Give up giving up

I’ve managed to break all the resolutions I made at the New Year. The healthy seeds I was chewing on have been growing in the cupboard. It’s not very healthy to have shooting seeds in your closet … ask George Michael.

The only resolution I’ve managed to keep is kicking my stationery habit.

All that is about to change. I’ll need to put in an order for a job lot of lever arch files to retain the complaints within my elaborate system.

Over the past few days I have compiled a complex indexing system for registering complaints that requires a set of algorithms too intricate for the human brain to work out, thereby making my role as Complaint’s monitor indispensable, (cue evil laugh).

The complaints pile is now about an inch high (less if I use a paper-weight). I’m not too worried, I’ll make a start on them next week now that I have a system. There needs to be a 24 hour turn around, which makes it about three working days… less if you include my lunch hour.

Sir Alan Sugar has missed a trick. His next apprentice is right here.

“And for another thing …”

In business, you need to listen to your customers (See – I’m even beginning to sound like Sir Alan.)

Following the reprogramming, I was hoping that Brenda (my manager) would have promoted me to ‘real people’ rather than temps. She’s done the next best thing, and put me in charge of complaints. This is the best status I’ve held since being made a Milk Monitor on that glorious day in 1978.

I spent most of the day composing a spreadsheet. I spent hours working out what information I needed to capture and moving things from one side of the page to the next.

I proudly presented it to Brenda and sighed, “Use 10 point Tahoma.”

“What about the information it captures?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, that kind of thing doesn’t bang my buttons.”

A tidy pile of complaints arrived at my desk at noon. I put them to one side and set about removing Comic Sans from my spreadsheet.

Brenda has taught me to prioritise my work.

The Apprentice

In the new world order, after my reprogramming, I’m finding it hard to be cynical about the Call Centre. I’m so fired up about my job, I’m so motivated by Brenda’s flouncing, that I cannot bring myself to bring it down. I’m no longer a rebel. I’m a company man.

Indeed, I’m considering putting myself forward as Brenda’s Apprentice, in the hope that I can appear in the next series of THE APPRENTICE. I’m begun to model myself on Sir Alan Sugar: I’ve bought his book, I’m more grumpy and wearing a pair of tights over my face to ‘get the look’.

I got another call from one of the Marr’s zombies today saying that he had bird flu. “How do you know it is bird flu?”

“I caught it off my girlfriend.”

You’re a light-weight. You’re fired.