Pod People
During a time of churning uncertainty for the company, with bits being sold off and legislation meaning some remaining bits couldn't talk to the rest of the bits, our department's morale was low. I mean, people who were already a bit gloomy were predicting we'd be eating one another inside a month, and the emotionally fragile would occasionally weep quietly at their desks.

Management decided something should be done, and decided we would be rotated out to go on a course they'd found. It was something about having a positive attitude, and in a stroke of genius it was cascaded down to line managers who all agreed to send the bitterest, most cynical doom-mongers as the first wave (rightly suspecting that next month a new initiative would come down and this one would be forgotten).

A week later and back they came, smiling and laughing. "It's not the end of the world!" and "Work to live, not live to work!" and other such platitudes tumbled from their incessantly cheery lips. It was the biggest turnaround since Jesus decided not to let being nailed to a cross get him down.

Frankly it was creepy - this was, after all, pre-Teletubbies and that much relentless happiness was alien to our world.

Until finally one morning Lou, previously the most blackhearted Cassandra of them all and now Ms Chirpy Sunshine, returned from lunch one day to discover on her chair a perfect replica of an open, giant pod from "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers". A bunch of us had got together and commissioned it from a local artist.

Sadly it's been over 20 years since I worked there and I never had the pictures, but she was not amused. Yes, we'd finally dragged her back down into the pit with the rest of us. Mind you, it cheered us up immensely.
( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 20:33, 1 reply)

Subtle
I like it a lot
( chart cat has an itch, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 8:11, closed)