it's a lot like life

At work some materials being returned to our distribution hub had turned up with some unanticipated T-shirts and fleeces among them. When I informed my colleagues of this, Lorraine thought that I said, not 'fleeces', but 'faeces'. Not that she batted an eyelid: nothing surprises us. It was only a question of whether to assign the unauthorised excrement a stock code.

People think we have a cushy life in the public sector, but it isn't so. Only the other day, the soap dispenser in the Gents went AWOL. We were left with a bag of 'Unperfumed Antibacterial Liquid Soap' sagging by the side of the sink like a mollusc prised from its shell. You had to squeeze its little snout to get the gel out. By the time you'd done that, the water from the tap was usually too hot to put your hand in. It gets hot fast, that water.

And so I make my dissatisfied way back up the corridor, squeaking. That's my shoes, by the way - I got some new ones recently, and they shocked me by the noise they make against the floor of that corridor in particular. It's not just squeaky, it's sort of squelchy too. It sounds like Donald Duck coming up the corridor, ranting. There is a rumour going round that HR have forced me to wear these to stop me sneaking up on people - a slightly less humiliating alternative to bells.

It was I who started the rumour, which won't stop me reporting it to HR as part of an entrenched 'culture of bullying' in the workplace. Soon, everyone else will be dismissed and I, laughing and quacking madly, will be King of the Office!

I return to my desk, where I am once again aware of Norris eyeing me sceptically at the corner of my eye, from my Coronation Street mug. I'm sure that's having a negative effect on my performance...