I didn't work with this man in question very often but I knew him. He was a good bloke but had no concept of the world the rest of us live in. He was massively into militaria and the money he made from trading that stuff, a lot of it very ghoulish (Japanese flags with blood on them, SS regalia, AK47 parts the lot). Anyway he brought some of this shit in from time to time and showed people, he didn't do it to freak people out although it did put the shits up a lot of people, it was just the way he was.
One day, I won't say when exactly but it was over 10 years ago, and I've got no idea how this happened, a hand grenade fell from his vehicle in the Blackwell tunnel and was picked up by CCTV and a hell of a lot of terrified motorists and reported to the authorities. I think the tunnel was closed for nearly 4 hours whilst the bomb squad dealt with this thing.
I'm sure a bit of this has been exaggerated as I didn't get to hear about it until the next day and by then it was about 6th hand. The main facts remain true though. A real, non replica hand grenade fell from the window of a company van, the tunnel was shut and he somehow, unbelievably, he kept his job on the condition he was banned from working out in the field forever and would remain in a permanent office role to prevent or at least limit his mayhem.
Last time I saw him was at the wedding of a former colleague and he turned up in A German officers ceremonial dress from world war two. I decided to swerve him then and even though he continues to haunt me on Facebook with friend requests I will not entertain him for fear of guilt of something by association
I've worked on the tools, done an office job and gone back on the tools. I've worked with all manner of very odd people. I'm slightly reticent to post too much in case this ever gets used as evidence so I'll try and be as ambiguous as I can whilst leaving the key details in....
A guy who did the same job as me but in a different patch was a god fearing, church going apparently straight as a die. Without warning he was featured in the newspaper for using a camera hidden in a holdall to film up women's skirts. Amazingly he kept his job and got away with any serious punishment due to his previous good character.
I heard a rumour of two blokes tugging each other off and were seen by a member of the public doing so but got away with it as they claimed they were doing it on their lunch hour. I'm not convinced of the genuinety of that one though.
I've got some more that will need me to dedicate some time to fully flesh out and post
I've worked on the tools, done an office job and gone back on the tools. I've worked with all manner of very odd people. I'm slightly reticent to post too much in case this ever gets used as evidence so I'll try and be as ambiguous as I can whilst leaving the key details in....
A guy who did the same job as me but in a different patch was a god fearing, church going apparently straight as a die. Without warning he was featured in the newspaper for using a camera hidden in a holdall to film up women's skirts. Amazingly he kept his job and got away with any serious punishment due to his previous good character.
I heard a rumour of two blokes tugging each other off and were seen by a member of the public doing so but got away with it as they claimed they were doing it on their lunch hour. I'm not convinced of the genuinety of that one though.
I've got some more that will need me to dedicate some time to fully flesh out and post
Worked with a woman in London from South Africa, lets call her Maxine, she was late 30s and did all the accounts, very placid type but pleasant enough.
We used to all go out after work and she even brought her boyfriend along, lets call him Titus, he was a Yorkshireman and he seemed a bit odd but again nothing outrageous.
One night we all went out in the West End and another non-work mate of mine turns up, he was mid 20s and good looking and Maxine was all over him like a rash straight away.
They talked for about half hour and she says to me, bold as brass, “Right, I am taking your mate back to my place, you’d better sort yourself out,” meaning I should seek some female company of my own.
I was totally gobsmacked, couldn’t believe what had happened, and called it a night soon after.
This was in the days before mobile phones so I didn’t find out what had taken place until the Saturday morning when my mate turned up late for football and looking very white in the face.
Turns out they get back to Maxine’s house and start kissing and she starts asking him questions about his proclivities, what his boundaries are and so on, he didn’t want to sound like a prude so he just goes along with it and says he is fine with whatever.
Next thing she excuses herself and goes upstairs and tells him to wait until she calls him.
Ten minutes pass and he is wondering what the fuck is going on when she calls him upstairs and he finds her standing up in the bedroom with ALL the bondage gear on that you could imagine, the corset, face mask, thigh high boots, the fucking lot.
