Wednesday - Crumbs

Ted was most disappointed. His wife, Mrs Ted hadn't prepared his usual sandwiches this morning as she had to leave home early to visit their son in Luton.

Ted slummed it with the rest of us at the baguette shop opposite the office. He sat at his desk trying to navigate his teeth around a peninsula sized french stick, dripping lettuce and red onion shavings like a ticker-tape parade around his chair. Most of these he plucked up off the carpet when he'd finished.

Shortly afterwards, Jez meandered over.

"I hope Ted is going to vacuum all of that up," he said referring to some barely visible bread crumbs left on the floor.

"There's only a few crumbs. You can hardly notice them. We do still have office cleaners don't we?" I told Jez.

"He's got to complete the file allocations." I added when I realised that he might just be serious. Ever since Jo had been placed under the magnifying glass of management scrutiny everyone else had to cover her workload while she proved that she was up to the job.

Jez wandered away. Later that afternoon I returned to my desk from tracking down a couple of files. Ted had the office Dyson out and was running the nozzle around his chair.

"Ted. What are you doing?"

"Just what I'm told," grumbled Ted. "Anne said I had to clear up the mess,"

I glanced over at Jez but before I could say anything Ane emerged from out of her cave.

"Jez was quite right. We can't have the place looking a disgusting mess, People need to clear up after themselves,"

You know. Sometimes words fail me.