Thursday, October 16, 2003

Okay, draft 2 (my first attempt at tonights report was pathetic).

So PLAN B: Office Conversations.

Let me get this one out of my system. Politically I'm pretty left wing. More so than most people, and on top of that I'm a stauch Scottish republican. This doesn't mean I condone the IRA / INLA / EMI / Germaine Greer or anything. What it does mean is that want a Scottish Socialist Republic.

People that work in offices, however, are different creatures that stalk the night to the ones that stalk the day. Put them in a pub after work and they're alright, decent, hardworking, nice, bland, Next wearing imbeciles. Put them in front of a monitor for eight hours and suddenly I've been teleported back to nuremberg.

It happens to the best of us, I heard myself saying a rather ominous phrase for a socialist: "I don't think stupid people should be allowed phones." I even went on to describe that instead of a credit check by the phone company, we should be subject to an intelligence check.

The way my scheme worked was like this:

"Hi BT operator. I'm Brenda and I'm from Cumbernauld."

"Hello Brenda from Cumbernauld. Do you want a phone service?"

"Yes I do nice operator person. Can I have one please?"

"Let me ask you a few simple questions:

"1. When you are in a group discussion and the subject turns to something you don't know what do you do?"

"Well BT operator..."

"My names Melissa."

"Well Melissa, generally I talk about myself, laugh and..."

"Yeah, okay. No.

"2. On which continent is Edinburgh?"

"Scotland... no, no, I'm being silly. Britain."

"Riiiggghttt... Next and finally: 3. The tap on your bath breaks while you are running it. You can't stop the tap, and you need to stop the bath from overflowing, what do you do?"

"Call the fire brigade."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah!"

"Not pull the plug out?"

Pause. "I'm not getting the phone am I?"

"No, you are too stupid. In fact, you are so dumb I'm sending round an armed response team dressed like Blakes 7 extras to put you into permanent solitary confinement. Byesie bye."

So, office conversations have turned me from a socialist agitator to Servalan from Blakes 7. And I don't even have a cocktail dress.


Revelations