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I would hate to have to do a proper job, to have to put on a suit everyday, nightmare. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:08 | |
Work, work, work - it's the four-letter word that we all have to deal with. | 0:00:09 | 0:00:15 | |
There's got to be better things to do with my time than this. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:20 | |
And nothing exasperates our state of grumpiness like knowing | 0:00:20 | 0:00:24 | |
that we are a mere cog in someone else's machine. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:29 | |
I don't think it can be any more soul destroying. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:32 | |
Whether it's looking for it, commuting to it, actually doing it, | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
avoiding it, surviving your colleagues in it, or quitting it, | 0:00:36 | 0:00:41 | |
when it comes to work, every rung of the career ladder is rotten. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:47 | |
Droning on and just achieving nothing. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:51 | |
Work is the daily grind that takes over our very existence, | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
absorbs all our time and deprives us of the simple joys in life. | 0:00:57 | 0:01:02 | |
All that, so we can be paid a pittance to make some other bugger rich. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:07 | |
Cast your mind back, to those wonderfully naive pre-grumpy days. | 0:01:16 | 0:01:23 | |
We all had dreams and aspirations of greatness, where work would fulfil us | 0:01:23 | 0:01:27 | |
as a person, enriching our lives, making us healthy, wealthy and wise. | 0:01:27 | 0:01:32 | |
Until one depressing day, you wake up and realise that, instead, | 0:01:33 | 0:01:38 | |
you're trapped in a career cul-de-sac that's making you miserable, poor and brain dead. | 0:01:38 | 0:01:44 | |
When I was at school, I wanted to be a footballer first of all. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
I was going to be a ballet dancer | 0:01:50 | 0:01:52 | |
and I was totally the wrong shape, the wrong height and the wrong...everything. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:59 | |
Train driver, | 0:01:59 | 0:02:01 | |
fireman, policeman, for a while, spaceman. | 0:02:01 | 0:02:06 | |
Then I wanted to be a tennis player. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:08 | |
I wanted to be an actress and a part-time vet. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:12 | |
That was a very realistic ambition at the age of seven. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:17 | |
No, I wanted to be a cricketer, really. I was brought up in a place with no facilities | 0:02:17 | 0:02:21 | |
and the school didn't really bother about it and I often think, | 0:02:21 | 0:02:27 | |
if I'd been brought up in a place where the school took it seriously | 0:02:27 | 0:02:30 | |
and I'd been coached properly and everything, I'd still have been shit. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:34 | |
According to my school reports | 0:02:35 | 0:02:37 | |
I was going to go into something medical, | 0:02:37 | 0:02:39 | |
I fancied myself as a bit of a doctor or something like that. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
When I was very young, I did want to be a performer | 0:02:42 | 0:02:45 | |
and I was a dreadful show-off and I was desperate | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
to go to drama school and I even would sleepwalk about it | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
and I'd go into my parents' room saying, "Please, let me go to drama school." | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
I was brought up in a kids' home system as well, so I didn't want to... If you bragged about | 0:02:55 | 0:03:00 | |
wanting to be an actor, it wasn't good. | 0:03:00 | 0:03:02 | |
That's time to go and have a chat with the social worker because you've got to get real. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:06 | |
I knew I'd end up doing a turn, as Les Dawson said, you know, | 0:03:06 | 0:03:11 | |
I knew I'd end up being some sort of, you know, artiste. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:15 | |
I've got a blank spot about my career from sort of the ages of 12-18, really, | 0:03:15 | 0:03:21 | |
which roughly coincides with me being a fundamentalist Christian, but that's a whole other show. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:26 | |
I really wanted to be a ballet dancer, I wanted that to be my job, | 0:03:26 | 0:03:29 | |
I went to ballet classes and I really, really practised. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
I thought I was quite good. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
And I got an audition at the Royal Ballet School. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
And my mum and dad drove me all the way to London for this audition | 0:03:40 | 0:03:45 | |
and when I got out of the car and opened the boot | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
