Almost entirely on topic
I think Vinny's a top bloke, but I can understand that if you were his manager, life could be a little...interesting.

Imagine - if you can - the love child of the Mitchell bros. Mum and Golem from Lord of the Rings. Not just hard, but virtually indestructable and perhaps a little malignant too. He's about my age, but whereas I was brought up in middle-class London suburbia and forged through a series of mindless jobs and careless travel, Vinny left a hard school in York and went straight into the carriage works (that's where they used to make railway carriages back in the days when we used to actually make things here). His favourite occupation at work was 'tossing it off' - not literally, you'll be glad to hear, but metaphorically. If he could get away with doing nothing while still being paid - that was a result. 'And what's wrong with that?' I hear you ask, as you while away the hours at work composing entries for the QOTW.

Vinny brought the sense of humour and sensibilities of the factory floor into the office and I loved it, except for the mornings after he'd had a curry. "Aaaaah, the fragrant herbs and spices of the Orient!" he'd say, with Sid James cackle, as a foul stench spread its way outward from his desk, causing a flurry of wafting paperwork and complaints as the smell insinuated its way around the whole floor.

At ten on the dot, and with a furtive look that would have alerted a tree that he was up to something, he'd pick up a file from his desk and craftily - NOT - insert a copy of the Daily Telegraph, before heading for the toilets for 20 minutes or so. If you had any sense, you'd use the toilet on a different floor for the next hour or so.

Every few months he'd lose his temper in a spectacular way and end up in the boss's office looking like Billy Caspar in the Head's office in 'Kes': unrepentant, faux-guilty, bored, not listening, resentful.

We worked together for a few months, dealing with complaints of all things. He gave me a fatherly word of advice one time after I'd offered to ring a customer back for one of the helpline lasses: "Che, don't be too helpful - they'll keep coming back to you if you put yourself out" ...right. Come to think of it, he was probably right. If you lean over backwards to help people, it usually just gives them a clearer shot when they come back to kick you in the nads.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 25 Jan 2008, 15:06, Reply)