25 Feb 2004

Tempus Fugit

One of the useless-useful tasks that Bernard has created for Nigel (Sooty) is to provide an assessment of how Team Managers spend their time: “Time is money. How are we using the budget? Are we using the eighty – twenty?”

He tried to explain the spreadsheet that he had created and needed us to complete on a daily basis. Put simply, he wants us to keep a record of what we are doing hour by hour.

He took the best part of an hour to explain it. Not only could he bore the hind legs off a donkey, he could see off the front ones while he was at it and he aw, he aw, he ought to know better (sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

Call Centre Tony was livid. “So you’re telling me I have to fill in a taco-graph to tell you every time I have had a slash in the day – what are you going to do? Fit a cafetière so I don’t need to leave my desk?”

“Catheter.” Sooty said.

“Pardon?” Tony was raging.

“A cafetière makes coffee. A catheter collects urine.”

“And like you Nigel – it takes the piss.” With that, Tony left the room.