He said she had a cracking figure and he thought that as long as it did not get too weird that he’d be fine so he just played along with it on the basis that he’d come this far and wasn’t going home till he’d emptied the old one-eyed custard chucker.
As they are getting down to it she kept on talking dirty to him, but doing it really loudly and saying some really weird shit, almost like she was talking to someone else rather than him and he starts to wonder what the fuck was going on - he soon found out.
As she was on top of him doing her thing and getting to the height of proceedings so to speak, old mate Titus the boyfriend emerges from the wardrobe stark bollock naked with a massive boner which he was enthusiastically engaging with.
“What the fuck is going on? Who the fuck is that?” my mate screams at Maxine.
“Oh, dont worry about him, he just wants to watch, he won’t disturb us!” she replies, and continues with her business.
My mate decided that this was now way beyond his comfort zone and decides to make his excuses and leave the premises - which were in Holland Park which is not the easiest place to get back to Sidcup from at gone midnight.
Monday morning comes round and I have got to front up at work and sit opposite Maxine the bondage Queen in the full knowledge that far from being a placid book-keeper as previously assumed she is actually a rampant sex-pest.
She comes straight up to me first thing, again bold as brass, and says, “Your friend was really nice, can you please give me his number?”
I was so, so, fucking tempted......but decided to save the poor bastard!
Back in 2006, I worked for an investment firm in the city. On a very boozy Friday night, a group of us ended up in Ye Olde Axe on Hackney Road (grubby strip pub). The client services manager decided that it was appropriate for her to strip in front of us, which also included a director. She got thrown out by the bouncer and resigned the following week (she'd been with the company for more than 10 years).
Back in 2006, I worked for an investment firm in the city. On a very boozy Friday night, a group of us ended up in Ye Olde Axe on Hackney Road (grubby strip pub). The client services manager decided that it was appropriate for her to strip in front of us, which also included a director. She got thrown out by the bouncer and resigned the following week (she'd been with the company for more than 10 years).
What ? More details required ....... how far did she get with her strip, did she get thrown out semi/fully naked & was she worth watching ?
Back in 2006, I worked for an investment firm in the city. On a very boozy Friday night, a group of us ended up in Ye Olde Axe on Hackney Road (grubby strip pub). The client services manager decided that it was appropriate for her to strip in front of us, which also included a director. She got thrown out by the bouncer and resigned the following week (she'd been with the company for more than 10 years).
What ? More details required ....... how far did she get with her strip, did she get thrown out semi/fully naked & was she worth watching ?
We only saw her titties (which weren't the greatest), before bouncer turned up. On the Monday, I emailed her the lyrics to Tina Turner's 'Private Dancer'. She didn't find that funny.
Had a guy in on a trial shift a few weeks back, decided not to take him on when we found him fucking a customer in the toilet 2 hours into the shift
Working in a shop up on Oxford Street, needed to speak to one of the store managers about some stock, went and knocked at his office and heard some bumping, shuffling and footsteps before asked to come in, walked in to find another manager in the office with him, her hair slightly unkempt, a button undone halfway up her blouse, and what looked suspiciously like a pair of lacy blue knickers scrunched up tightly in her hand, and she hurriedly made her excuses and left
Had a guy in on a trial shift a few weeks back, decided not to take him on when we found him fucking a customer in the toilet 2 hours into the shift
Working in a shop up on Oxford Street, needed to speak to one of the store managers about some stock, went and knocked at his office and heard some bumping, shuffling and footsteps before asked to come in, walked in to find another manager in the office with him, her hair slightly unkempt, a button undone halfway up her blouse, and what looked suspiciously like a pair of lacy blue knickers scrunched up tightly in her hand, and she hurriedly made her excuses and left
Eat sardines at 3pm every day in one of the toilet cubicles
Wally Caley, worked on the ground floor, but would come up to the third floor every day at 11am and have a noisy wank in the same cubicle, then furiously rip up the page from the dirty magazine he had been wanking to!
