Sacked by Stabilo
It was 1991 and the depths of a proper recession. Twas on a train from Leeds to London that my South African boss produced a list of the entire London Head Office staff. He then asked me what each one of them did. If I did not produce a satisfactory answer he put a blue Stabilo mark through their name. Having come to the end of the list he threw it at me and said that the next day I was to sack all those who had the blue mark through their name. Thus became the legend - 'You've been Stabilo'd' amongst the whole company.

It was on the same train journey that said boss was attempting to use his mobile phone (an enormous contraption the size of a briefcase) to call his secretary. 'Can you hear me?' he cried on a regular basis as the reception was rubbish..'Can you hear me?'. Much to my delight, and the rest of the carriage, a voice piped up from a few rows back 'We can all fucking hear you, mate, why don't you just give it a rest'. I think its the one and only time I ever saw him embarrassed.
(tell me about the rabbits, Fri 19 Jun 2009, 1:03, Reply)