Nobody even seemed to bitch about him, not in front of Donnie anyway. If anything, they would defend Toby, even if they were the victim of Toby’s cuntishness. Like when Toby corrected Alice.
Alice had sent an email where she said the word ‘colour’s’ instead of ‘colours’. She was talking about the colours in the colour printer that they had up the back of the office, because it wasn’t working properly. She’d said ‘And there’s something wrong with the colour’s on all of the printouts.’
Toby had replied with ‘The plural of colour is colours.’
Donnie asked Alice how she felt about that. It was verging on nasty, as far as Donnie was concerned. It was one thing to correct somebody’s grammar, but another to type a reply like that.
Alice said that it was okay, because Toby corrects people’s mistakes all the time. But Donnie said that there was a difference with this particular reply. It implied that Alice didn’t just make a typo due to typing fast or autocorrect or losing concentration; it implied that she didn’t know how to make a word plural, like she would make the mistake again because she just didn’t know to do it, like she was in nursery school.
That’s the impression that Donnie got, and he wanted Alice to be upset about it. But she wasn’t. She just shrugged it off and said it was okay, and that it was a silly mistake anyway.
Donnie said that somebody should say something, but Alice said that it really was okay and that Toby was a nice guy. Just leave it.
Donnie tried to leave it, but when you’re seeing somebody correcting everybody’s grammar on a daily basis, you just want to say something. You just want to tell the guy to give it a rest with the corrections. What does it matter?
It’s not as if the mistakes are being printed on the pamphlets and sent out, resulting in embarrassment for the company. It’s not as if Toby was some kind of copyeditor or sub-editor, where it was his job to correct everybody’s spelling and grammar before it went to print. He worked in accounts. His job was to do with numbers, not words. Just stick to your fucking job, mate.
Donnie tried to leave him alone, he tried to forget about him. He tried to ignore his ways.
He managed it for almost a month. He told himself that he wouldn’t react or bitch or try to get anybody else bitching. He’d just be like everybody else and take no notice. Almost a month he managed it.
But then it all came out at the office party. They’d all booked a big table at a restaurant, and they all got drunk.
Donnie wasn’t sitting near Toby, but he’d look over to Toby now and then, and try to listen in to his conversations. There was nothing interesting to listen to, but then Donnie heard something that he had to jump on.
He heard Toby say ‘It depends who you send it to.’
It was a mistake!
‘Wait!’ shouted Donnie, pointing at Toby.
Toby didn’t hear, but Alice did, and she stopped talking to see what Donnie was doing. It didn’t look good to her.
‘Toby!’ shouted Donnie again, and Toby looked around to see Donnie smiling and pointing. When Donnie saw that he had Toby’s attention, he asked him, ‘What did you just say there?’
‘What did I say when?’ asked Toby, looking at everybody else.
To Donnie, Toby seemed sober, while he himself felt drunk. He knew he probably wouldn’t fare well against somebody so alert, but this might be his only shot. It was too good an opportunity to miss. Even with the rest of the staff looking at him with their straight faces, looking concerned, he knew that they’d appreciate somebody just telling it like it is.
‘What did you say when?’ asked Donnie, grinning. ‘What did you say when? I’ll tell you what did you say when. You said, and I quote, “It depends who you send it to.”’
Toby gave a confused smile, and searched the faces of everybody around to see if they were equally as confused. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Well,’ said Donnie, raising his eyebrows. ‘I’ll tell you what on earth I am talking about. You said “It depends who you send it to.” But should it not be something like “Depends to whom you send it”?’
Donnie was half out his seat, and somebody put their hand on his shoulder to gently put him back down. Some people were asking him to just leave it.
Toby wasn’t smiling anymore. Donnie reckoned he looked caught out, that’s what he reckoned. He looked caught the fuck out.
‘I understand what you’re saying,’ said Toby. ‘And you’re right. But …’
‘Ahhhh!’ laughed Donnie, pointing at Toby, looking at Alice, looking at everybody around, at his audience. ‘I’m right. And therefore you are wrong! Ahhhh! Not so perfect after all, is he? Not so fucking perfect after all.’
Somebody said ‘Don’t, Donnie. Don’t.’
But there was no way he was letting this one get away. And he knew that he spoke for everybody. For whatever reason, nobody wanted to say a thing, they were too polite. But Donnie knew it was doing their heads in, bottling it all up. Well, this was it. This was it.
‘Seriously, Toby,’ said Donnie. ‘Seriously, mate. What’s it all about?’
‘What’s what all about?’ asked Toby. He looked at Donnie and the others. He tried to smile the confused smile from before, but it was without the same confidence. It was forced, and Donnie could see right through it. He had Toby on the ropes.
‘The grammar thing. The spelling and the grammar thing, the fucking emails. Ever since day one. Ever since day fucking …’
‘Just leave it,’ said Alice. ‘Please.’
‘No chance,’ said Donnie.
‘Look,’ said Toby. ‘I just think it’s important that certain rules are followed, certain consistencies are kept so that …’
‘Depends who you send it to,’ said Donnie, repeating Toby’s mistake. ‘Depends who you send it to. I don’t think that’s in the rule book. Let me just check …’ Donnie licked his thumb and leafed through an imaginary rule book and said ‘Nope’.
‘Sure,’ said Toby. ‘Sure. I take the point. But language evolves and …’
‘Oh!’ shouted Donnie, his eyes lighting up. ‘Oh! Did you hear that, everybody? Language evolves.’
‘B-b-but,’ stuttered Toby.
‘B-b-but?’ said Donnie, taking the utter piss. Alice stood up and walked away.
‘But,’ said Toby. ‘Certain rules should be obeyed, or at least …’
‘But not by you, eh, Toby? By us, but not by you.’
‘By all of us,’ said Toby. ‘S-s-so there’s some consistency, so there’s, there’s, there’s …’
‘Why?’ said Donnie, banging his hand on the table.
‘Because,’ said Toby, looking flustered as fuck. ‘Because without, without knowing what, what, what …’
‘Why?’ said Donnie again, giving the table another bang. He looked at the people around him. They were neither joining in nor trying to stop him. They were looking down at their drinks in silence.
Toby stuttered on. ‘Because … because … b-b-because …’
‘Why?’ asked Donnie, his eyes wide. ‘Whyyyyyy?’
Toby stood up sharply, bumping the table with his legs and spilling the drinks around him. Then he shouted at the top of his voice.
‘Because it’s all I’ve got!’
The