strangest guy I ever worked with didn't mess around pretending to be normal, he was straight in at the deep end of weirdness during his interview when he said he wouldn't be able to do the job for very long as he was going to kill himself on May 27th. This was the day after the 3rd division play off final in 2001- he didn't want to miss out if Torquay made it to Cardiff
he somehow still got hired, Torquay only just escaped relegation to the conference and he decided to put off the suicide after getting himself a mail order russian bride
Had a guy in on a trial shift a few weeks back, decided not to take him on when we found him fucking a customer in the toilet 2 hours into the shift
Working in a shop up on Oxford Street, needed to speak to one of the store managers about some stock, went and knocked at his office and heard some bumping, shuffling and footsteps before asked to come in, walked in to find another manager in the office with him, her hair slightly unkempt, a button undone halfway up her blouse, and what looked suspiciously like a pair of lacy blue knickers scrunched up tightly in her hand, and she hurriedly made her excuses and left
Now, that is taking the piss, I mean, taking a break 2 hours into a shift, what was he thinking!!
I didn't work with this man in question very often but I knew him. He was a good bloke but had no concept of the world the rest of us live in. He was massively into militaria and the money he made from trading that stuff, a lot of it very ghoulish (Japanese flags with blood on them, SS regalia, AK47 parts the lot). Anyway he brought some of this shit in from time to time and showed people, he didn't do it to freak people out although it did put the shits up a lot of people, it was just the way he was.
One day, I won't say when exactly but it was over 10 years ago, and I've got no idea how this happened, a hand grenade fell from his vehicle in the Blackwell tunnel and was picked up by CCTV and a hell of a lot of terrified motorists and reported to the authorities. I think the tunnel was closed for nearly 4 hours whilst the bomb squad dealt with this thing.
I'm sure a bit of this has been exaggerated as I didn't get to hear about it until the next day and by then it was about 6th hand. The main facts remain true though. A real, non replica hand grenade fell from the window of a company van, the tunnel was shut and he somehow, unbelievably, he kept his job on the condition he was banned from working out in the field forever and would remain in a permanent office role to prevent or at least limit his mayhem.
Last time I saw him was at the wedding of a former colleague and he turned up in A German officers ceremonial dress from world war two. I decided to swerve him then and even though he continues to haunt me on Facebook with friend requests I will not entertain him for fear of guilt of something by association
What the fuck do you have to do to get fired at your place mate?
Had a guy in on a trial shift a few weeks back, decided not to take him on when we found him fucking a customer in the toilet 2 hours into the shift
Working in a shop up on Oxford Street, needed to speak to one of the store managers about some stock, went and knocked at his office and heard some bumping, shuffling and footsteps before asked to come in, walked in to find another manager in the office with him, her hair slightly unkempt, a button undone halfway up her blouse, and what looked suspiciously like a pair of lacy blue knickers scrunched up tightly in her hand, and she hurriedly made her excuses and left
That is some going. I can barely even remember where the khazis are 2 hours into a new job.
Eat sardines at 3pm every day in one of the toilet cubicles
Wally Caley, worked on the ground floor, but would come up to the third floor every day at 11am and have a noisy wank in the same cubicle, then furiously rip up the page from the dirty magazine he had been wanking to!
You never thought to ask him to find his own vacant one?
I didn't work with this man in question very often but I knew him. He was a good bloke but had no concept of the world the rest of us live in. He was massively into militaria and the money he made from trading that stuff, a lot of it very ghoulish (Japanese flags with blood on them, SS regalia, AK47 parts the lot). Anyway he brought some of this shit in from time to time and showed people, he didn't do it to freak people out although it did put the shits up a lot of people, it was just the way he was.
One day, I won't say when exactly but it was over 10 years ago, and I've got no idea how this happened, a hand grenade fell from his vehicle in the Blackwell tunnel and was picked up by CCTV and a hell of a lot of terrified motorists and reported to the authorities. I think the tunnel was closed for nearly 4 hours whilst the bomb squad dealt with this thing.
I'm sure a bit of this has been exaggerated as I didn't get to hear about it until the next day and by then it was about 6th hand. The main facts remain true though. A real, non replica hand grenade fell from the window of a company van, the tunnel was shut and he somehow, unbelievably, he kept his job on the condition he was banned from working out in the field forever and would remain in a permanent office role to prevent or at least limit his mayhem.
