health and safety

We were encouraged to e-mail the new director with our comments on the restructure. Although this seemed as wise as poking a sleeping bear with a stick, we went ahead, and were rewarded with a dismissive growl - then we were encouraged to do it again. This time the response was slightly more positive, but I can't help feeling that I will, if I get the job, be known as a 'distribution assistant' in spite of our objections. 'Administration assistant', the current title, is hardly glamorous but 'distribution assistant' just sounds like someone trying to big up their paper round.

I had 'fire training'. There was a video from what looked like the late 80's: 'If only Eddie hadn't taken the toaster into the office that day', intoned the voiceover, ominously. We were warned that fires need oxygen to thrive, and yet apparently the workplace is full of it! Why hasn't something been done about this?

We had our annual Christmas meal (non-work-related) at an all-you-can-eat Oriental buffet. It wasn't very Christmassy, but there were crackers, which yielded, in my case, a plastic tooth, a paper hat, and a motto, whose most amusing content was the phrase (printed just beneath the health and safety warnings): 'Please retain this information for future reference.'