How To Piss On Somebody's Chips

There is always one isn't there, somebody who can't find it in themselves to be part of the collective good mood.

Last Friday Laura finally passed her Accountancy exam, it was the third and last time she could take them. It was a brilliant moment when I received her text just after five past five to tell me simply, "I've passed." It's a sign of the times when the accountancy profession notified its students by text rather than snail mail. On Saturday I went out and bought a bottle of champagne and started decorating her room with banners and balloons on Sunday. Another colleague had a similar idea and added another bottle of champagne and a huge chocolate cake to the goodies waiting for her.

Come Monday and we duly lined up to meet and greet her and give her a congratulatory hug - well all of us bar one person. In the afternoon all the staff met in the board room to toast her success and cut the cake, except one person who suddenly decided he was teetotal and didn't like cake. He also managed to avoid saying just a simple "well done," during the whole day.

Brian has a chip on his shoulder about having to work beneath (in terms of status) a woman, particularly a woman twenty years his junior. He really has destroyed, single handedly, the atmosphere in the office simply by spying on people and having a really poor attitude towards his colleagues. One of life's great ironies is that next year when the most senior accountant in our office retires Brian will find himself in the situation where he will be answerable directly to Laura, I can see those winter days in 2010-11 will simply fly by!