Last time I saw him was at the wedding of a former colleague and he turned up in A German officers ceremonial dress from world war two. I decided to swerve him then and even though he continues to haunt me on Facebook with friend requests I will not entertain him for fear of guilt of something by association
What the fuck do you have to do to get fired at your place mate?
Well this is it, I've seen people sacked for what in comparison are very minor discretions. Although to be fair anything is minor compared to that!
I've seen people get away with stuff that shocks me but the last few sackings have been for looking at inappropriate stuff online which is pretty stupid in fairness
Back at a previous investment company, there was a blossoming office romance between Sarah* and Dan*. Sarah also happened to live with a gay bloke from the office, called Alex*.
Alex was notorious for sleazing on straight lads at company dos and nights out, and he was often close to a a slap on numerous occasions for his advances.
One day, Dan went to Sarah's house after work before Sarah had finished work. Sarah then comes home to the flat to find her 'straight' boyfriend balls deep in male colleague Alex.
Dan never returned to the office, and Sarah and Alex had to be moved to different teams.
There is a chap I work with in the London office called Stu. He has built a tower round his desk and put post-it notes all round his screen to block out all eye contact.
He cleans in teeth fives times a day in the toilet with a pint of milk and walks round the office in his socks.
I once came out the toilet cubical after a number 2, he went in. I was washing my hands and had a tap on the shoulder, "err Rob, can you sort this out please?" when I looked the toilet had blocked. I said "sure, come out the cubical and I will sort it". He then asked me "do you mind if I wee on it all first?"
Back at a previous investment company, there was a blossoming office romance between Sarah* and Dan*. Sarah also happened to live with a gay bloke from the office, called Alex*.
Alex was notorious for sleazing on straight lads at company dos and nights out, and he was often close to a a slap on numerous occasions for his advances.
One day, Dan went to Sarah's house after work before Sarah had finished work. Sarah then comes home to the flat to find her 'straight' boyfriend balls deep in male colleague Alex.
Dan never returned to the office, and Sarah and Alex had to be moved to different teams.
Cor, fucking hell! That’s on a different level altogether!
Fantastic thread. I been racking my brains but the best I can come up with is a colleague eating peanut butter and marmite on cream crackers for lunch.
A few years back our office had a rule mobiles had to be switched off during working hours, no one really did this but kept phones on silent and did not really take calls but would go to the toilet to text etc.
This one girl had only been working at our office a few months and was warned about disappearing to make phone calls etc. Shen then started to go under her desk to take a phone call and when challenged would say she was taking to her bin while checking if it needed emptying, to make her excuse look realistic she would then start going under her desk at times without her phone to talk to her bin.
I can't really add much to this thread about what colleagues have done but here's a couple of mildly weird things that I have done.
Working in fund management in the mid-late eighties we were extremely busy in 1987 when the stockmarket was hitting all time highs as Maggie secured a 3rd term in office. The dealing desk's main frame computer went into meltdown & we had a weeks worth of deals backed up on sheets of paper as we couldn't input them onto the dealing system, exacerbated by the crash in the October. We had to come in at weekends to clear it all & during this time the big brass wanted to come down to our floor to see for themselves what the problem was. I was told that I had to clear my desk to make it look "nice & tidy" and I complained saying that it gave a false impression of how we were working & the actual state of affairs. My boss just told me to do it, so being a pendantic sod I cleared my desk completely, pens, calendar phone & all, straight into my desk drawers. All that was left on my desk was my PC - nothing else. I then went off to lunch, missed the bigwigs visit & waited for the fallout. When I got back someone had put everything out of the drawers & back on my desk, tidying all up in the process. I left 3 months later.
Forward 5 years, I was then working as a financial advisor (insurance salesman by another name) for a company that I wont name (it wouldn't be PRUdent to do so) and they shut our office & merged us with another one down the road. In total there were around 20 advisors all trying to fit into an office with desks for about 12. On a Friday everybody had to come in & submit their weekly business & the office was carnage. One Friday I came into the office to find not only all the desks taken (with most having people also perched on corners of desks) but not even a chair to sit on. So I just sat down on the floor in the middle of the office & starting working. Briefcase open, papers strewn about everywhere & people tripping over me & generally getting v. pissed off. The office manager (a Millwall fan) came out of his office, saw what was going on & laughed. A few months later we all moved into a brand new office on a business park with enough space for 50 advisors.
