A notable skive

In October 2006, Henry Bingham a man from Wyoming who wanted time off told his workmates that his two year-old-daughter had died. At first, his plan went swimmingly – he was allowed compassionate leave, his sympathetic colleagues clubbed together to give him more than $1300 and his labor union chipped in with some cash too.
The [...]

All Hung Up

Not long after I took up a job in New York I was asked to wine and dine some potential clients and to generally impress them with a night out in the Big Apple. The wining and dining went fine. I was even feeling pretty pleased with myself – and hoping that the clients [...]

A Grade A Date

In 2002 Jacqueline Kim made the mistake of emailing her unusually materialistic assessment of her date (good kisser, nice car, needs to get a haircut and shower her with presents if he wants to keep her) to a few friends outside her office – some of whom promptly forwarded it on for the delight and [...]

Setting The Wrong Tone

I was five minutes late. It didn’t go down well with the power hungry new team leader. The proof was in that fact that I was publicly roasted and humiliated.
Not that there was much point being on time because all the phones had gone down – and to ice the cake, the computer system collapsed [...]

A load of bollocks

The fact that the office of the building firm I work for is completely open plan is annoying when I want to take a snooze, but does present some unique opportunities for amusement.
A few weeks ago for instance, we all witnessed a young man hurrying past our desks, looking harassed, and nervous and most definitely [...]

Bad council

In October 2006 David Clutterbuck, a 72 year-old Conservative councillor, found himself the laughing stock of the nation thanks to a joke he forwarded on to fellow council members at Bournemouth Borough Council.
Ironically enough, the joke itself was determinedly unfunny: a description of the trouble Noah would have floating his ark nowadays thanks to the [...]