h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was thinking (yup, sometimes it happens) about April's Create today.

Not the fact that I've probably left it too late to submit a tale of two, but about the workplace stories I've written over the last few years.

The one's I've personally found amusing have had little response, probably because I've built yet another three part ha'penny dreadful out of a one line throwaway remark.

Then there's the ones that show a brief glimpse being the scenes of jobs that no normal self respecting person would consider, if it wasn't for the cash. These tend to get more interest….hmmm…

Maybe it boils down to those mundane employment practices that everyone sees but no-one has first hand knowledge of?

Naval ships on the news at the moment, but who was the long haired teenager that helped build them?

Most of us have been through an airport, but what goes on behind the gaudily advertised walls?

Hospital dramas on the telly, maybe a trip to A&E if we're unlucky, but what happens down those 'authorised Personnel only’ corridors?

Even buying something from one of those megastores, strange things occur amongst the stockroom shelving.

Learner drivers/riders on the roads, but what's it like to be the instructor?

Blue lights and sirens in the distance, but what are the emergency crew chatting about at eighty mph?

There are stories hiding behind the shop counters, staff corridors and key fobbed electric doors. Jokes are told and hearts are broken everywhere, most well hidden from the public gaze.

Yet still, the fascination of the fly on the wall, interested eyes search out a tantalising glimpse behind the scenes.

Most workplaces are probably just as dull or exciting as the next, there's just a different wizard behind each curtain!

Forgive the dreaded autofill typos, bloody phone!

As if by majick, someone asked me today what it was like 'behind there?'

When I told them it was 'just another wizard', ooh the funny looks!

You mention behind th scenes glimpses of stocking items at stores.

There's a Japanese novel called "Convenience store woman." You wouldn't think that anyone could ind meaning in that kind of work, but the protagonist of the book does!

Stockrooms are very zen places mate...unless you have a cyber headset screeching orders down your ear!

I hope that hasn't happened to you.

Don't panic! I lived to tell the tale! In fact, storerooms appear in a few of my tales, the cyber headset made an appearance in sunrise and spaceships the other week too!

Only a fill in job but it's obviously left a mark.

When you're in a cramped and dark place, the dark side of human nature may well come out. .

Bloody huge well lit warehouse of a space actually Paul, explains my bright and sunny disposition lol

Yes. It well describes it.

Precariously balanced against some pretty dark stuff, obviously! Lol

It's reassuring that your dark stuff is pretty.

Should I have put that in a well Paul? Rather dark any better? Two nations divided by a common snarkiness lol

My darkness is far from pretty. Wells are dark too, I have never seen a pretty well wisher.... Oh dear, you have me... Oh well! Pretty well done here....

I hope that my dark stuff and your dark stuff never meet. The world would not be safe.