I had forgotten my kit! | 0:03:48 | 0:03:49 | |
I'd left it at home. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:51 | |
So I had to borrow the kit of one of the ballet students who was 10 years older than me. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:57 | |
So the tights were all baggy, I didn't have a hair net, | 0:03:57 | 0:03:59 | |
just a hair band and baggy old leotard, huge great big ballet shoes that didn't fit me. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:04 | |
Big puffy, swollen eyes cos I had been crying, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:07 | |
big orange squash mark here because I'd been drinking orange squash all the way in the car. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:11 | |
Didn't get in. Can't imagine why(!) | 0:04:14 | 0:04:16 | |
I had two jobs I quite fancied, astronaut and poet. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:23 | |
There didn't seem to be a NASA recruitment office in Bolton. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
They didn't have a branch office there, | 0:04:29 | 0:04:31 | |
so that made it tricky. I didn't quite know where to go. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:34 | |
I went on a school trip to Jodrell Bank and looked for possible recruitment opportunities there. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:41 | |
There didn't seem to be any, although I did buy a map of the surface of the moon. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:47 | |
My mum wanted me to be... | 0:04:47 | 0:04:48 | |
I never knew where this came from. I need to ask her, actually. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:51 | |
She wanted me to be a barrister, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:53 | |
like, she'd obviously just read it somewhere, but she'd got that word | 0:04:53 | 0:04:57 | |
so that's what I thought I wanted to be, was a barrister. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
I mean, how unlikely? Brimsdown Avenue, Enfield, | 0:05:00 | 0:05:04 | |
"I'm not being funny, but I think I want to be a barrister and that." | 0:05:04 | 0:05:08 | |
I thought it was called barrister "and that" for about three years. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:12 | |
"You should become a barrister and that." | 0:05:12 | 0:05:14 | |
So I thought that was the name of the job. Barrister AND THAT. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
But it wasn't, it was just bad diction. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:21 | |
My dream job is what I'm doing | 0:05:21 | 0:05:23 | |
because it takes me around the world | 0:05:23 | 0:05:25 | |
and I can be miserable in other countries. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
That's all very well for some, but in reality the dread | 0:05:28 | 0:05:32 | |
of Monday morning looms over us from the moment we finish the Sunday roast, | 0:05:32 | 0:05:37 | |
downed the last soothing glass of red, and realise | 0:05:37 | 0:05:41 | |
that there's only a few hours left to the dreaded alarm clock. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
OK, it's 5.00. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:47 | |
That means that I've got to be in bed for about 10.30 | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
because I've got to get on a really packed train at 7.15, | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
with loads of smelly people, and then I've got to get off | 0:05:53 | 0:05:57 | |
that train and people are going to be bumping into me and not saying please and thank you and sorry, | 0:05:57 | 0:06:02 | |
and then I get to work and hate the bloke who I work with, hate all the people around me, | 0:06:02 | 0:06:06 | |
they're going to hate me, then I'm going to go to an overpriced place for lunch, | 0:06:06 | 0:06:10 | |
that'll cost me seven quid for a cup of coffee because the Colombian | 0:06:10 | 0:06:14 | |
beans have been rubbed between the testicles of a forest squirrel from Bolivia or somewhere like that. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:20 | |
ALARM RINGS | 0:06:35 | 0:06:38 | |
Oh, no, here we go again. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:42 | |
Do we work to live, or live to work? That's the question. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:52 | |
And the answer is, don't ask such stupid questions. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:57 | |
Work is a means to an end, whether you're in the boardroom, or just bored. | 0:06:57 | 0:07:03 | |
Hours turn into days, days turn into weeks, all spent | 0:07:03 | 0:07:07 | |
dreaming of doing something else, anything else, if only you could earn enough money to live the dream. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:14 | |
Which you can't. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:15 | |
And therein lies the nightmare. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:18 | |
I don't know how people can do office jobs. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:22 | |
It's hard enough sitting in an office anyway, sometimes | 0:07:22 | 0:07:26 | |
