I've been a bad, bad girl...

HR (that would be Human Resources aka 'anally retentive, politically correct, useless bastards' to those in the corporate world) and I have a tumultous relationship at best. And that would be an understatement. I'll let you in on a little secret. I am NOT a morning person. I'm not ashamed to state that in the 12 years I've been slaving away and paying taxes, I've shown up on time at any one job approximately twice (once was a complete accident, and the other time? I'd stayed up all night and had lost my keys - the office was closer than home - don't scrunch your nose up in disgust - I made it to my desk via the gym showers). I have (a) a LUMIE SAD lamp/alarm clock (b) my blackberry alarm (c) a 'deaf person' alarm clock (but...um...I thought being deaf meant you couldn't hear. At all. And this little beauty makes the same noise as a large lorry when it's backing up. I need to get myself a deaf friend who can stay over and test this puppy out cause I'm by no means deaf and this still doesn't rouse me from slumber). I sleep through ALL of the aforementioned. According to my mom (who, might I add, rocks) I have always been a night owl. 10pm hits and I'm ready to rock and roll. Sleep alludes me until well after 1am. 7am hits, and I hit the snooze button. Repeatedly. But I'm sure you're detecting the theme here. I can sleep through anything. But I digress. I am currently employed on the trading floor of an investment bank. I say 'currently' like that's a good thing, and we can all pretend that the profits of this bank rely on my turning up on time (that would be 08:30 if you were wondering) but that would be a lie. Because for the past year and a half, I've been rocking up at around 09:30 and the profit margin doesn't seem to be effected. My excuses for being late so far? Well, I'm a PA (and a bloody good one I might add). However, in my current role, I could 'WFH' (work from home) and still do a stellar job. In fact, until I got hauled into a meeting with HR last week, I was. I'm scarily efficient in my pj's watching daytime TV. I'm bored shitless in my current role. I rock up, log in, get breakfast and a large filter coffee from the canteen, call my mom in Oz for a daily catch up, read about 15 blogs to see if I've missed anything overnight, book 2 or 3 meetings and some flights, and then spend my day surfing the Internet. A (very well trained, typing) monkey could do my job quite easily for peanuts (oh, wait, I work for peanuts...and luckily for me I don't have a nut allergy). In a nutshell (oh the pun) it really wouldn't matter if I physically didn't turn up on a daily basis. Now, I'm not late ON PURPOSE. But I suppose it does occasionally appear that I 'take the piss'. To make a long story short, a few tattle tales on my floor (not that I'll mention them by name - Maxine Carr look-alike and The Weasel) have been tracking my comings and goings. Which has resulted in my lovely, born again boss having a word with me over the past few months about my time keeping. Which resulted in HR becoming involved and a meeting ensued. I was 'allowed to take a friend within the company' for moral support to my sentencing. And proceeded to pretend in all seriousness that my lateness was a 'serious matter'. N.B. my 'disciplinary hearing' was scheduled for 3.30pm - they didn't rock up until 3.37pm - ironic, no? I accepted full responsibility for my tardiness, blamed it on my chronic depression, promised to be good and had to leave the room whilst they decided my fate. The result? A 'verbal' warning (which strangely was written down in a letter, which I had to collect myself from the first floor). I now have to be AT MY DESK at 08:30 every morning. OR ELSE RISK BEING HAULED IN AGAIN. OR FIRED. Eeeeek. Needless to say, I've taken this *seriously* and have complied (give or take 10 minutes - I'm not a saint for fuck sake). And it's killing me. I hope I get an ulcer before I get a new job, and can then be signed off with 'stress'. On the plus side? Well, there isn't one. And that, kids, is my first installment on HR. There are plenty more stories in the pipeline. I'm just too lazy to type them all up now, as I have to get to bed...to get up on time.