Y - Yes Man

Being able to shmooze your way up the corporate ladder is a valuable skill. This has given rise to the yes men, a subculture of business folk who will unquestionably validate their superior's decisions, no matter how ridiculous or absurd. To get on in business, there are worse things to be than a yes man.

That's why I took a leaf out of Danny Wallace's book (and Jim Carey's movie), and started saying yes to everything. It annoyed my girlfriend when she asked if I wanted toast or cereal and I could only reply "yes". However, this led me to discover the delights of cornflakes on toast.

So after several sales in which I signed up for a 24 month contract with LoveFilm and put in a claim for missold PPI, I decided to put my "yes" word to use at work.

Things got off to a bad start after my boss asked if I could explain why there was porn on my computer. I told him "yes". He asked if I had a sex addiction. I said "yes". He asked if I was prepared to go into rehab. I answered "yes" once more, and found myself at Sexual Deviants Anonymous.

I did quite well in the group. The group leader was impressed with my positive attitude and willingness to admit to the deepest, perviest stuff imaginable.

That night I went to celebrate my progress at group by going to a bar. I was stood waiting to order a drink when another patron brushed up against the girl next to me. She turned and said to me "did you just grope me?" I replied the only way I knew how, and before I knew it, I was at the police station admitting to string of similar assaults across the city. Once they found out about my sex addiction, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and I was given 18 months behind bars. It seems that being the resident sexual deviant means that other inmates have a predisposition to sexually assault you, especially when you cry out "yes!"

Employment Tribunal

Dear Wolverine,

I am writing to you regarding your on-going employment tribunal.  It is with regret that I have to inform you that your employment with Paper Supplies Ltd has been terminated.  This is due to a number of incidents which you have been party to, including:

1. Slashing paper deliveries with your adamantium claws whilst trying to open the boxes.  This has led to a loss in profits due to the sheer amounts of damaged stock.

2. Daring the warehouse drivers to run you over.  Several forklift trucks have been rendered out of action because of this reckless behaviour.  Even after the drivers refused to do this anymore, you took it upon yourself to leap in front of them as a practical joke.

3. Taking the magnets off of the fridge and sticking them to your hands.  This is theft of company property and shall not be tolerated.

4. Clearing toilet blockages and not washing your claws afterwards.

Better learn some responsibilities Wolverine!

5. Tearing off your flesh through “extreme boredom” in corporate meetings and in front of potential clients.  I understand that this is a painless act for you as your skin rapidly grows back, but it is distressing for anyone who is unfamiliar with your regenerative abilities.

6. Filleting fish at your desk for your part time venture as a fishmonger.  Using company time for self-employed interests is against policy, plus it stinks up the break room something nasty.

7. Stabbing a supervisor during a company fun day because you didn’t want to get off the bouncy castle and let the children have a go.  He will not be able to “walk it off” as you’ve severed one of his tendons and he will never stand again.  The thousands he has raised as a fun runner so far can never be added to, thanks to you.

8. Cutting your trousers into shorts is highly inappropriate, even on hot days, and destroys your company uniform.  This is considered damage to company property and you are liable for the costs.

9.  Refusing to wear your overalls and instead wearing a sweat-stained vest at all times.  Plus, your grossly unkempt sideburns received several complaints from other employees and cause a colony of fleas to move into the office.

Due to this impressive rap sheet, I’m sure you can understand our decision to terminate your employment with us.  Despite your glowing reference from Mr Xavier, I’m afraid to say that you have proven to be unsuitable for the position during your two week tenure, and it is at this point that we have to part ways.  We wish you all the very best in the future.

P.S. please pick up your motorbike from the lobby.  It’s leaking oil all over the place.

**Please note that submissions for the 300th Post Spectacular have now closed.  If you've no idea what I'm talking about, please see here.

Contagious Idiocy

Jeff sits alone in his cubicle.  The strobe light effect of his dilapidated monitor blinks with an insanity-inducing intensity.  There is a large pile of “urgent” work in Jeff’s in-tray, and Jeff knows that he needs to make a start on it lest Jeff get shouted at by his boss, again.  As he contemplates the task at hand whilst trying to avoid succumbing to madness from his incessant screen, he notices a mail icon appear on his taskbar.

