Tuesday 6 January 2009

The stationery key

Upon waking up this morning I thought of the latest Barclaycard advert - you know the one? A man stands up in the office as everyone finishes for the day and starts changing into his swimming gear as he makes his way to a stationery cupboard. He opens the cupboard door for us to see the opening of a water flume in the far wall, amongst the shelves and staplers. The man has his shorts on and proceeds to jump into the waterslide, sliding and spinning his way home by water in the flume, slowing down to pass through a supermarket en route, with it's own flume system, and to buy some bananas. He then continues on over and down the streets, all with this weird and wonderful flume passing through it, coming to the end of his journey with the flume disappearing into the side of a house where, after a short moment, you hear the man shout for a towel. The man obviously has a barclaycard which, presumably, makes everything easy, fast, efficient and effortless. Another wonderful way of a company trying to entice you to get a credit card and endanger your financial self.
However, I yearned for a similar waterslide this morning. Something to transport me the opposite way, straight to work, with minimal effort. A quick slide down a water shute and I'd be there, in the office, on time, which, of course, I was not this morning. A grand total of four minutes late, I reckon. Now that I think about it, even if I had arrived by water shute I would have also had the problem of having to shout for help as the two stationery cupboards in our office are always locked. The larger of the two is out in the corridor, between the kitchen/cafe and the office door, and the second, smaller office is in the Big boss' personal office. Having a secret waterslide entrance in that office would certainly prove problematic especially if the Big boss happened to be in the middle of an important meeting with the higher powers. It's ridiculous that these cupboards are locked anyway. It just shows how much trust the management have in their staff. The stationery cupboards are, for some reason, big no-go areas. It seems they are a place only few are allowed entry to unless in a terrible dire need. Would people really go out of their way to nick a bic pen..? Well, probably, actually. The amount of pens that have been nicked from my own desk could probably be combined to create a quarter scale model of Big Ben that Michael Schofield would be proud of. As a result of these bloody annoying thefts, and only after a futile attempt to locate your missing bic, you have to hesitantly ask for the Stationery key. It's a bit like a scene in Oliver Twist. Walking up the office towards the keyholder, the admin manager to say:
"Please madam, c..ca..can I have the s..stationery cupboard key?"
"WWWWhhhhhhhaaaaaattt?!!!", she yells.
Gasps and whispers circulate the open office:
"He wants the stationery cupboard key" "He wants the key to the cupboard?" "The staionery key?" "He wants a new pen?" "He's asked for the stationery key" "Why did he do that?" "THE Stationery key..?" "What possessed him?!"
Any minute now I half expect them all to break into some dark, oppressive song, singing in low horror laden voices as they slowly dance around me shaking their heads and wagging their forefingers. (gawd, have I been watching too many musicals?) Never lose your pen in our office. The barclaycard man would never have this problem. Sliding away down his flume to the Bellamy Brothers. I'm still not getting a barclaycard though.

6 comments:

Rachel Jayne Stevenson/Rogers said...

Glad you are still checking on me! I do own Barclaycard and it certainly doesn't come with free flume to life (As I tried to explain to my 8 year o ld while watching the ad)...now that would have made for a real 'easy ten!' Do you think the trade descriptions act comes into this?

Scott Docherty said...

To be honest, I'd much prefer the waterslide to take me to somewhere sunny instead. I'd get to the end, splash into a big pool, and then sit at the edge with a cool drink catching some rays. Of course, given that I imagine this happens to me every day, my work colleagues are beginning to wonder why I come in dressed in my swimming trunks...

Miriam Vaswani said...

That was your best rant thus far, Michael. Keep up the good work.

p.s. I learned to drive an autorickshaw today :)

Kasia said...

I have been wondering how does the guy from the ad actually get to work. He can't possible slide up, can he? I mean I don't mind coming back home, even if I was to walk all the way, it's the getting to work that really bugs me. But I guess even the Barclaycard can't make miracles about it ;)
I used to be a stationary cupboard keyholder in the past and it resuklted in having lots of friends at work :) In my current job we are allowed to order anything we need whenever we need it. A bit like paradise :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your comment on Glasgow Daily Photo - much appreciated!

Now I'm a student again I no longer have much stationary cupboard access, which is a bit disappointing - now I'm broke my need for free stuff is much greater!

meggie said...

Love this post!