Only other thing of note was 10 years later, working in a small office with about 6 advisers, Bloke opposite me was a great guy (Orient fan) and looked a little bit like Saddam Husain. One morning I walk in to find his desk all covered in paper & cardboard - 2 of the other advisers had mad a little "camp" for him because of the news of the evil dictator being find hiding out in a cave somewhere. This was the same office where we played indoor cricket with a soft sponge ball and where we also had a race around the office on a couple of space hoppers. Things like that don't happen when you work from home..............
A few years back our office had a rule mobiles had to be switched off during working hours, no one really did this but kept phones on silent and did not really take calls but would go to the toilet to text etc.
This one girl had only been working at our office a few months and was warned about disappearing to make phone calls etc. Shen then started to go under her desk to take a phone call and when challenged would say she was taking to her bin while checking if it needed emptying, to make her excuse look realistic she would then start going under her desk at times without her phone to talk to her bin.
I walked out of a job over a mobile phone rule. The supervisor said when he saw I had a phone, "they won't like it if they see you with it". Meaning him. So I told HR pop my P45 in the post I'm off. The director in charge of manufacturing told me I could have a special dispensation for a personal phone to be used in an emergency. I told him what I thought of that idea and left 2 minutes later. Probably the worse Christmas I've ever had, big mortgage, car loan, a family to provide for and no job because I lost my temper. It did feel very good at the time and I soon got back into work. Everybody should do that at least once in their life. Stick it to the man.
Love the posts on here. Many years ago an old wartime Navy colleague bloke (Eric) with brylcreem hair and bell-bottom suit trousers that came in and out of fashion over a period of forty years and I were installing some electrical equipment on a construction site. I can't remember how or why but we got involved in a lunchtime card school with a couple of fat neck Irishmen. Half way through the game Eric accused one of the blokes of cheating. The Irishman jumped to his feet and swung punch across the card table which connected with Erics nose. Eric flew back falling over his chair to the floor. We watched in amazement as he picked himself up, wiped his nose, straightened his chair sat down and continued to play. Not a word was said during or after the incident. Bizarre.
Worked on a site in the late 90's and one bloke in particular was just a plain outright bullshitter.
This bloke looked like Dillon out of the magic roundabout yet he claimed to have a page 3 wife who would perform oral sex on him the minute he walked in from work, just after handing him his tea that is.
Then he would tell us that he used to be a multi millionaire but lost nearly all of his money and that the only thing he had left was the small family run museum in South Kensington.
He left the job after 3 weeks as he had just been given his royalties from his best selling book that he had written and he was off to go down the Amazon on his raft for 6 months!
Comments
I didn't work with this man in question very often but I knew him. He was a good bloke but had no concept of the world the rest of us live in. He was massively into militaria and the money he made from trading that stuff, a lot of it very ghoulish (Japanese flags with blood on them, SS regalia, AK47 parts the lot). Anyway he brought some of this shit in from time to time and showed people, he didn't do it to freak people out although it did put the shits up a lot of people, it was just the way he was.
One day, I won't say when exactly but it was over 10 years ago, and I've got no idea how this happened, a hand grenade fell from his vehicle in the Blackwell tunnel and was picked up by CCTV and a hell of a lot of terrified motorists and reported to the authorities. I think the tunnel was closed for nearly 4 hours whilst the bomb squad dealt with this thing.
I'm sure a bit of this has been exaggerated as I didn't get to hear about it until the next day and by then it was about 6th hand. The main facts remain true though. A real, non replica hand grenade fell from the window of a company van, the tunnel was shut and he somehow, unbelievably, he kept his job on the condition he was banned from working out in the field forever and would remain in a permanent office role to prevent or at least limit his mayhem.
Last time I saw him was at the wedding of a former colleague and he turned up in A German officers ceremonial dress from world war two. I decided to swerve him then and even though he continues to haunt me on Facebook with friend requests I will not entertain him for fear of guilt of something by association
Worked with a woman in London from South Africa, lets call her Maxine, she was late 30s and did all the accounts, very placid type but pleasant enough.