when I have to, for various meetings, work and that kind of stuff. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:31 | |
I don't understand the protocols that go with offices either or how they work. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
Everyone tries to make them happy, lovely, wonderful places to be, | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
you know, but basically it's pushing a pen and answering a phone, isn't it? | 0:07:39 | 0:07:44 | |
I don't think it could be any more soul destroying. | 0:07:44 | 0:07:48 | |
Do you know what I don't like about offices? | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
The people you spend the day working with, some of them don't even look up to say good morning to you. | 0:07:56 | 0:08:01 | |
You'd go in "Hi", what kind of weirdo says hello in the morning? | 0:08:01 | 0:08:05 | |
I have got to quite like mixing with people a bit, | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
for a long time I tried to shut myself away in a little room on my own. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
You know, I mean, open-plan environment, I viewed | 0:08:11 | 0:08:15 | |
with the greatest of suspicion, really | 0:08:15 | 0:08:17 | |
and I was right because it became | 0:08:17 | 0:08:20 | |
the call centre, you know, which has got to be about the most terrifying prospect, hasn't it? | 0:08:20 | 0:08:25 | |
Good morning, Grattan speaking. Do you wish to place an order? | 0:08:25 | 0:08:28 | |
Sell, sell, sell, push, push, push. | 0:08:31 | 0:08:34 | |
Being hassled by hustlers is a horror we can't seem to escape. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:38 | |
You want to talk to your bank manager in Manchester. | 0:08:39 | 0:08:42 | |
Hello, I'd like to speak to the bank manager, please. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
But are redirected to dispute with a man in Mumbai. | 0:08:45 | 0:08:48 | |
No, can I speak to the manager, please? | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
Your mobile rings, and some spotty kid wants | 0:08:53 | 0:08:55 | |
to upgrade it for you even though you've only just learned how it works. | 0:08:55 | 0:09:00 | |
Can you put me through? I'm not interested in that service. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
Or you're dragged out of the bath by a computerised voice that wants to consolidate | 0:09:03 | 0:09:07 | |
-the debts that buying the new gadgets caused in the first place. -Hello? | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
Hello? | 0:09:11 | 0:09:13 | |
Leave us alone, if we haven't asked for it, we don't want it. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:17 | |
No, no, right. Do not put me on hold again. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:19 | |
And even if we did, we can't bloody afford it. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:23 | |
-Not that they care. -Please, hang up and try again. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:26 | |
The one job I hated the most was telesales | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
because it was the '80s and it was the new age of greed, | 0:09:31 | 0:09:37 | |
and you were rewarded for as many rubbish things you could sell on the telephone. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:41 | |
Hello, sir, how are you today? Can I interest you in a free mobile phone? | 0:09:41 | 0:09:45 | |
Well, if I did shove it up there, it would still get excellent reception. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:50 | |
And it would be hugely competitive to get to the top of the list. | 0:09:50 | 0:09:55 | |
I was talking to a bloke who worked in a call centre and he said | 0:09:55 | 0:09:57 | |
the manager would get up every sort of five or ten minutes and go, "Calls! | 0:09:57 | 0:10:03 | |
"Come on, there are calls!" | 0:10:03 | 0:10:05 | |
I mean, that's no different from someone who might have written | 0:10:06 | 0:10:10 | |
200 years ago about, I don't know, a stocking weavers' factory, "Come on! | 0:10:10 | 0:10:16 | |
"There's stockings to be weaved!" How is that any different? | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
And you get these poor old people that pick up the phone and say "I might have just a little | 0:10:19 | 0:10:24 | |
"bit of money left in my pension. | 0:10:24 | 0:10:26 | |
"Let me go and get my pension book," and you'd be like that, | 0:10:26 | 0:10:29 | |
"I don't think I can do this, but it's my commission," | 0:10:29 | 0:10:33 | |
and then you carry on trying to sell them these blooming fluorescent lights | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
that they're never going to use | 0:10:36 | 0:10:38 | |
and don't need, they've only got £2.70 in their Post Office accounts. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:41 | |
So I did that for about three weeks and I felt so awful about myself that I had to leave. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:45 | |
Come along, we're not here to slack! Get weaving, get weaving! Come on! | 0:10:45 | 0:10:49 | |
'I had one of yous fellas on the phone the other day.' | 0:10:49 | 0:10:51 | |
I'm sorry? | 0:10:51 | 0:10:52 | |
