Originally Posted by
Jimmy Floyd
Today I started in some fucking Catalan backwater hotel at 8.30am, with an instant coffee (made by pouring the pellets into existing hot water, apparently that's how they do it over here) and no breakfast because the only things available were coco pops or slimy 'cheese'. Me and the boss visited two customers in the morning. The boss said to me 'Make sure you do all the talking' as despite being a Spanish resident and having worked there on and off for 30 years, he doesn't speak a single word of it. So I began talking and each time I did, the boss would cut me off in his dogshit wide boy English. I have known for a long time that he does not listen to me but now I know that I am not special and he does not listen to anyone, not even his own customers. Little progress was made in either meeting. The boss's brand of east end sales patter has obviously got him so far in life but I am afraid the sun is setting on all that kind of thing, as the looks on our customers' faces foretold. The boss refers to our company's MD as a 'facts and figures man' in a tone that suggests he thinks this is a bad thing.
Next I had to call the day's third customer and tell him we wanted to come three hours earlier than advertised. He said sorry, it's impossible. The boss said 'Insist!' I did not insist, so we stuck to the original time. We then sit outside a pavement café in the middle of Barcelona for two hours, eating squid, until the guy is ready. The squid is 12 euros for six squid, fries and salad - this is not a tourist quarter. The boss goes on to explain to me that he has no real interest in the places he visits, he just wants to make money. 'Everywhere's the same, when you get down to it. I'm no tourist,' he says, which is apposite, because over his left shoulder I can see several spires of the Sagrada Fucking Familia looming over him like some sort of neo-gothic Ctuhlu.
Having seen the third guy, the boss walks out and says 'He's full of shit' (he was not full of shit). The next task, at 3pm, is to drive 300km from the centre of Barcelona all the way across the plains of Aragon to Zaragoza. This is the first time I have been in command of a left hand drive vehicle and driven on the right. A relatively straight road out of the city gives me a quick training course, but then an accident ahead means the satnav turns us around and takes us another way. I am calm about this, as I am about everything. The boss is not. Rapidly I discover he is of the genuine belief that his ten guineas worth of past trips, hazy brandy-stained memories and general bluster outweigh the might of a GPS navigation system operated via satellite, which, we must remember, is a complex technological object that humans have somehow fired into space, without consulting a single leather-jacket wearing salesman.
'This isn't the way!' the boss shouts, over and over again, as I embark on a route which, it turns out, is the way.
En route - which is mostly a two lane motorway involving three hours of overtaking fruit lorries and 'special convoys' while angry Seat drivers seethe into my rear view mirror - a Frenchman rings me. He had rung the office first, of course, but the useless fucks between them could not muster a single word of French and so one of them gave him my mobile number. We pulled over into a truck stop and I took the call. The Frenchman was angry because the useless fucks in the office had, in my absence, got his order wrong. I needed to take down the details and phone the office to set them right. By this point the boss had gone to buy some Haribo and my only pen had already exploded during the flight over and bled blue ink all over my pocket lining. I told the guy I would phone him back in two minutes. I quickly ran into the shop and, switching from French to Spanish, asked the attendant if I could borrow a pen. She pointed at a row of FC Barcelona and Real Madrid souvenir pens available for €2.50 each. I tried to banter her into a cheaper solution but none was forthcoming so I bought the Barça pen (perhaps their cut will get Ansu Fati his new contract) and went to make the rest of the calls.
On the way into Zaragoza I was so tired that I nearly drove into a truck. Once in Zaragoza we had to park in a tiny, unlit underground cavern. I had a meltdown while attempting to miss other cars, the boss basically hauled me out of the driver's seat and parked it himself. We went to reception to check in and he insisted, in English, that both our rooms be front-facing. I told her in Spanish that it didn't matter to me and if she could get one for the old man it might shut him up. She smiled. If I had been straight this could have been a good meet-cute (though I'm too old, fat and unattractive for her). I'm typing this on my phone in a hotel room. I'm meeting the boss for dinner in 30 minutes.
That was the first full day of a 6-day trip.
Travel.
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