Fictional stories based upon every day random conversations held between
members of the workforce throughout the working week.
The order had come from above, we were not to run the machine at more that 40ppm. Apparently any speed greater than this and it would sound just like an alarm clock going off, and the consequences would not bare thinking about, ‘The Sodric’ may be awoken, and a Tsunami of glass laden pallets might sweep through the building pushing away everything it their path, not even Happy Birthday Dawn would be able to out run its overwhelming force and pace. Old Rusty sighed at the thought of all this, and remembered the days when he too could move pallets faster than Laura could run or juggle. Now the fastest he ever moved was when ‘Cool Hand Luke’ whipped him out from under his barrels, leapt aboard like a skateboard and dived between Charlie’s legs crashing into a beautiful green plastic pallet box full of piccalilli, bouncing off and back into ‘The Sodric’ office wall, awakening him from his slumbers.
And so it came to pass, at 38ppm, kerrplunk, kerrplunk, kerrplunk, kerrplunk, kerrplunk, then Karen let out a shriek, arrrrgh-bloody-HELL!, ‘Machine’ had failed once more, it was a MESS. On hearing this awful noise, not that much different to a dog being run over by a small lorry, ‘Cool Hand Luke’ quietly minding his own business, and as if shocked out of his own skin, dived into one of his own blue barrels and twisted the lid closed from the inside. Charlie appeared just in the nick of time to see such a farce, and once his laughter had subsided, he released ‘Cool Hand Luke’ from his temporary prison, and said as if to calm Luke’s nerves, “You should hear Karen singing ‘Twelve Days of Christmas.’
“Simon!” exclaimed a baffled Jason, “What are all these pumpkins doing here?”
“No idea Jay, I think it’s something to do with the new Trickle & Treat product, but it looks like we’ve got new ‘Totes’ over here, have you seen them?”
“You’re joking.”
“No come and see for yourself.”
Jason dragged his broken leg across the room and had a quick gander at the brand new shiny-shiny. Then he noticed something hidden behind them, and also still wrapped in its transit packaging, it was two wheel chairs, not ordinary ones but they were more like the type athletes use.
“Simon! look at this, what on Earth is this place coming to.”
At that moment Malcolm walked past mumbling 72ppm, 72ppm.
Simon called out to Malcolm, “Malc, what are these wheel chairs doing here?”
“Ah, I meant to tell you about those, you see it’s the new Brexit ruling, retirement will soon be a thing of the past, starting in January, so you see, every one now has to work until they drop dead on the job, and these my dear chaps are for you two to get around the factory on!”
Meanwhile just behind a barricade of cardboard boxes, Rob was telling J.K.Lorenzo a yarn about when he was a test pilot at Boscombe Down and had been sent to collect a B52 bomber from Brize Norton, apparently some rookie Yank had touched down a bit on the heavy side at Fairford and bounced off the runway so hard, he came back down at Brize Norton and came to rest up against the hanger doors. Rob came out the next day to open the doors and found this B52’s nose blocking the door from opening, so Rob climbs in, releases the hand brake and rolls it back onto the apron, then he hears a message to taxi to runway two six, Rob then thought to himself, “When in Sherston, do as the Sherstonians do.” He was eventually forced down over Upper Heyford by two Fighting Falcons of the 16th Tactical Fighter Squadron.
J.K.Lorenzo fell for it, ‘Hook Line & Sinker’ and returned to his frantic taping up of cardboard boxes, J.K.Lorenzo had built a huge wall of giant letters with the boxes spelling out, “Happy Birthday Dawn.” Thursday arrived and the ‘The Dawn Crew’ had also arrived just as the sun was rising over Lorenzo’s ‘Stonehenge’ of boxes, it casting long shadows across the car park, where Hank ‘Foot Tapper’ Marvin was just getting out of his car to spring a birthday surprise upon Dawn till Dusk.