We used to all go out after work and she even brought her boyfriend along, lets call him Titus, he was a Yorkshireman and he seemed a bit odd but again nothing outrageous.
One night we all went out in the West End and another non-work mate of mine turns up, he was mid 20s and good looking and Maxine was all over him like a rash straight away.
They talked for about half hour and she says to me, bold as brass, “Right, I am taking your mate back to my place, you’d better sort yourself out,” meaning I should seek some female company of my own.
I was totally gobsmacked, couldn’t believe what had happened, and called it a night soon after.
This was in the days before mobile phones so I didn’t find out what had taken place until the Saturday morning when my mate turned up late for football and looking very white in the face.
Turns out they get back to Maxine’s house and start kissing and she starts asking him questions about his proclivities, what his boundaries are and so on, he didn’t want to sound like a prude so he just goes along with it and says he is fine with whatever.
Next thing she excuses herself and goes upstairs and tells him to wait until she calls him.
Ten minutes pass and he is wondering what the fuck is going on when she calls him upstairs and he finds her standing up in the bedroom with ALL the bondage gear on that you could imagine, the corset, face mask, thigh high boots, the fucking lot.
He said she had a cracking figure and he thought that as long as it did not get too weird that he’d be fine so he just played along with it on the basis that he’d come this far and wasn’t going home till he’d emptied the old one-eyed custard chucker.
As they are getting down to it she kept on talking dirty to him, but doing it really loudly and saying some really weird shit, almost like she was talking to someone else rather than him and he starts to wonder what the fuck was going on - he soon found out.
As she was on top of him doing her thing and getting to the height of proceedings so to speak, old mate Titus the boyfriend emerges from the wardrobe stark bollock naked with a massive boner which he was enthusiastically engaging with.
“What the fuck is going on? Who the fuck is that?” my mate screams at Maxine.
“Oh, dont worry about him, he just wants to watch, he won’t disturb us!” she replies, and continues with her business.
My mate decided that this was now way beyond his comfort zone and decides to make his excuses and leave the premises - which were in Holland Park which is not the easiest place to get back to Sidcup from at gone midnight.
Monday morning comes round and I have got to front up at work and sit opposite Maxine the bondage Queen in the full knowledge that far from being a placid book-keeper as previously assumed she is actually a rampant sex-pest.
She comes straight up to me first thing, again bold as brass, and says, “Your friend was really nice, can you please give me his number?”
I was so, so, fucking tempted......but decided to save the poor bastard!
On a very boozy Friday night, a group of us ended up in Ye Olde Axe on Hackney Road (grubby strip pub).
The client services manager decided that it was appropriate for her to strip in front of us, which also included a director. She got thrown out by the bouncer and resigned the following week (she'd been with the company for more than 10 years).
On the Monday, I emailed her the lyrics to Tina Turner's 'Private Dancer'. She didn't find that funny.
Working in a shop up on Oxford Street, needed to speak to one of the store managers about some stock, went and knocked at his office and heard some bumping, shuffling and footsteps before asked to come in, walked in to find another manager in the office with him, her hair slightly unkempt, a button undone halfway up her blouse, and what looked suspiciously like a pair of lacy blue knickers scrunched up tightly in her hand, and she hurriedly made her excuses and left
he somehow still got hired, Torquay only just escaped relegation to the conference and he decided to put off the suicide after getting himself a mail order russian bride
I've seen people get away with stuff that shocks me but the last few sackings have been for looking at inappropriate stuff online which is pretty stupid in fairness
Alex was notorious for sleazing on straight lads at company dos and nights out, and he was often close to a a slap on numerous occasions for his advances.
One day, Dan went to Sarah's house after work before Sarah had finished work. Sarah then comes home to the flat to find her 'straight' boyfriend balls deep in male colleague Alex.
Dan never returned to the office, and Sarah and Alex had to be moved to different teams.
He cleans in teeth fives times a day in the toilet with a pint of milk and walks round the office in his socks.
