Gherkin Street

By Red Dinger:

Would you please come in and sit down Mrs Hopkins. Thank you.

Now I know it hasn’t been easy being the Executive Assistant to such a senior professional such as myself but I confess that I have noticed a few, shall we say, unfortunate deteriorations I your performance of late that I would like to discuss.

For example, Mrs Hopkins, you may well recall the memo to my staff that I recently dictated to you. My recollection is that I spent over an hour composing a very well reasoned treatise hoping to curb some of the morale issues we have been experiencing in the junior staff.

I have however discovered that you simply sent a memo stating “Will you lot stop whinging or you will all get fired!” Now the fact that I signed the memo without realising is simply you taking advantage of my very busy schedule. Had I known this I would have been able to give a much better account of myself before the Industrial Relations Commission after the entire workforce went on, what I though was an unexplained, strike.

That’s another thing, I have noticed changes to the various meetings I have in my electronic calendar. As you know, my calendar has restricted access to only those that need to see it, namely me and you. Thus, it is with some concern that I am able to see my entire month’s planning printed in full colour in today’s newspaper.

Now I am not saying that you leaked my calendar but I do wonder how everyone in our employ suddenly gained access to it. Perhaps more concerning is that you have labelled many of my meetings and engagements with such titles as “Visit to Bordello”, “Lunch with Cocaine Dealer” or “Doctor: Re Penis Enlargement Operation”. I’m not denying the accuracy of those appointments but previously I had asked you to use slightly more discrete titles.

Your record keeping has also not been up to scratch. I notice that you have submitted a very detailed report of my company expenditures to the Board of Directors who found it to be “very disturbing” and “most unusual”. It is possible you misunderstood when I asked you to “make sure the numbers look good”. For future reference, by “good” I did not mean to imply “accurate”.

Lastly, you know that I recently spoke to my wife on the phone. After all, you put her through to me when I expressly asked not to be disturbed. I wouldn’t have minded so much except that you probably should have been aware that I was engaged in a very animated, shall we say, “discussion” with Juliet from Payroll. Plus, you put her on speaker-phone.

Thus, in full earshot of Juliet, my wife promptly accused me of having an affair with Alison from Accounts in addition to the indiscretion she had just heard. You allowing that phone call made it rather difficult to defend myself against my wife’s accusations and Juliet’s excellent throwing arm.

Perhaps more concerning is the videos of both affairs that had been uploaded onto YouTube. Mrs Hopkins, I was rather definitive when I said the camera in this office was only to be used for video-conferencing.

I cant help but think that these recent lapses in your otherwise excellent performance has something to do with my denial of your recent request for a pay rise. A simple solution would be for me to “let you go” as they say.

However, given the proficiency with which you have almost destroyed my career I am reasonably confident that you will be able to restore it to an even greater level with a salary sufficiently relative to your expertise.

Shall we say an increase of $100,000 if you can set things right and get me the Chairman’s job? Wonderful! Take the rest of the day off and we can get started tomorrow. I look forward to working even more closely with you.