The Earl Grey Missile Test
The civil service! Career of choice for dopes and under-achievers, and I ended up in a smart little side office on the tenth floor of the Ministry of Cow Counting in Reading.

They managed to get eight of us in an office the size of a broom cupboard, four of us straight out of college, gaseous as festering skunks. They should have known.

Bored stupid by the lack of stimulation, the bookie's phone number getting blocked by the switchboard, we had to make our own entertainment. We raided the stock cupboard - no mean feat, as it meant distracting the evil-faced old harridan who stood guard over it. We marvelled at our spoils. There was going to be hell.

We created dozens of elaborate elastic-powered missiles made of tightly rolled paper, drawing pins and paper clips. When fired from launchers cobbled together out of rulers, bulldog clips and triple-strength elastic bands, could easily break a) the sound barrier and b) any human skin it came into contact with. 007's Q-branch would have had orgasms.

Soon, our desks were fortresses with huge piles of files for protection (not to mention giving passing managers the illusion that actual work may have actually been taking place), with cunningly designed slits to fire our weapons onto the unsuspecting enemy.

It was chaos, and before long we were covered in bruises and dreading the day's battles. It would, of course, only be a matter of time until the cold hand of authority tapped us on the shoulder...

Three shots caused our downfall. Call them lucky. Call them irresponsible. We called them downright funny, and we laughed all the way to the personnel office.

Shot 1: "Tea?"

Your hero primes his weapon, loads his best missile - an arrangement with protrouding drawing pins called "Al's Skull Modifier", carefully aims and lets rip with the shot to end them all. And what a shot. It hit the spoon in Geoff's freshly made mug of Earl Grey, causing the contents to spill over Geoff, our so-called supervisor Mark, and a pile of files marked "In Confidence"

Shot 2: Laughing fit to burst, I stood up from behind my fortress so as to taunt Geoff further. Twack! Geoff's number one weapon "The Thug" caught me square in the bollocks. Enraged, we slugged it out on the carpet between the desks, teapots flying.

Shot 3: In stormed our department head, determined to put an end to this childish behaviour. Twock! Mark's "Disaster Area". Right in the flange. Doom.

She'd seen enough, and as soon as her eyes stopped watering, we were marched over the road to be dressed down by some senior personnel manager like a bunch of naughty schoolboys. We were split up, myself to the hell of accounts, Geoff got a cushy number editing the staff magazine while Mark got Export Document Registry, the civil service equivalent of Siberia, ruled with a rod of iron by a former school mistress who insisted on absolute silence and her permission for toilet breaks.

My first action in accounts was to get a pineapple, stick a stupid face on it and fire elastic band powered weapons at him until he turned to mush. The fruit wars had begun.

Original 12-inch version (what I wrote five years ago) HERE
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Mon 12 Jan 2009, 18:14, 6 replies)

civil service....
*clicks*

None of you got the sack anyway!

Great story!
(drfeck pissshitfuck, Mon 12 Jan 2009, 18:26, closed)

To get the sack...
...you had to actually kill one of your colleagues TO DEATH.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Mon 12 Jan 2009, 18:39, closed)

Yes ^^^^^
this.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 12 Jan 2009, 22:58, closed)

^^^^
Davros is right...sadly!
(twiceydrinker hmmm is it pint time?, Tue 13 Jan 2009, 9:57, closed)

Yes
I have tears streaming down my face well done "giggling still"
( jakedamusss I understand, and dont care., Tue 13 Jan 2009, 5:03, closed)

Great story
great title too :-)
( chart cat has an itch, Wed 14 Jan 2009, 11:14, closed)