'I was telling Irene "That bloke's been calling back again." ' | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
I can't understand a word you are saying. Does anyone there speak English? | 0:10:55 | 0:10:59 | |
This telesales firm insisted that when you had sold something | 0:10:59 | 0:11:03 | |
because you would call them back to do the transaction, you have to stand up | 0:11:03 | 0:11:07 | |
in the room and go "Qualification, Alistair". | 0:11:07 | 0:11:11 | |
And everyone was supposed to applaud in the middle of their phone calls | 0:11:11 | 0:11:15 | |
and then if you completed the sale you stand up and go, "Verification, Alistair", and they go "Right". | 0:11:15 | 0:11:21 | |
Pretending to be American, it's the most embarrassing thing I have ever had to do. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
Nothing produces grumpiness faster than the dawning realisation that work will never get any better. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:31 | |
This mundane, moronic, monotonous existence is all there is. | 0:11:35 | 0:11:40 | |
Everything is the same, the same commute, the same tasks, the same old faces, | 0:11:42 | 0:11:46 | |
and the fact is you've got about 11,000 days until you retire. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:51 | |
It's a 40-year sentence. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:53 | |
Morning. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:55 | |
And you don't even get time off for good behaviour. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
I mean, an eight-hour working day ought, really, if you are coming in about 9.30. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:06 | |
you kind of crank up and get started about 10. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
Afternoon. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:12 | |
Bit of a coffee break at 11.15, then 12.00, you start thinking about lunch. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:18 | |
So you probably put a good steady couple of hours in in the morning. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:22 | |
If you've got an hour for lunch you probably stretch that by quarter of an hour either side. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:26 | |
Then in the afternoon, you might get up to speed again about two. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
About 4.00, you're thinking, "Mmm, that'll do it." | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
So four hours of an eight-hour day, | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
I think that's a very fair shift. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:37 | |
The marvellous trick that they play in lots and lots of office jobs is they convince you | 0:12:37 | 0:12:43 | |
that you are doing something important and you know deep down it's pointless. | 0:12:43 | 0:12:47 | |
On the first day, they take you around and go, | 0:12:47 | 0:12:50 | |
"Now, this is very, very important, this job that you've got. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:56 | |
"Now, what we want you to do is every morning, you see, Jim comes in with the newspapers | 0:12:56 | 0:13:04 | |
"and you have to collect all of the newspapers off him, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
"and lay them out in front of you here and then, very, very important, | 0:13:07 | 0:13:12 | |
"what we want you to do is to colour in the Os. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:17 | |
"Don't do the noughts on the sports page obviously, that's ridiculous, just the Os and have them done | 0:13:17 | 0:13:24 | |
"as quickly as you can and do that every day." | 0:13:24 | 0:13:28 | |
And there'll be some old bloke who has been there 30 years doing this, "Ooh, it's like a madhouse in here, | 0:13:28 | 0:13:35 | |
"you know. We were in here until half past eight one night." | 0:13:35 | 0:13:42 | |
"Why was that?" "There was a big article about Yoko Ono going to Orinoco." | 0:13:42 | 0:13:46 | |
I remember saying "What's that lady's name?" and this bloke goes, "I don't know." | 0:13:46 | 0:13:50 | |
Your desk is two away from her desk, how can you not know this other human being's name? | 0:13:50 | 0:13:58 | |
That's what I find really difficult about offices, but I would walk in and they wouldn't say good morning. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:06 | |
Or, like, I'd say leave and say goodbye, and they would be, | 0:14:06 | 0:14:09 | |
"I'm not your mum, I don't care if you're leaving." | 0:14:09 | 0:14:13 | |
Spending every working minute with the same idiots and psychopaths | 0:14:14 | 0:14:18 | |
inevitably leads to resentment, annoyance and fevered frustration. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:23 | |
Small release, however, can be found in office relations | 0:14:23 | 0:14:27 | |
whether it be just banter or, for your more cantankerous colleagues, a bit of full-on ridicule. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:33 | |
He put my stapler inside a jelly again. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:37 | |
