The Bright Side (3 page)

“
Eddie
and
Jackie
up
a
tree!”
she chanted. “
K-I-S-S-I–
”

I threw the cap of a yellow highlighter at her and was pleased to see it bounce off her forehead and land in her coffee
.

If
I
hadn’t
found
the
e-mail
straight
away,
I
might
have given
up
and
turned
to
the
eight-inch-high
pile
of
data
that was
teetering
by
my
left
elbow,
waiting
to
be
entered.
My stress
level
would
still
have
gone
up,
no
doubt,
but
it wouldn’t have instantly doubled the way it did when I got a look
at
the
e-mail.
The
gist
of
the
thing
was
this:
tardiness had
become
a
serious
problem
for
First
Premier
and
was
affecting
its
ability
to
meet
targets,
going
forward
(as
opposed
to
backwards
or
sideways).
Management
weren’t callous,
unfeeling
monsters
–
as
if
–
and
could
forgive
an occasional
five-minute
slip-up
here
and
there.
However! Persistent
offenders
could
no
longer
expect
to
get
away
scot- free.
The
new
system
(they
called
it
a
system
four
times)
was
points-based.
If
you
arrived
for
work
five
to
ten
minutes
late, you
got
a
single
point.
Ten
to
fifteen
minutes
late,
got
you five
of
them.
Fifteen
to
thirty,
you
got
ten.
Half
an
hour
plus, you got
twenty.
Anyone
who
scored
more
than
thirty points in
a
month
had
to
do
a
forfeit.
At
that
point
the
e-mail stopped
being
irritating
and
started
being
excruciating.
In
a breezy,
matey
I-Can’t-Believe-We-Get-Paid-To-Work-Here! tone,
it
revealed
that
transgressors
would
be
obliged
to
wear a
special
tardiness
hat
for
one
whole
working
day.
Anyone who
refused
to
play
along
would
be
excluded
from
all
social club
activities
until
they
did
what
had
been
asked
of
them. They
would
also
be
named
and
shamed
as
a
“spoilsport”. There
was
a
photo
attached
to
the
e-mail.
It
showed
a dunce’s
cap
with
a
letter
T
where
the
D
should
have
been. When
I
finished
reading,
all
I
felt
was
relief.
I
didn’t
give
two hoots,
one
hoot
even,
about
the
social
club;
if
I
really
wanted to
go
to
a
pub
quiz
or
karaoke
night,
I
was
sure
I’d
be
able
to organise
it
myself.
And,
I
thought,
they
could
name
me
every day
until
2050,
I’d
still
never
be
shamed.
This
meant
that
I could
ignore
the
entire
policy,
hat
and
all.
The
relief
didn’t last
long
though.
It
was
swept
away
almost
immediately
by bitter,
jagged
anger.
Why
hadn’t
they
just
declared
that employees
who
were
consistently
late
would
be
chucked
out of
the
social
club?
Or
fired,
for
that
matter?
Why
bother
with all
the
nonsense
in
between?
Why
did
it
have
to
be
“fun”?
It was
Fancy
Dress
Friday
all
over
again.
That
was
a
one-off event
that
had
brightened
all
our
lives
a
few
months previously
(it
wasn’t
supposed
to
be
a
one-off;
it
just
worked out
that
way).
I
didn’t
know
how
it
had
gone
company-wide,
but
in
Data
Entry
there
were
precisely
three
takers,
out
of
a possible
thirty-something.
Jenny
came
as
Wonder
Woman and
a
bloke
called
Terry
came
as
a
vampire.
They
looked ridiculous,
of
course,
mooching
from
their
desks
to
the
water cooler
and
back,
but
at
least
they
had
hired
proper
costumes. The third participant was Eddie. He came as a Roman gladiator
in
a
bunch
of
kit
he’d
made
himself
out
of cardboard,
tin-foil
and
other
cardboard.
Not
once,
all
day long,
did
he
remove
his
helmet.
It
had
taken
him
several hours
to
perfect,
he
said,
and
he
was
determined
to
get
good wear
out
of
it
.

“Did you read this rubbish about the tardiness hat?” I called out to Veronica
.

She looked up from her keyboard. I could see the top half of her head over the partition. The top half of her head looked surprised
.

“Yeah,”
she
said.
“I
saw
it
a
fortnight
ago
with
the
rest
of the
company.
Did
you
hear
about
John
Lennon?
Shot
dead!” I
ignored
the
last
part
and
went
back
to
fuming.
It
was
just about
then
that
the
first
six-inch
nail
was
driven
into
my skull.
I
had
no
sooner
registered
the
news
that
my
day
was going
from
bad
to
much,
much
worse
when
my
mobile phone
jangled
in
my
handbag.
The
caller
was
Robert,
my eldest
(by
twelve
minutes).
I
couldn’t
remember
the
last time
he
had
called
me
and
said
something
I
wanted
to
hear. The
smart
thing
to
do,
I
told
myself,
would
be
to
ignore
it and
get
back
to
my
impending
headache.
But
it’s
never
easy to
ignore
your
own
flesh
and
blood.
And
so,
like
an
eejit,
I
answered the
damn thing
.