Wednesday - PG Rating

The main topics of conversation for the team today were The England - Hungary game - apparently we've as good as won the World Cup - and Big Brother. I returned from a quick break to grab lunch to find Dan and Gareth trying to emulate Peter Crouch's robot dance celebration, whereas Jo - who had recovered from her illness would grab anyone who passed and then ask them if they thought she was like Nikki.

I took Jo into the interview room to conduct her 'return to work interview'. I asked her the usual questions, adopting the suitable - concerned but not-too-sympathetic tone of voice. Was she ok? Was there anything that we needed to be aware of? She'd had five days off already this year, was it a reoccurring problem? Was there anything that I could do to help?

Jo's responses were - yes, no, it was just a chest infection and - no, see the previous answer.

"Of course if you have another day sick then we'll have to progress you to next level absence monitoring," I explained.

"But I can't help getting ill," Jo said.

"We're not penalising you for being ill. But if you're not at work you're not as effective as you would be if you were," I said, quoting directly from the absence management training I'd undertaken two years ago. "But if it is something that you can just take an aspirin to help with the symptoms and then come in it would help the 'team'" I said.

"So would I go onto next level absence monitoring if I'd been involved in an accident and lost my legs?" Jo asked.

"No. That would be an exceptional circumstance," I said.

"But what if I contracted bird flu?"

"Again. Probably exceptional," I replied.

"What if I got pneumonia?"

"Jo. I can't discuss which diseases are acceptable and which are not. I have to assess each case on its own individual merit," I told her cutting the meeting dead.

Later, Dan made a suggestion that we get a swear box. Ted had complained that there was too much swearing in the team and he felt it made the team seem uncouth. Dan's imagination was fired.

"We'll have to have different fines for different levels of swearwords," Dan told us.

I asked him the question. I wished I hadn't.

"Well. B- is worse than F-. So B- should be 10 pence and F- maybe 50p?"

Dan was even more motivated now and spent his whole lunchhour with Jo defining every possible swearword that he could think of and the appropriate fine. Ted astonished us with his repetoire by adding some words that we'd never heard of.

When the list was complete Gareth took a look over it.

"I'm not joining in with this. I won't pay." He said.

I told him he would as the rest of the team were taking part.

His reply cost him £4.75.