Fear not my readers (or reader, I fear I have only one reader, prove me wrong, g'wan!) I'm back. Apologies for not posting in a few days, but you know people to see, money to make - BOOM! BAM! BOOYAKA! Yes there are just some of the terms you're likely to hear from the WW's in The Fish Tank.  The WWs , I hear you ask? The Willy Wavers. Willy Wavers are usually early 30s males, working in a tankard environment, usually with a goal to make money. The greater the money the bigger the wave. The greater the wave...well, who knows, I'm a non-tank dater myself!!

Anyway, back to my Willy Wavers. I (perhaps not so) fondly refer to the gents I work with as Willy Wavers. Their success is never about who landed the biggest deal or who made the most money. No, no, their success is based on who can shout the loudest, waving their willy to cover the greatest area. Come on, you know them... "Batman! (cos they always have super-hero nicknames) 250K, Starfish Enterprises. In the bag! BOOM!"  "SuperTed (cos there's always one). Sea Horses Inc, riiiiidin' home. 5 big figures! BAM!" I've had to stop myself from standing up, grabbing my "fabulous knockers dahling" and shouting "Total biatch on the phone, tried to tell me how to do my job, cut her in two with my acerbic, sarcastic tongue - MIAAAOOOOW!" 

But time - and familiarity - breaks you down and I'm now there, the sole female fish thinking "Boys, boys, can you not just buy a Toyota Celica and hit on the 24 year old like any self respecting mid 30s gent...and put that periwinkle away!!"

Rain has returned. Now I’m not one of those people who talks incessantly about the rain. “Oh! There was our summer…Awful weather…4 inches due, place will flood again…Rain, sure what would you expect in this country…Oh my God it’s raining!!!” OK so the last one might be a bit me. 

Anyway, generally I’m not that bothered as I’ve come to expect a drop or two over my 30 something years.  But God, when it comes to dressing for the rain and battling the elements , I lose all patience. This morning I woke up, dragged myself out of bed and got ready for the day. I mindlessly pulled the black suit from the dry cleaning bag and drew the blinds…rain!  With only 30 mins to walk to work, stop for coffee, hit the loos and make self semi respectable again, I thought “F__k it, it’ll be grand”, tucked the back of my too long trousers into my socks, pulled on the ol’ Converse, rolled my hair into a hat and took to the well beaten path to The Tank. Half way through the Eagles Take it Easy I realised that there was something funny going on around the ankle of my trousers. A bird shat on me! I shat you not!!! This was probably the first time in two weeks (since I left suits in to dry cleaners) that I looked professional and now a bird shat on me. Bird shit is good luck, my arse!!!  Sooooo p*ssed off!  I made a detour to Tesco on the way and picked up a jumbo pack of baby wipes. If baby wipes work on baby shit, they’ll work on bird shit. However you’d be amazed at the dodgy looks you get walking into the ladies with a jumbo pack of baby wipes first thing in the morning! Like seriously what do they think I’m up to?!  Hiding a baby behind the bowl? Changing myself?! 

I met yer man Jim from the concrete block in the midlands at the lift later “Ah, you’re dressed!” he said. Yeah yeah I know he knew what he meant, I knew what he meant, but the four work colleagues waiting for the lift did not know what he meant! These people know me by name, but not my reputation. I went puce of course, which screams “Jim saw Nemo naked. What the….” And tried to laugh it off in that “Oh now!” kinda way…Baby wipes to the toilets this morning, surprised you’re not naked comments this evening. Oh I’m going all the way to the top!

I'm tired and bleu today. It was a long day of muffling yawns, keeping eyes open, feigning interest and enthusiasm...at in between trying to make some money. I spent most of the day getting a customer update from my new boss. So I had to sit with him as he went through all the customers who were now mine, all mine!  At one point he said "So, howya gettin' on. Do you like it?"  "Do I like it? Like what? The two geriatics I had screaming down the phone last week as no one would listen to them (uh kinda hard not to when you're screaming at me!)? The guy who I spoke to 7 times in 12 minutes as he asked me if Shane was off the phone yet as he was afraid I wouldn't pass the message on? The meeting we had yesterday about the meeting and the briefing update? The work colleague who keeps asking if I have a second when I've a sandwich stuffed in my mouth?  The gazillion spreadsheets which all contradict each other? My new work colleague who I'm going to a meeting with on Monday who won't call me back to say if I'm going with him or not?  The man who refuses to talk to me cos I'm a female fish? The endless questions from "management" about the performance of this fish, that customer, this area, that territory? Or the fact that I've spent the last hour trying to keep my eyes open while listening to you rabbit on, while eyeing up the window, wondering if you'd notice if I jumped?  Yeah man, I'm loving it. Livin' the dream!"  Of course I just turned and said "Oh yeah, it's great!"

