him and call him smurf.”

My boss said something pithy about workplace bullying or whatever. I wasn’t listening ’cause of all the gasping and gurgling sounds he was making.

Besides, I already had someone in mind. I’d seen him about and suspected that he was a rugged individualist. Someone who could do-the-do. Someone with superior hacking skillz. Someone who was cheap.

First time I noticed him was in our canteen area. He was wearing a beaten up jacket with an original Star Wars logo, mid-length hair in an employment challenging artificial orange and the unmistakable stink of mischievous intelligence. I sounded out his boss who said, “Brilliant. Unstoppable. Strange smelling. You can’t have him.”

After four minutes in interview, I knew I had found my “Smurf“. More importantly, I had found someone who totally understood that calling him smurf would annoy the piss out of all the do-gooders. (To cement the rigorous screening process, a colleague’s four-year-old walked past him immediately after the interview, and on seeing his primary coloured shirt and tie, said, “You’re a Wiggle!”.)

A glorious union was born.

Smurfy’s been by my side, eight hours a day, five days a week, for three years now. To say that  our relationship rivals my relationship with Emergency Contact is to confuse the professional with the intimate… but still, with perseverance, I reckon I can get Emergency Contact into the sack as well. At least he remains one of my greatest friends.

In our ‘Outside Special Circumstance’ group, nothing that hath been wrought could be done without the intelligence, patience, humour and drive of Smurfy.

Nothing.

The entire company now whispers the name ‘Smurf‘… not as a Grey Area point of mischief, but to invoke a larger power; in times of need.

I am deeply sad to say that Smurfy goes away soon. He’s going to his wife-to-be, overseas. I wish the best of all things for Smurf and his Smurfette.

I hope that he and his gal return soon.… and that he and I get back to the business of making stuff. Especially fun.

Thank you JD (Smurf).

Travel well.

NP (A Grey Area)