I couldn't resist!

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A post by @TheHorse just brought this to mind. Years ago, our boss retired and her next-in-line took over. He had basically been waiting in the shadows for this opportunity for years and when it came it all went to his head. He re-organised everything to reflect his new status. Where before the boss had a large rather ramshackle office with mismatched old chairs where we used to often gather for coffee breaks and she would bring out the biscuit tin (incidentally I have this tin now in remembrance of her!), he converted the space plus the room next door into a vast new office with a big rosewood boardroom-style table, huge desk chair and rows of shelves (full of books on ‘management’ I noticed) and the rest of us were relegated to a horrible cramped windowless ‘tea-room’ with cold uncomfortable metal garden style chairs. He brought in all kinds of rules and then started sending round memos every few days telling people not to use the photocopier too much, not to leave food in the fridge too long, and even not to bring dirt in on their shoes and to wipe their feet! One memo asked people to discourage their friends and family from calling them at work as staff were wasting time answering the phone and looking for the required staff member (in reality this didn’t happen very often and there were only about ten of us anyway). One day he had popped out to the toilet, leaving his office door open, when the phone rang. I went to answer it, as we usually did, and found it was his wife asking what he wanted for dinner. Well I couldn’t resist! I found the memo about phone use, photocopied it, and at the bottom added ‘P.S: Alma wants to know if you would prefer lamb curry or lamb stew for dinner.’ He didn’t say anything but I noticed he never went to the toilet again without locking his office door behind him! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2026.