I had my first session with Normal PT this evening. Was very excited at the prospect of getting back in the training zone, losing weight, developing muscles, getting stronger.  I was hoppin’ around the living room like Rocky Balboa *fist pump*!  I wore my trimmest pants, my freshest 1000 mile socks and the top which contained me knockers the best.  I needn’t have bothered…or he could have at least told me they had mirrors everywhere. Feckin’ brothel wouldn’t have as many. Everywhere I looked were the rolls of fat that my training outfit didn’t manage to cover, never mind contain!  

Anyway, it seems I have to lose a grand 6.5 inches off my waist. 6.5!!!! I know! Over half a foot!  And that’s before I add the inches to shave off my neck, bicep, hips, back and chest.  It seems no matter how hard I try, they all tell me “You’ll only lose a very small amount from your chest”…Guess it beats them saying “Get over yourself Nemo; tits are for life, not just Saturday night!”  Ya so I have about 2 feet of fat to lose but sure it’s all grand, that’s what I’m there for and I’ll be a shtick by Autumn (late Autumn!)  I even enjoyed the stretching at the end…you’d be amazed how much more concentrated you are on the stretch when you’re not trying to shift Woodie’s Wood Pecker away from your hamstring!  No, I like Normal PT. I think this could work for me, I’ll even go back for a second session!

I have a dream…of a three storey over basement house on Pembroke/Waterloo/Haddington Road.  I just love the idea of maybe buying it already in overcharged, underserviced, self-contained units, living in one as I do them up and evict tenant one by one. Don’t go all moral on me, this is my dream!  In my dream they will be evicted from mine and walk straight into another one at 70% the rent.  Anyway, then I’ll have this really cool house in a slightly shabby chic part of town. Wellington Road, Merrion Road, Strand Road, Sandymount, they all too have lovely three storey over basement but I feel I’m missing some vital accessories on those roads – a husband, a child, a Bugaboo, a Range Rover, a portfolio of investments, you know yourself!  

So I’ve decided the shabby chic part of town will work better for me. When it’s all done up, I’ll then meet the man of my dreams. F__ked if I know where as I’ll have no money to go anywhere, maybe he’ll do some work on the house, but then I’d be paying him and that could blur the lines and then I might feel like I’m paying him to be my husband, maybe he’ll fall from the sky like bird shit!  Oh it doesn’t matter…so I have my husband and well with such a cool house and ridey man, there is one gift I can give him over anyone else, yes the gift of life - a child…from my aged ovaries! Because did you know, that according to Gloss magazine last week, who was quoting some fertility guru, at 35 your reproductive organs are considered old! Old! Well thank you very much Gloss/fertility guru/the world. As if the developing jowls, grey hairs, inability to suffer a hangover, scowls from TopShop child sales assistants, weren’t all enough of a reminder, it’s good to know I can now add ovaries to the list!  They went on to say that they often wonder why couples wait so long to approach them when having fertility problems. Let’s be honest, when a 38 year old woman goes into the clinic to look for help, it’s not like she’s been smugly married since 25 and thinks “Mmm, I think I’ll wait til 37 to have a baby, woopsie my ovaries are old!” Sometimes life just happens like that. 

When I was 12 I had to write a story of where I’d be in 10 years’ time. I said married with two children, working as a teacher, living in Manchester, married to Lee Sharpe. By the time I got to 22 I realised Lee Sharpe was probably not going to head out ‘of a Saturday’ to Coppers, I didn’t want to speak like one of the Gallaghers and I didn’t think babies were for me either.  Fast forward another 10 years “or so” and I probably would find Lee Sharpe in Coppers (if my ovaries aren’t too old to get in!), Manchester’s got great shopping and well on the babies thing, I’d kinda like for me to be making that decision and not my bloody aging, sorry AGED, ovaries!