It's the third time he's done it, and it wasn't even funny the first time. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:41 | |
I was sent by the gorgeous Sister O'Neill, she was a fantastic nurse, she was the ward sister. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:47 | |
She sent me down to another ward to go and get some fallopian tubes. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:52 | |
But it was better than that, because the woman who she had sent me down to get the fallopian tubes | 0:14:52 | 0:14:57 | |
had actually had hers removed and she was in on the joke. | 0:14:57 | 0:15:01 | |
So when I went down, I said Sister O'Neill has sent me down | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
for some fallopian tubes she just said, "Sorry, I haven't got any." | 0:15:04 | 0:15:08 | |
I went back and I said... Sister Blossom, that was actually her surname, isn't that beautiful? | 0:15:08 | 0:15:14 | |
"Sister Blossom doesn't have any fallopian tubes," | 0:15:14 | 0:15:17 | |
and she just went, "I know" and she carried on drinking her tea. | 0:15:17 | 0:15:20 | |
The two of them must have had such a great laugh. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:22 | |
Soon comes a time when us grumpies realise that work | 0:15:22 | 0:15:26 | |
would be a hell of a lot easier | 0:15:26 | 0:15:28 | |
if we dragged ourselves up the greasy pole and escaped the plebs that surround us. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:35 | |
After all being boss is far more fun. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
Sitting back in your comfy chair, in your own private office, enjoying the fact | 0:15:38 | 0:15:42 | |
that when it comes to barking out orders, it's always better to give than to receive. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:48 | |
Always! | 0:15:48 | 0:15:49 | |
I am getting really pissed off here. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:52 | |
That's the problem with this country. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:54 | |
You give someone a hat or a jacket and all of a sudden, they're Hitler. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:58 | |
If you've got one, I'm bloody having one! | 0:15:58 | 0:16:01 | |
Well, we've seen the prime example of Ricky Gervais's style, his take on The Office, | 0:16:01 | 0:16:07 | |
it was absolutely brilliant, because it can be painful, really painful, being in those places. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:12 | |
"Thank you, David, for the opportunity and continued support | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
"in the work-related arena, but I've done that, | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
"I want to better myself, I want to move on" | 0:16:18 | 0:16:20 | |
then I can make that dream come true to AKA for you. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:25 | |
Yeah, I've had my fair share of David Brents, definitely. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:29 | |
Sammy, you old slag, it's the Brentmeister General. | 0:16:29 | 0:16:32 | |
That sort of thing of wanting to be your friend, but also | 0:16:32 | 0:16:35 | |
not being quite sure HOW to be your friend, and then wanting to pull rank at the last minute. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:40 | |
I mean, I've probably been guilty of that several times. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
The very first job I had in a factory was packing sausage rolls | 0:16:43 | 0:16:46 | |
on a line and all you were doing is this. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:48 | |
I thought "I don't want to do that all night." It was a night shift. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:51 | |
So you make it interesting for yourself, see how fast you can go. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:54 | |
So I was thinking "I can do this quite quickly." | 0:16:54 | 0:16:56 | |
I can do it one handed, I can do this. | 0:16:56 | 0:16:59 | |
And then I got pulled aside by one of the foremen, and he said, | 0:16:59 | 0:17:03 | |
"Can you not work so quickly?" I said, "What?" | 0:17:03 | 0:17:06 | |
He said "If you work as fast as that, we've all got to work as fast as that, and if they know | 0:17:06 | 0:17:11 | |
"we can work as fast as that, they'll make us work as fast as that, | 0:17:11 | 0:17:14 | |
"and we don't want to work as fast as that. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:16 | |
"So don't work as fast as that." | 0:17:16 | 0:17:19 | |
KNOCK AT DOOR | 0:17:19 | 0:17:21 | |
One, two, three, four, make them sweat outside the door. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:26 | |
Five, six, seven, eight, always pays to make them wait. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:31 | |
Nine, ten, 11, 12... Come! | 0:17:31 | 0:17:34 | |
I didn't really like being told what to do by someone I thought was a bit stupid, really. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:42 | |
-CJ. I wanted to see you. -I'll come straight to the point. I didn't get to where I am today by waffling. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:46 | |