An email has arrived.  An email that needs to be read before Jeff can even concentrate on his important tasks.  He clicks on the mail icon and takes his sweet time in reading the contents, relishing this tiny fractal of free time before he has to urge himself into submissive labour once more.  The email is from a work colleague informing him that the lifts in the building are broken.  This is the third time this month and is becoming something of a nuisance for the lazier members of the office, Jeff included.  He didn’t pack any sandwiches today either, meaning that Jeff will have to descend seven flights of stairs on the stroke of twelve, pick up a sandwich, and then ascend those same steps again.  This was the main downside of working on the top floor, more so than being the last out in the event of a fire.  Merely thinking about the journey made Jeff’s calf muscles quiver in reluctant anticipation.

Why was the lift broken again?  As the thought swirled round in his mind, he read the second line of the email.  “The lift engineer will be out this afternoon to fix this”.  Yeah, right, when pigs fly!  The lift engineer had never turned up on time before.  To suggest otherwise was madness! 

As this thought occurred to Jeff, the further thought occurred that other people in the office would be as despairing as he at the current circumstances.  Jeff immediately formulated a joke in his mind.  Going with his ‘when pigs fly’ branch of thought, why not reply to the email with a picture of a flying pig!?  Everyone would get that!  Their exasperation would be relieved by his mirthful response, and he would be hailed an office hero!  This narcissistic thought spread to his fingers as he grabbed his mouse and keyboard, and searched for a picture of a flying pig online.

Babe:  Pig In The Fuckin' Sky!

With the relevant picture found, Jeff nimbly inserted the picture into an email and fired it off.  He looked at his system clock, less than two minutes since the original email was received and he’d already fired off a witty barb of magnificent quality.  Surely the lady on reception would feel compelled to honour his fine comedy with a naked scarf dance.

As Jeff sat back in his chair in smug satisfaction, he suddenly noticed that another new email had been received.  Upon clicking on the icon, he was mortified to see six new emails had actually been received, all relating to the lift email, all containing their own jokes and all sent quicker than his!  How could this happen?  He clicked on the first one, a picture of hell frozen over.  Dammit!  Why didn’t he think of that?  He glanced over the office floor at the sender, Clive from accounts.  Clive smirked back with a knowing “beat you to it” glance.  How could an accountant be funnier than he was?

There was no alternative.  Jeff needed to come up with a funny response to Clive’s email, something that would dwarf Clive’s attempt at humour and divert all the attention back to Jeff.  Scrambling to open Paint as fast as he could, Jeff imported Clive’s picture of a frozen hell, and then copied in his flying pig, thus combining both jokes into a mashed up uber joke.  This was surely on the cutting edge of comic capability.  Had such a combination ever been attempted?  Jeff was about to find out as he clicked send, then peered over his divider at Clive to witness his response.

Sexy vintage clipart

 Within minutes, the office had erupted in a flurry of hastily sent emails.  The majority of the office angrily firing electronic japes back and forth with searing intensity.  Hundreds of emails began to flood their screens, several conversation strands emerged, diverting, twisting and turning in an ever-expanding maze of poorly related humour.  No one was laughing.  There was no time to laugh during this cycle of relentless wit.

Meanwhile, a lonely office worker in the corner sits helpless as his screen fills up with a barrage of utter garbage.  This is the third time this week that the office has descended into this kind of unrepentant shittery.  He slips his hand in his pocket, pulls out his letter of resignation, and begins the work across the office floor towards the boss’s office.

