We have been back working in one of Celador's open plan offices this week. Apart from week one when we found out how celebrities were chosen for TV shows, we have been shut away in our own room and so can swear and burp and make tasteless jokes to our heart's content. But now in public we felt we should watch ourselves in front of others. The other people working on their various quizzes and TV shows eyed us with suspicion, but generally ignored us. They were a bit distracting for us and gave us more views into the world of the office, previously only available to us through the David Brent led sit-com.
Yesterday one of the women bemoaned the fact that whenever you had something important to print, the printer always ran out of paper. "Yes!" exclaimed the white haired man at the desk next to us, "It's like toast!"
"Yes!" agreed the woman as she went to get more paper.
We all looked at each other and tried to work out why a printer running out of paper at inopportune times was anything like toast. We couldn't. "It's like toast always falls butter side down?" suggested Dan.
"No, it isn't really anything like that either. And even if it is, just saying "it's like toast" should not be enough to get an instantaneous and enthusiastic affirmation. It's not like toast in the least.
Today a smartly dressed blonde woman in her forties was loudly declaiming (she may have been one of the ones who were looking through the Radio Times at the beginning of the series.
"I don't see them as five individuals," she stridently remarked from the next room (presumably talking about the people who worked under her), "I see them as a team."
She seemed incredible proud for saying this, but I found it an unpleasant and dispiriting thing to hear, let alone utter. Being in a team is all very well, as my blood soaked blade in my attic attests too, but if the members of the team cease to be individuals then we may as well just sign up for the Borg now.
I was mainly distracted though by the high proportion of incredibly attractive women who were working in the office and kept walking by us to make tea (they can't have been going to the toilet, they were too beautiful and angelic). It was better that I be put in a shut room with nothing more alluring than Emma Kennedy than be distracted by this parade of feminine perfection. As I stared at one of them for the tenth time this week, Dan shook his head. "I don't see them as individuals," I remarked, "I see them as my harem."
It's a good job this is the end of the series.
