Before. Notes from the olden days

In the olden days, there was an office, where people worked in the same room. Their job was to send joy to cities, where more people gathered together in the same streets. These are notes from an ancient diary, discovered in that office, where the dust continues to settle.

February 2020
Thursday
First complaints of the year.  The good people of Glasgow were outraged to see Creature Feature’s Gorillas wandering around a shopping centre. The centre manager tweeted to explain. We are left wondering how many people saw the tweet and how many are still concerned about wild animals being forced to encourage footfall on a Thursday in February.

Wednesday morning
Everybody here today, so Wednesday staff meeting is with the full team of 5.
Discussed:
How to make our social media interesting and who looks at it anyway?
What is google analytics and do we need to all understand it?
Why most blogs are boring.
How we can make one person do all the marketing plans with minimal support from the rest of us.
The correct use of capital letters in the act’s diaries and why they matter.
Glowing feedback from the Tortoise which has somehow managed to make it from London to Aberdeen and back to Leicester despite storm Dennis, a puncture and one performer off sick.
Scary tales from Los Kaos, who got flooded out and rescued by the RNLI and how lucky it was that their van, which was full of polar bears, did not get washed away.  Did not consider the fact that polar bears can swim.

Wednesday afternoon

Techie arrives to install a new computer and set up the new 4g internet system.  If this works we will be able to watch videos again.  The system is cheaper than most gift horses so we are not holding our breath.

Busy day.  Enquiries from Nottingham, Knowsley, London, Birmingham, Bognor Regis and Cornwall.

Thursday
The gift horse internet is showing some true colours.
Tips of the day.  If one techie installs a valuable and essential router, don’t say to the next computer techie. ‘Oh don’t know what that is, just unplug it.’  Allow them to talk to each other.
Agenting with 7 dead computers, no internet or access to any records is a different way of being. We discover the uses of the telephone.
Today the Gorillas, Borneo the Orangutan and the Tortoise are heading for Leicester.  Will the good people of Leicester be equally concerned about animal rights?

March
Tuesday
We have successfully moved our emails over to G suite and are wrestling with keeping emails in order.  Younger staff members are doing this with ease and no noise.  Some older staff members are announcing that entire files of correspondence are ‘completely lost’ and trying hard to find fault with everything.  They are having trouble with this tactic because G-suite is so intuitive and easy to use.
We have discovered the chat function and promising we will use this to communicate with staff members who are working from home.

Performers are calling in to ask what happens if Covid 19 causes bookings to be cancelled. Advice is issued in an important, knowledgeable and arbitrary manner.  Everybody gets different advice.

Directors hold a Cobra meeting to discuss the possible impact of Covid 19.  Nothing is decided, as possible impact is currently unknown.  Decision taken to think positive and look forward to taking extra bookings from venues hoping to cheer the public up when the virus gets going.

Wednesday
Directors, having gone home and done extensive research into virus transmission, introduce new hygiene routine into the office to fox the virus if it turns up.  Staff meeting focuses on discussing the new routine.  We decide:
To wash our hands before touching anything and especially before making the tea
Not to touch our own faces
Not to touch each other’s computers, phones, pens or desks
Not to have shared cake or sweets any more
To use recently installed hand gel at all opportunities.  But not too much because it has sold out all over the city.
To spray the office senseless with the newly installed pink spray that kills all viruses.
There followed a demonstration of spraying in the kitchen.  The fridge, kettle and microwave were duly sprayed and all viruses fell dead to the floor.
We forgot to spray light switches and door handles.
The kitchen table is looking suspect as there are plenty of cracks and places for a virus to hide.

That was before…..

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