Feral Living

Your boss stops at your desk. He informs you that you are to present your plans for Project Poseidon in ten minutes, then walks away. You stare at your monitor. The whiteness of the empty spreadsheet burns through your bloodshot eyes, onto you retinas, and into your soul. You’ve got nothing. How can you present this to the board? After hours of brainstorming, days of meetings, weeks of research, you've still got nothing. Project Poseidon is unworkable. What is Project Poseidon anyway? Is it water-based? Why is that relevant to a credit company?  You don’t even know anymore. You can’t go in there and tell them that it was all a complete waste of time. This was supposed to save the company millions. How can you tell them that? You haven’t even understood what you were doing in the first place.

A blind panic begins to swirl around your gut.  There are only two options available.  Firstly, go in there, embarrass yourself, look like an idiot, and get fired immediately.  Alternatively, you could run away, eschew society altogether and live out the rest of your feral days as a mountain goat.

Phwoar!  Look at the neck on that!

There’s one brave soul out there who chose the second option (see article here). Appropriately dubbed “Goatman”, a man has been spotted in the wilds of northern Utah trying to blend in with a herd of mountain goats. To complete the illusion, he has made himself a goat outfit, a face mask, and some crude antlers.

Officials are powerless to stop him in his quest for goatish glory.  Phil Douglass of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said that Goatman wasn’t doing anything illegal, so they can’t force him to leave the herd.  However, he wants Goatman to understand the great risks he is taking.

"My very first concern is the person doesn't understand the risks," Douglass said. "Who's to say what could happen."

Well, here’s a scenario for you.  Let’s say that Goatman succeeds in his mission and becomes a fully fledged member of the herd.  Let’s also say that Goatman has managed to bully his way up the female pecking order (because his antlers aren’t big enough to challenge the males).  Then, baby season comes around and the males begin fighting for mating rights with the herd’s prize female, Goatman.  Once battle dies down and a victor is chosen, the champion will want his sexual spoils.  Would that be illegal?  Or, like any nature enthusiast or documentary film maker, would Goatman have to let nature take its course.

Goatman on location

But Phil Douglass has other concerns. "They may get agitated. They're territorial. They are, after all, wild animals," he said. "This person puts on a goat suit, he changes the game. But as long as he accepts responsibility, it's not illegal."

This is especially worrying considering that goat hunting season is coming up soon.  Can you imagine hunting a prize winning goat, mounting it’s head on your wall, only for the mask to fall off and revealing a human head?  I wouldn’t want to be held liable for that.

My favourite part of the article though has to be the eye witness account:

‘He said he pulled out binoculars to get a closer look at the herd about 200 yards away and was shocked. The man appeared to be acting like a goat while wearing the crudely made costume, which had fake horns and a cloth mask with cut-out eye holes, Creighton said.
 "I thought, 'What is this guy doing?' " Creighton said. "He was actually on his hands and knees. He was climbing over rocks and bushes and pretty rough terrain on a steep hillside."
 Creighton said the man occasionally pulled up his mask, apparently trying to navigate the rocky terrain. The man then appeared to spot Creighton.
 "He just stopped in his tracks and froze," he said.’

How sinister.  There you are, out for an afternoon stroll on your hands and knees with the herd, when some creepy fuck like Coty Creighton starts taking photos of you from behind a bush.  No wonder Goatman froze.  He was probably considering whether to gore this foolish boy, or allow him to live like the magnanimous creature he is.

To all the Goatman haters out there, I implore you, leave Goatman alone.  He’s living the dream of trapped office workers everywhere.

UPDATE:  Since I wrote this, Goatman has turned out to be hunter preparing for the upcoming hunting season.  We can rest assured that no goats will be molested any time soon.

Aptitude Test

Thank you for applying for the position of Operational Operations Operative. In order to complete your application, you are required to fill in an aptitude test, as below, to the best of your abilities. By completing this form, you hereby give us the relevant rights to use this as a psychological profile by which we can determine your suitability for the role against other candidates. You also give us the right to draw a “brain map” of your mental attributes, and sell this information to marketing companies, medical research, and government outlets. You do not hold any statutory rights to this information.


1) It’s deadline day, and your boss comes down to your office to find out why you haven’t submitted a report on time. Do you:

A) Inform him of the additional pressures of your job, make some useful suggestions as to how to avoid this in the future, and assure your boss that the work will be completed as soon as possible.
B) Apologise and offer to stay overtime to finish the report.
C) Tie your boss to the desk with his own belt, and then proceed to violate him with a stapler in front of your horrified co workers.