Perspective! This word is soooo overused and no more than in The Fish Tank. “From a strategic perspective…from a customer perspective…from a global perspective…from a front office perspective…from a management perspective” But never “from my perspective”. The word is banned from my vocabulary. I’d rather use three words and regularly go out of my way and use "point of view". Well from a grammatical point of view you all need to broaden your vocabulary and maybe take an English class!!

My work colleagues are starting to metamorphis into soap characters!  I can no longer watch Fair City (we’ll address the fact I watch it at all another day!) without feeling like I’m back in the tank every time Zumo Bishop rasps his way through a scene…and now Eastenders is ruined too. Max Branning has abandoned the car lot and is now working in the Fish Tank.

Just back from a night away with one of the girls. We picked this random hotel in the middle of a housing estate in a midlands town, which had a bargain deal going on. You know the type of hotel, the one that’s advertised as a castle / country home / estate. Ah yes, there is an estate with this hotel, a housing estate of 542 3-bed semis, which in fairness do look spacious, close to numerous amenities and with a view…of the concrete block that is the hotel. Anyway, I didn’t give a shit, took the day off work, ran 5 miles in the morning and rocked on down to the hotel all set for a girly weekend of body scrubs, salad lunches wine, patting ourselves on the back for only eating half of the chips and cackling in the residents bar at 11.30 at night!  We arrived, checked in and I had my dreamed of Caesar salad with three glasses of wine. Needless to say this food diary to be returned to the new PT will read chicken salad dressing on the side, 0.5L water, rather than chicken Caesar salad with bacon and croutons, half the dressing on the side, 3 x white wine, 0.5L water. The lounge was amok with golfers, men around my Dad’s age, just in from the 18 holes, pint of the black stuff and scrutinising the shot on the 12^th by the water.  Anyway, going back to my trip to the concrete block in the midlands, myself and my buddy were there in the lounge, being the very girls we kinda slightly sneered about three years ago. We’re dissecting the shocking cost of weddings (she’s to be wed soon), gasping at the price of photographers, convincing ourselves that flowers are over-rated, resigning ourselves to the fact that you will spend on a wedding what my uncle spent on a 3 bed semi-D in Drumcondra 20 years ago, when I realised “Shhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! Body scrub!”  I’d booked a body scrub for 3 and it was now 2.55. I blame the dhrink!  I’m sure the therapist took a step back when I smiled, slightly cock-eyed and through pursed lips before going “Hiiiiiii *Chablis breath*”… Oh well, I won’t be rushing back in a hurry!  After the scrub and a camomile tea in the relaxation room, I dreamily headed back to the bedroom in my robe and bikini. For a split second I thought now here’s where you end up standing at the lift and you hear the words “Nemo?” and spinning around to some ex with his stunning 20-something year old bride. So when I got through the lobby, I bounced into the lift and hit floor 2…the doors parted, I spun around (I’d been checking for chin hairs in the lift mirror!) and there as if in slow motion, was Jim…from The Fish Tank!  We both stared at each other, I said “Ah Jaysus…” and Jim said what we were both thinking “This Fish Tank is too small!”

I’m what some might call a “big” girl, what Gok might call “curvy…amazing knockers dahling!”, and what I call “a woman who needs to watch her weight…24/7!”  In my spare time, I try to engage in as much exercise as I can to allow me to eat and drink all the good stuff that our Lord (and Cadbury’s and Wolf Blass and Milano and Faustino and Tay’ho) created for us. I use the debit/credit technique of life, so I cycle, run, walk and attempt the odd embrace-your-curvy-amazing-knockers-together classes. I worked with a personal trainer for many, many years and for many, many months was at a weight and body shape I was pretty happy with. Then sure what happens to any man and woman relationship where it’s based on getting you to look smaller, hotter, but still with the “amazing knockers dahling”?  Well, let’s put it this way, when your PT can tell you your chest size without taking measurements, when you find yourself going “Will I open my bra?” and it doesn’t end with “Call meeeee”, you know you’re heading in one direction and one direction only…where the words “you’re hamstrings are quite tight” mean a different kind of stretching to the ones you might be thinking.  So after far too long of “Do your legs need a stretch?” texts really meaning “Will I call over for sex?”, I knew it was time to say goodbye to Sleazy PT and either try it on my own or find Female PT, Gay PT or “Normal, Professional PT”…I opted for the last and have my first session in the coming weeks. I have to say I am very excited and even the request of a food diary every week hasn’t deterred me. This is the new me! I wonder what it’ll be like to train with someone who doesn’t grin every time you complain about an exercise and says “It’ll come”

