Online dating 53: I need Man With a Heart to make me human again

The main reason these days for my churning fury is work. We've recently been taken over by one of those mammoth, worldwide outsourcing companies and they have flooded our office with new staff.  

We were grateful at the promised torrent of new folk. We kept our eyes peeled on the Monday morning, eager to see them, these new colleagues who'd share the workload and ease the stress. But there was no sign of them. They'd all been corralled in the training room, with the blinds jerked down and the door tight shut.

When my lunch break arrived, I went out to the cloakroom to get my book, a big pink hardback about Jackie Kennedy. My locker was on the bottom row, so I knelt down and tapped my PIN into the keypad. I was reaching for the book, stuffed at the back of the locker, when I heard thousands of feet charging and galloping along the corridor. The flimsy walls trembled.

I looked up and saw a herd of fat boisterous children tumbling down the corridor to the locker room. They were all clad in tracksuits. What is this? Some kind of school trip? Work experience? The fat children bellowed and roared. One boy grabbed his pal and hurled him against the wall. He rebounded and leapt on his aggressor's back, choking him from behind and, together, they staggered into one of the girls, knocking her to the floor.

'Wantae getta grippa yer life?' she screamed, and whacked them with her glittery schoolbag. She adjusted her lime-green strappy vest which barely contained her awesome, bobbling breasts.   

These are no children, I realised. These are the new staff.

The appalling herd drew nearer, spilling over the turnstile and into the cloakroom. One of the boys saw me kneeling by my locker and jerked his tracksuited groin at my face, saying, "While you're down there, hen...". They all shouted with laughter then piled out the door, hooting and shoving each other.

These, it seems, are my new colleagues.

I thought the recession meant companies could have their pick of decent graduates, and not have to employ people such as these, people who're so clearly starved of education, dignity and deodorant. Yet, every fortnight, another batch are processed, tagged and let loose upon us. The office is flooded with neds and the place has become unbearable.

Even going to the bathroom under this new regime is an affront. No crossed-legged schoolboy ever had to jump through such hoops to get to the toilet. Firstly, you need permission. You must click a red button on the screen to indicate you wish to leave your desk. The computer angrily demands to know why and presents a list of options. You meekly click the option for 'comfort break'. But the system still isn't done with you and your paltry bladder, for you must then shuffle up to a manager's desk to ask if you may please be excused. But there is a queue of other bursting colleagues in front of you, who are also seeking permission. (What naughty children we are! We'll be chewing next!)  The manager consults their screen to check if it's permissible for you to have a wee wee. Sometimes you are told NO and made to return to your desk, because this massive global company can't function if three girls are in the bathroom at any one time.

When you finally get there, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd stumbled into a nightclub toilet, for the new girls are there,  packed in front of the mirrors, checking their denim hot pants are hitched high enough and that their fake lashes are still pritt-sticked on. The air is crystalline and heavy with hair spray and the latest WAG perfume. Hair extensions are scattered on the floor like shot rats. (Office rumour says one girl's hair extension fell into the toilet, but was simply scooped out, dabbed with a blue paper towel, and clipped back into the fragrant tresses of its owner.)

I'll admit I'm scared of these girls. One of them 'squared up' to me for daring to use the noisy Dyson hand dryer because it drowned out her gabbing pals. She thumped the sanitary towel dispenser to get my attention and shouted, "Wantae pack 'at in? Cannae hear a hing man."

By the time you've endured that display of feminine charm and returned to click the wee red button, proving you're back, six or seven minutes may have passed.  Later, you'll  be shown print-outs of your various 'comfort breaks' and asked to account for why it takes you an average of seven minutes to relieve yourself.

You could perhaps dodge these horrors by using the empty disabled toilet, but you can't as that's temporarily closed due to 'malicious soiling'.

I despise these people. Maybe once, before my breakdown, I'd have been softer and regarded them as vulnerable youngsters starting out in their first job and perhaps no-one has worked in their family so the poor lambs don't know how to behave. They have no way of knowing that's it's simply not done to 'maliciously soil' your workplace ….rubbish! I was brought up in a grotty council estate where we lived on benefits but I still knew how to behave when I got my first job.

I started work in M&S when I was at school and I was so keen to get it right that I went into the store to check what kind of shoes the girls wore with their uniform. I knew they'd have to be comfortable shoes for standing all day at the till, but surely not casual sandals or scuffed trainers, so I went on a shoe-stakeout before my first shift.

So, yes, these people should know how to participate in civilisation, and I loathe the very sight of them. My friend Mhairi tells me I'm being unfair and they're not all like that, but I can't agree. I watch them bouncing in their seats, throwing pens, swearing and howling, and despise every one of them.

Should I ever actually find a good man - a man with a heart - then this would all become a bit more bearable and he might even be able to soften the angry, cynical person I've become. I'd be able to relax and maybe smile indulgently when I see my colleagues fish hair extensions, dripping, from the toilet and pin them to their heads. I might stop being so tightly coiled and furious and knotted with anxiety. A man with a heart might make me warm and human again, rather than something from Mary Shelley's nightmares.

But then, here I go again, wanting to shove responsibility for 'fixing me' onto a man.  But is it so wrong to daydream about a Man With A Heart being outside my office at five to scoop me safe into his car and say "we're off to Largs for some ice cream" or "fancy Blackpool for the weekend?" or even just "don't cry".

But if I ever met a Man With A Heart who was kind to me like that I think I'd start wailing and just never stop. If he said "you don't need to walk home through Govanhill, I'll drive you" or if he took me somewhere nice for dinner as he knew I only had £3.20 in the bank till payday then the unthinkable would happen:  I'd let my guard down, I would soften and cry and perhaps never stop.

So, Man With A Heart, if I ever meet you, don't be too nice to me or I'll dissolve into a salty puddle and that'll just mess up your car seat. If my eyes are ever red, or my bottom lip is trembling, just ignore it. Look away. I won't be offended. Just change the subject. Say "hey, look at that dog", even if there is no dog.

Yes, it'd be dangerous if I ever met A Man With A Heart because he might just turn me human.