2) One of your colleagues tells a raunchy joke which could easily be classed as sexist. Do you:

A) Inform HR of the incident as soon as possible, recommending that the employee be fired for sexual discrimination.
B) Ignore the situation and make a mental note not to repeat such a filthy joke in the workplace.
C) Explain to everyone that the joke was so great, it has made you sexually aroused. Prove this using visual means if necessary.

3) A package arrives at the building that no one has ordered. Do you:

A) Set off the fire alarm and get everyone to evacuate. It could be a bomb, or dangerous material.
B) Ring the postal company and tell them that they’ve made a mistake.
C) Shout “BOMB!”, and then kick the package towards the most sensitive person in the office, exposing the package full of multicoloured vibrators you had sent to yourself earlier.

4) While on the phone, a potential client is being rather rude and abrasive. Do you:

A) Persevere with the call, as a lost client could cost the company money.
B) Inform the client that you will have to escalate this to a supervisor if their manner doesn’t change.
C) Invite the client to a midnight knife fight, then stand on the desk and urinate on the receiver.

5) You are running late for work. Do you:

A) Call the office and inform them, and offer to make up the lost time over lunch or at the end of the day.
B) Don’t call. Hopefully no one will notice.
C) Call the office to tell them that you’ll be in once you’ve finished your illegal alleyway poker tournament, placing bets using the company credit card.

6) Your boss comes to your cubicle and asks you if you can work overtime this weekend. You planned to take your children to the lightbulb museum on Saturday. Do you:

A) Say yes. When a boss asks you to jump, you say “how high?”.
B) Decline, but explain your prior commitment and point out that you’d like to be considered for any future overtime.
C) Kidnap your boss and take him to the lightbulb museum instead.  Offer to stress test the bulbs by inserting them into your boss, and running an electric current through him.

7) You notice that one of your colleagues, Bob, tends to take an extra 10-15 minutes for lunch every day and never works it back. Do you:

A) Grass him up. The company is losing money at this part-timer’s expense.
B) Turn a blind eye in the hopes that he’ll cover for you when you need some slack.
C) Tear his face off and wear it when walking past reception, taking extra breaks when you want and fooling your whole office into thinking you're Bob.  Then, attempt to sleep with his wife.

8) Your company introduces a charge for car parking, and begins to take the charge out of your salary automatically. Do you:

A) Keep silent and accept it. The company needs to pay for the upkeep of the car park after all.
B) Consider car sharing or participate in the firm’s Cycle To Work scheme.
C) See how much they’ll charge when you try to land your apache helicopter.

9) You get nominated for employee of the month, and get a bonus of £50 in your next pay packet. Do you:

A) Send an email thanking your colleagues, and use the extra money to buy celebratory cakes.
B) Feel satisfied that you’ve achieved something.
C) Give the boss back those photographs you’ve been holding to ransom, as agreed.

10) Your co-workers decide to hold their Christmas party at a restaurant which you don’t like. Do you:

A) Disregard it and still go. Perhaps they’ll go somewhere you prefer next year.
B) Decline to come, but make a mental note to be the first to suggest a venue next year.
C) Hold your own Christmas party in the office while everyone is out. Hire a whole platoon of prostitutes, and leave a “festive excretion” shaped like Santa or Rudolph on everyone’s desk.

If you answered mostly C’s, congratulations! You have been successful in your application to Depraved Bastards Inc. You start on Monday, or you know, whenever’s best for you.

A Stranger's Intuition

The night was as cold as hell. Well, not literally, as hell has a tendency to be rather warm, but it was bleakly bitter and the scene has now been set, nonetheless.