Oh God, have I ever told you about what I call the dark period in my life. Well today I had a gentle reminder of it…and it had to do with the clothes I was wearing. I dhraaaagged myself out of bed this morning and panicked about what in the name of Jesus I’d wear. Flipper (our King of the Sea!) had this chat with us a few weeks back to say that we had to pretty much stop wearing the scruffy gear we had and wear professional, sharp,  even dapper clothes to work. I did (subliminally) enquire as to whether a clothes allowance would be available, but (subliminally and literally) he ignored my requests.  Anyway, I managed to pull out a black skirt, black top and mint green cardi which had that sharp, casual-chic look…albeit just in my head. But that’s not really the problem. You see I wear hold ups. Not in a sexy way, I mean there is nothing sexy about the yard of lard that oozes over the silicone laden hosiery nor the chafing of my thighs on the silicone top that tries desperately to cling to my over-due-a-wax legs!  No, no, I wear hold ups cos I just could not be doing tights (or shit hangers as an old friend called them!), they’re so hot and sweaty and all those man-made fibres!!  Ick! So there I was in my hold ups, black pencil skirt, black top and green cardi except every time I moved I could swear I was flashing the cellulite lards over the silicone topped “natural tan” hold ups to all the WWs (Willy Wavers) on the team! And there in a second I was transported back to 2003, to the dark period in my life, during which time I was chastised for wearing a skirt that was too short! I KNOW!! I mean it’s hilarious now, but was kinda morto at the time, particularly as I was still living in the bubble that was “I’m 25 and at my thinnest” (I had recently turned 26 and piled on “a few” pounds!) Then the charming woman who was tasked with telling the fat, slutty 26 year old waited until the day AFTER the offending (NOT SHORT!) skirt had been worn to tell me. So there was I wh0rin’ around the office in a “short skirt” as “management” tutted at the hussie and I completely unaware of! And she also had the gall to say to me “Well Nemo I could have waited until Gerry was back tomorrow and he could have said it to you”…Eh yeah!! How much fun would it have been to see Simple Gerry shuffle in his chair, clenching his arse cheeks together in awkwardness telling someone half his age that there’d been a complaint about the length of her skirt! She stole the one piece of enjoyment I could have got out of that whole experience!  Anyway, there I was reminded about this time of my life when I was the hussie in the short skirt. Ten years later I was there in a short skirt, yet now much more aware of the length…and it dawned on me. I called this “the dark period in my life”…as it was a time where we worked on a desk, from 9-5.25pm Monday to Friday, we all took morning and afternoon tea breaks, we were moulded into robots by “management”, we called them “management”, all my work colleagues told me I didn’t belong, then adding “in a good way”, we drank…a lot. Does this all sound familiar to you??  I need a bottle of vodka.... LARGE!

Today I found myself telling my sister to “keep your eyes on the prize”!!!! Can you believe it?!? I’ve turned into one of the fish!!  “Lads, we’ve a budget of 30million this year, we’re behind 6% year to date, 4% year on year. The starfish segment is up year on year, but we really have to empower our sea horses increase the capability, work with our people on the ground to ramp up the numbers!  We need some joined up thinking! Now let’s round up the troops, put our heads together on this one, make sure we’re all on the same page, going forward this is a key initiative for the business, management have taken a helicopter view on this and are strategizing as we speak. Let’s really get the heads down on this…keep your eyes on the prize, rah rah, Rasputin!”  PKWOO!!

I’ve worked in The Fish Tank since I left college in the late 90s. At that time I thought I’d be beating the offers away with a large stick or if truth be known a quite sexy whip – whoootcha!  Needless to say this fantasy hasn’t quite materialised as I thought. I began in The Fish Tank on a Bank Holiday Tuesday . By Thursday I swore I’d give it 9 months and then I was gone, to work “in PR, as you do. For over a decade I’ve oscillated between thriving in work, thinking this is something I might be good at…and physically stopping myself from standing up, there and then in the office and going “I have no idea what I’m doing here!!!!”  Nearly 14 years on, I’m still in The Fish Tank, still dreaming that one day I’ll get out for good behaviour!   Over that near 14 years I’ve had interesting, fun, farcical, downright incredulous times…and now it’s time for me to share the fun…here’s hoping you enjoy them.