Tuesday - Tower of Terror

"Mine's six," said Dan.
"Not as big as mine. I've seven," Gareth replied.
I wanted it to ask but I didn't like the look on Jo's face as she gazed down at her desk between them.
"Shall we see how big we can get?" asked Dan.
"Yeah. But no cheating. You can only stack cups that you've drunk out of," replied Gareth.

I breathed a sigh of relief. On their desks were two stacks of drained plastic cups from the drinks machine. Urged on by their usual, competitive stag-like rutting behaviour, Gareth and Dan were going to see how high they could build their cup-towers.

I left them to their devices to attend the department meeting held in the conference room. Anne was in attendance, as was Tracey and Jez. Gary made an appearance. But only so someone could take minutes. He tried to add more input in a pathetic attempt to impress Anne. He doesn't realise that once her mind's made up, there's no going back.

We covered the usual topics. The backlogs, the complaints, the IT issues, outsourcing to Poland and India. It started to become clear that Jez's team wasn't pulling their weight when it came to workloads. Of course Jez did what all good shirkers do in this situation. He drew the management's attention to something unrelated and irrelevant to deflect attention away from himself. He made several disguised barbed comments about my team. He mentioned, Jo's punctuality although she hasn't been late for months. Not since my last chat. He commented on Dan's laziness and Gareth's inherent militancy.

I wasn't going to have this. You would have been proud. I defended my team. Only I can point out their shortcomings. I told them about Jo's handling of a complaint and Dan's idea's for improving the post distribution. Anne appeared astounded. Jez was put out.

"They may have a bit of a laugh now and again. But there's is no question about their commitment when it comes to it," I said.

The meeting ended with me several feet taller and my teams reputation glowing. I opened the conference room door.

"Timber!!" I heard Dan shouting.