I was on my way to the car after a late evening of stealing office supplies, and then rearranging the stationery cupboard to disguise the fact that anything had been taken. It’s tiring work, waiting until everyone else has gone home and then taking enough staples to secure a bear to cliff face with. I couldn’t wait to get home and put these ill gotten wares on eBay. Taking photographs of each individual staple to ensure integrity, and then listing each one as a separate item would be hard work, so much so that I was thinking of taking the rest of the week off sick just to get it all done.

Fumbling for my keys in my pocket, I scouted around the car park for my vehicle. The place was completely full this morning. Now there was only my car and another vehicle with its headlights on. In fact, I noticed that the other car was slowly coming towards me. A blue Mitsubishi Colt was heading through the gloom, straight toward me.

Feeling a little exposed, I moved to the side and pushed my iPod headphones further into my ears, trying to drown out the approaching engine sound with the soothing tones of N Dubz. I turned away, slouched further into my coat in an attempt to make myself invisible, and marched onwards, despite being blatantly aware that this ominous vehicle was pulling up alongside me.

What kind of person approaches a stranger in a secluded car park, late at night? There’s only one kind of person who’d do that, a madman. Probably the kind of madman who thought that a Mitsubishi Colt would make an ideal mobile corpse container. In the show room, it probably looked perfect for transporting his victim’s bodies around, but on reflection, it just doesn’t have enough space in the boot. Not without the use of a woodchipper, anyway. Maybe the salesman threw a free one in, just to sweeten the deal. I’m so screwed!

After walking for what seemed like 700 years, it became impossible to plausibly pretend not to have seen this man, especially as he had now wound his window down and was leaning out at me. If he was a stabby murderer as I suspected, this would only make him angrier. Murderers don’t like to be ignored. I took the headphones out of my ears and turned to face my inevitable doom.

“I have the money.” Exclaimed the car man.

Perhaps I’d got him figured all wrong. Perhaps he was just a lonely millionaire who needed to brag about his wealth to a random stranger.

“That’s nice.” I said, searching for an appropriate response.

“Here’s half now, half later, as agreed.” He replied, extending an arm and dropping a rather expensive suitcase on the floor. Without further invitation, I scooped up the case and tried the lock, which opened straight away. My maths has never been excellent, but I estimated that was approximately eleventy-billion pounds in there.

“Fifty now, fifty after you’ve let her go.” I recounted the money again, but I was sure there was a lot more than £50 in there. Perhaps this man was worse at maths than me.

“Let who go?” I enquired as I shut the case with an authoritative slam.

“The girl”

It took a few seconds to process, but I eventually understood what he meant. You see, Whitney Housten had recently died, and since then, I’d been listening to her albums nonstop in a desperate bid to have her back in my life. Her tragic end had left a gaping void in my life, one which could not be filled with breakfast burritos or stealing from work. However, this money will help to heal that wound and help me to move on. This stranger must have known of my pain, and decided that only the means with which to purchase a luxury Tuscan villa would help me get my life back on track. His charity is greatly appreciated.

“You’ll let her go tonight, as agreed?”

“Well, it’s all a bit sudden” I responded, still staggered by the man’s intuition and charity “But I’ll do my best.”

“You’d better, you bastard! You don’t want the cops involved, do you?”

Already taken aback, I was taken further aback by his change in tone. Then, I realised this was simply an act of tough love. He was purposefully insulting me so that I wouldn’t feel obliged to give back the money. What a dear, sweet, caring man.

“Don’t worry. I won’t go back on our arrangement” I reassured the man, and with that, he sped off into the night. Bewildered, I climbed into my own vehicle and spent the whole drive home wondering what I was going to do with the money.

This morning I called the office and told them I was leaving the organisation. I don't need their paper clips any more, I'm a man of wealth!  Right now I am packing my suitcase for a round the world cruise, which I expect to be on for the next six months. I can’t believe my run of good luck! Especially so, as a woman’s body was discovered in a car park last night, which was only round the corner from where I work! That could have been me! It's certainly a sobering thought when you are so close to where someone was killed, and really puts your own good fortune in perspective.  Still, you can’t let these things get you down, especially when you have an all inclusive trip to look forward to. I’ll see you all in the Autumn!