We all got gathered around for a bit of a powwow. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:52 | |
"Powwow" was the word he used, OK, not me, don't judge me. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:57 | |
He said, "We need to have a bit of a powwow. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:01 | |
"This mug... | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
"with Simon written on it..." | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
I've changed the name, his name was really Paul. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
"This mug has got my name on it...why? | 0:18:09 | 0:18:14 | |
"Because it's MY MUG, that's right. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:18 | |
"It's not rocket science. It's my mug. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
"So when you are making yourself a cup of tea or coffee | 0:18:21 | 0:18:25 | |
"and you see this mug, with my name on it, | 0:18:25 | 0:18:30 | |
"don't use it. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:31 | |
"Understood?" He should have been locked up. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:36 | |
He should have been taken away from other people. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:40 | |
We all had to take our cup in, our own cup and this boss thought he was being funny. | 0:18:40 | 0:18:47 | |
He had this little joke. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:49 | |
Every time he went down to wash his coffee cup in the sink, | 0:18:49 | 0:18:55 | |
he'd say, "I'm just going over to wash my thing." | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
And I used to sit there | 0:19:00 | 0:19:04 | |
and just think, "I'd love one day to get up and go, | 0:19:04 | 0:19:08 | |
"Just going down to wash my thing," and then walk over and get my knob out and scrub it with a brillo pad. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:13 | |
"There you are." | 0:19:13 | 0:19:15 | |
I have worked for people who I disagreed with strongly | 0:19:15 | 0:19:18 | |
and I've worked with people who weren't great fans of mine, | 0:19:18 | 0:19:24 | |
but funnily enough I never really had a problem with that. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:29 | |
There are many days when I'm not a great fan of mine anyway. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:32 | |
It's really interesting as an actor you have different kinds of bosses, | 0:19:32 | 0:19:37 | |
you have directors, you have producers, | 0:19:37 | 0:19:41 | |
it depends where you work and how you work. | 0:19:41 | 0:19:43 | |
Yeah, I've had a variety of interesting male bosses | 0:19:43 | 0:19:48 | |
throughout the years, one whose name I won't mention | 0:19:48 | 0:19:53 | |
wondered whether I'd like to go for a drive in his Bentley. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:57 | |
Ever since women tied themselves to railings and got the vote, | 0:19:57 | 0:20:01 | |
there's been no stopping them. | 0:20:01 | 0:20:03 | |
In the good old days, the ladies sat in the typing pool | 0:20:03 | 0:20:07 | |
and took dictation, | 0:20:07 | 0:20:08 | |
or occasionally took on the more important jobs, like making the tea. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:13 | |
But these days they're taking over everywhere, | 0:20:13 | 0:20:16 | |
from the bedroom to the boardroom. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:19 | |
I'm not stupid. | 0:20:19 | 0:20:20 | |
I think the best boss is the closest you can get to a female personality. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:25 | |
Ideally an actual woman. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:27 | |
They are just better to work for and have running a place, | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
because, when they need to, and I've seen it all the time. | 0:20:31 | 0:20:34 | |
The times I've been dumped in a relationship, | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
and had strings of snot hanging down to my shoes and been begging, | 0:20:37 | 0:20:41 | |
"Please, I love you, just touch it one last time before you go." | 0:20:41 | 0:20:45 | |
We've all been there, but the women I have worked for, | 0:20:45 | 0:20:49 | |
if they have to, and you do need it, can just go, ping! | 0:20:49 | 0:20:53 | |
And switch it off and be totally focused. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:55 | |
Whereas I think most men when it comes to it can be sort of | 0:20:55 | 0:20:59 | |
manipulated into weakness, most of us. Not all of us. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:03 | |
But at the same time, especially in a creative profession you are better off working for a woman as well. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:08 | |
I've found women better to work for. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:11 | |
Also, I get turned on by being ordered about as well. | 0:21:11 | 0:21:14 | |
"Please, tell me what I'm supposed to do next. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:17 | |
"Please, can I take my lunch? | 0:21:17 | 0:21:20 | |
"You cruel bitch." | 0:21:20 | 0:21:22 | |
