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

It's bad enough that I have a non-job, working with a bunch of misfits, and that I've been knocked back for two other jobs in the last week. No, the issue of the week is Workplace Safety. My office has been infested by swarms of bees. I'm allergic to bees. I've been sitting there with a can of insecticide and increasing paranoia, killing insects every few minutes and failing to get any work done.

It took my employers a week to arrange for the bees to be removed. They had to bring in a crane to remove 5 hives from the upper levels of the building - the bees were coming in through the (defective) air conditioning system.

The crane blocked off the exit of the local bus interchange, causing a bit of trouble, but the real problem came when the building next door caught fire... It's a pity the bees didn't get smoked out.

Anyway. I threw in the towel (I have a spare towel, it's OK ) and left for the day, but then I got caught in one of the (defective) lifts that either slam on you or don't let you out or don't want to go up or stop 4 inches lower than the floor.

While all this was going on, a senior staff member managed to hurt herself on a cupboard door. She's now had the doors removed from all similar cupboards in the building. That puts it all in perspective; it's OK to have me surrounded by potentially lethal insects, but naughty cupboard doors have to be removed immediately. I can't help thinking that this senior officer should have been asked to demonstrate exactly how she got her head stuck in a cupboard, and then she should have been offered remedial training in handling rogue furniture...



End of rant. Thanks for putting up with it.

I think it's safe to say most workplace accidents could be prevented if people had their common sense assesed before gaining employment.

Blimey. Someone read that rant! That's more than I've done. I'm over it...

There haven't been any further reports of senior staff getting wedged in furniture, but I'm hoping for the best. Maybe the whole lot of 'em could get trapped under a filing cabinet, if I rig it right.

Hello Ivan. Followed you here from "Dinner For One". Strewth (as they say, I believe) your life is filled with enough awful stuff, and you express it so vividly, you qualify for a job as a stand-up "comic".

I'm sorry for your trouble. Really.

Thanks Recumbentman.

Of course, the problem with this journal so far is that it only contains pieces like this one. I should make an effort to balance things out by rabbiting on about some of the more pleasant bits of life - but there's no therapeutic aspect to that, and it wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun to write... I suspect it wouldn't be as much fun to read either, but that's human nature for you.

I don't know about stand-up comedy; it all sounds too exhausting. Sit-down comedy, maybe...

Write for The Post. We're missing Dr Deckchair Funderlik . . .

I might make it to one of these days, but I won't have any time for writing anything much until mid-April at the earliest. I'm going to be all over the country in the next month, and I suspect the thing I'll write first after that will be a page of venom about the transit lounge at Tullamarine (Melbourne Airport).