I once came out the toilet cubical after a number 2, he went in. I was washing my hands and had a tap on the shoulder, "err Rob, can you sort this out please?" when I looked the toilet had blocked. I said "sure, come out the cubical and I will sort it". He then asked me "do you mind if I wee on it all first?"
With that I just walked out and left him to sort.
And yes he only had socks on.
This one girl had only been working at our office a few months and was warned about disappearing to make phone calls etc. Shen then started to go under her desk to take a phone call and when challenged would say she was taking to her bin while checking if it needed emptying, to make her excuse look realistic she would then start going under her desk at times without her phone to talk to her bin.
Working in fund management in the mid-late eighties we were extremely busy in 1987 when the stockmarket was hitting all time highs as Maggie secured a 3rd term in office. The dealing desk's main frame computer went into meltdown & we had a weeks worth of deals backed up on sheets of paper as we couldn't input them onto the dealing system, exacerbated by the crash in the October. We had to come in at weekends to clear it all & during this time the big brass wanted to come down to our floor to see for themselves what the problem was. I was told that I had to clear my desk to make it look "nice & tidy" and I complained saying that it gave a false impression of how we were working & the actual state of affairs. My boss just told me to do it, so being a pendantic sod I cleared my desk completely, pens, calendar phone & all, straight into my desk drawers. All that was left on my desk was my PC - nothing else. I then went off to lunch, missed the bigwigs visit & waited for the fallout. When I got back someone had put everything out of the drawers & back on my desk, tidying all up in the process. I left 3 months later.
Forward 5 years, I was then working as a financial advisor (insurance salesman by another name) for a company that I wont name (it wouldn't be PRUdent to do so) and they shut our office & merged us with another one down the road. In total there were around 20 advisors all trying to fit into an office with desks for about 12. On a Friday everybody had to come in & submit their weekly business & the office was carnage. One Friday I came into the office to find not only all the desks taken (with most having people also perched on corners of desks) but not even a chair to sit on. So I just sat down on the floor in the middle of the office & starting working. Briefcase open, papers strewn about everywhere & people tripping over me & generally getting v. pissed off. The office manager (a Millwall fan) came out of his office, saw what was going on & laughed. A few months later we all moved into a brand new office on a business park with enough space for 50 advisors.
Only other thing of note was 10 years later, working in a small office with about 6 advisers, Bloke opposite me was a great guy (Orient fan) and looked a little bit like Saddam Husain. One morning I walk in to find his desk all covered in paper & cardboard - 2 of the other advisers had mad a little "camp" for him because of the news of the evil dictator being find hiding out in a cave somewhere. This was the same office where we played indoor cricket with a soft sponge ball and where we also had a race around the office on a couple of space hoppers. Things like that don't happen when you work from home..............
So I told HR pop my P45 in the post I'm off. The director in charge of manufacturing told me I could have a special dispensation for a personal phone to be used in an emergency. I told him what I thought of that idea and left 2 minutes later.
Probably the worse Christmas I've ever had, big mortgage, car loan, a family to provide for and no job because I lost my temper.
It did feel very good at the time and I soon got back into work. Everybody should do that at least once in their life. Stick it to the man.
Many years ago an old wartime Navy colleague bloke (Eric) with brylcreem hair and bell-bottom suit trousers that came in and out of fashion over a period of forty years and I were installing some electrical equipment on a construction site.
I can't remember how or why but we got involved in a lunchtime card school with a couple of fat neck Irishmen.
Half way through the game Eric accused one of the blokes of cheating.
The Irishman jumped to his feet and swung punch across the card table which connected with Erics nose.
Eric flew back falling over his chair to the floor.
We watched in amazement as he picked himself up, wiped his nose, straightened his chair sat down and continued to play.
Not a word was said during or after the incident.
Bizarre.
This bloke looked like Dillon out of the magic roundabout yet he claimed to have a page 3 wife who would perform oral sex on him the minute he walked in from work, just after handing him his tea that is.
Then he would tell us that he used to be a multi millionaire but lost nearly all of his money and that the only thing he had left was the small family run museum in South Kensington.
He left the job after 3 weeks as he had just been given his royalties from his best selling book that he had written and he was off to go down the Amazon on his raft for 6 months!