So, if you have to sit trapped at your desk | 0:21:22 | 0:21:28 | |
for hours on end, bored by your job, annoyed by your colleagues | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
and infuriated by the boss, at least there's always the perks. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:36 | |
Wherever I've worked the stationery cupboard is a free for all. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:43 | |
Particularly if you work somewhere with a well-known name. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:51 | |
Oh, my God! I used to steal BBC headed paper, | 0:21:51 | 0:21:54 | |
if someone had annoyed me, you know, like a TV rental company | 0:21:54 | 0:21:58 | |
or something like that. | 0:21:58 | 0:22:00 | |
I would pretend I was writing from Watchdog | 0:22:00 | 0:22:04 | |
and I'd fire off a letter on BBC headed paper. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:08 | |
We had this scheme whereby there was a company | 0:22:12 | 0:22:16 | |
that had a whole fleet of lorries and they used to come in | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
to get petrol from the garage me and me mate worked in. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
So we put 30 gallons of diesel in the lorry, | 0:22:22 | 0:22:26 | |
but they had an account, you just wrote down how much they had. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:30 | |
So they would say, "Stick us down for 32 gallons." | 0:22:30 | 0:22:35 | |
And their company would be charged at the end of the month for whatever we had written down. | 0:22:35 | 0:22:40 | |
So if we put down 32 gallons when they had only had 30, | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
the garage was obviously two gallons in credit. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
So we would take that out of the till, whatever the monetary equivalent of two gallons was, | 0:22:47 | 0:22:52 | |
and we'd share it between me, my mate the and driver. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:54 | |
But of course, it went they way of all fiddles, | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
which is that people get greedy, | 0:22:57 | 0:22:59 | |
so you'd get lorry drivers come in and say, "Stick 10 in, put us down for 50" | 0:22:59 | 0:23:05 | |
and things like that, you know? | 0:23:05 | 0:23:06 | |
People get greedy. We used to say, "One of them will bring in a mate | 0:23:06 | 0:23:11 | |
"soon, with an aeroplane, put half a gallon in, stick us down for 700." | 0:23:11 | 0:23:16 | |
The only perk of the job, if you can call it that, are the hours spent silently suppressing your attraction | 0:23:18 | 0:23:24 | |
to someone else in the office. | 0:23:24 | 0:23:26 | |
-Hello. -Hello, how are you? | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
If you are going to do a job that you don't particularly like, | 0:23:31 | 0:23:33 | |
what gets you through the day is your office crush, your work crush. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:37 | |
-Can I help at all? -That would be nice. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
You have to have that one person that kind of brightens up your day | 0:23:43 | 0:23:47 | |
when you have a little chat with them | 0:23:47 | 0:23:50 | |
or walks into a room, and that turns into mild obsession, | 0:23:50 | 0:23:53 | |
and then perhaps extra marital affairs. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
Is every man horny at work? | 0:24:00 | 0:24:05 | |
Team drinks on Friday? | 0:24:05 | 0:24:07 | |
That would be nice. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:08 | |
Shagging in the office is a risky strategy. Normally you have to wait. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:14 | |
A good time is if you were banging the office secretary. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:18 | |
Obviously, you've have last lock up at the Christmas party. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:21 | |
You could do her in the stock cupboard. Or him. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:25 | |
But other people bravely try to sneak in a bit of shagging when the office is up and running. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:31 | |
Obviously it's much more thrilling. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:33 | |
However, the one mistake I did make was... | 0:24:33 | 0:24:38 | |
You know when you kind of think you are going to get away with it | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
and you have the office to yourself. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:44 | |
We'd started, things had got out of hand | 0:24:44 | 0:24:46 | |
in one room, but where the passion had taken over, we'd ended up, | 0:24:46 | 0:24:50 | |
we'd gone through to another room. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:52 | |
Naked, now. Not thinking we are separate from our clothes. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:56 | |
Of course, they'd walked into the room where the clothes are and now we are in a room with nothing. | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
No cushions. You start doing the space invader where you are both nude. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:04 | |
Just going, "Ahhhh, we've got nothing!" | 0:25:04 | 0:25:07 | |
All you've got, in the end, when the door opens and you are caught, | 0:25:07 | 0:25:11 | |
is what I call the white arse get out. | 0:25:11 | 0:25:13 | |
Where you can just put your arse to the door, | 0:25:13 | 0:25:15 | |
and say, "Get out, give us a minute, get out!" | 0:25:15 | 0:25:17 | |
Ben, is there any chance you can give me a hand please? | 0:25:23 | 0:25:26 | |
Yes, yes, certainly. | 0:25:26 | 0:25:28 | |
There was actually a bit of scientific research done on rats. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:32 | |
And apparently a right will have sex with his rat female and then he will roll over and go to sleep. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:40 | |
But if you put another rat in there, | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
he'll attempt to have sex again | 0:25:43 | 0:25:45 | |
and if you change that female again, he'd have sex again. | 0:25:45 | 0:25:49 | |
He actually have sex with every change of rat female until he was all shagged out and dead. | 0:25:49 | 0:25:54 | |
Sometimes in my head, having known this scientifically, | 0:26:01 | 0:26:06 | |
I think of that kind of thing that gerbils run on. | 0:26:06 | 0:26:09 | |
You know, that's an office for me. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
I've got the folder for you there. | 0:26:12 | 0:26:14 | |
Smooth. | 0:26:21 | 0:26:23 | |
It's horrible. Especially the men, | 0:26:23 | 0:26:25 | |
they are like those aphids that try and do it before the mayfly. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
All the agency men, when the new girl starts in the copywriting department. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:32 | |
You seem them, all doing that. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:33 | |
The next morning, the ones who didn't mate, just like that, with their wings broken like that. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:37 | |
"I had to finish the night with a hand shandy." | 0:26:37 | 0:26:39 | |
You may only want to get up close and personal with Sally from accounts, | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
but those jargon-spouting bozos upstairs | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
want to bond all of you as a team. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:52 | |
Resulting in large amounts of money being spent forcing you | 0:26:55 | 0:26:58 | |
to play childish games with people you've seen quite enough of in the actual work place. | 0:26:58 | 0:27:03 | |
Now there's all these bonding schemes, isn't there? | 0:27:06 | 0:27:09 | |
And these management consultancy people that put out this stuff, | 0:27:09 | 0:27:13 | |
we're all going away for the weekend and doing paintballing and that. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:16 | |
You'd see a different side of me away from work. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:18 | |
Just you wait till the paintball. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:19 | |
And they think, "Jolly good, and everyone's coming together | 0:27:25 | 0:27:27 | |
"and I think it's really helped to create a camaraderie." | 0:27:27 | 0:27:31 | |
They even have a meeting at the end of it and go, | 0:27:31 | 0:27:34 | |
"Well, what did we learn from this?" | 0:27:34 | 0:27:37 | |
I've heard it can be quite dangerous. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:38 | |
I've heard that your testicles, if you have them, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
can become quite inflamed. | 0:27:41 | 0:27:43 | |
If they, you know, get caught in the crossfire. | 0:27:43 | 0:27:46 | |
Everyone has to put up their hand and go, "Well, I learnt that | 0:27:46 | 0:27:49 | |
"if you fire a paintball and your mate warns you | 0:27:49 | 0:27:53 | |
"that someone's over there, yes, that all helps." | 0:27:53 | 0:27:57 | |
Of course they don't realise that as soon as they've gone everyone goes, | 0:27:57 | 0:28:01 | |
"Wanker, wasted my whole weekend. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:06 | |
"I was going to go to the football but I had to come to this shit. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:11 | |
"Never again, I'm just going to make out I've got a kidney illness or something next time." | 0:28:11 | 0:28:15 | |
# Working nine to five | 0:28:15 | 0:28:18 | |
# What a way to make a living | 0:28:18 | 0:28:20 | |
# Barely getting by | 0:28:20 | 0:28:22 | |
# It's all taking and no giving | 0:28:22 | 0:28:25 | |
# They just use your mind and you never get the credit | 0:28:25 | 0:28:30 | |
# It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it | 0:28:30 | 0:28:35 | |
# Nine to five What a way to make a living | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
# Barely getting by It's all taking and no giving | 0:28:39 | 0:28:44 | |
# They just use your mind and you never get the credit | 0:28:44 | 0:28:48 | |
# It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it. # | 0:28:48 | 0:28:51 |