0:00:01 > 0:00:05Work - it's a life sentence with no reprieve.
0:00:07 > 0:00:10I know some people who work all day and all night,
0:00:10 > 0:00:13don't take a break at all and die at the age of 33.
0:00:15 > 0:00:18They're absolutely having a marvellous life.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23A minimum of 40 years spent with our nose to the grindstone
0:00:23 > 0:00:27whilst breaking our backs with the daily drudgery.
0:00:27 > 0:00:32Companies, they're all in profit. It all seems to be working.
0:00:32 > 0:00:36There's no reason why you should pull your tripe out if you don't have to.
0:00:36 > 0:00:38We're expected to give 110%,
0:00:38 > 0:00:40sacrificing time with friends and family,
0:00:40 > 0:00:45all so that we can be paid a pittance making some faceless company's profits soar.
0:00:47 > 0:00:50I don't think it could be any more soul destroying.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57I am not a number. I am a free man.
0:00:57 > 0:01:04Well, I would be if I could just escape the maximum security prison of work.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10At work, it's like school. You've got your mates to keep you sane.
0:01:10 > 0:01:14Imagine doing a job in an office and you had no mates.
0:01:21 > 0:01:30Einstein said that space and time were relative, which is how you know that he once worked the 9 to 5.
0:01:30 > 0:01:37At work, time becomes elastic, stretching out to infinity as another crushingly dull day wears on,
0:01:37 > 0:01:42leaving you staring into space.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46One of the jobs I was given was standing next to a bottle-washing machine.
0:01:46 > 0:01:52It was under a skylight, it was very hot, it was very noisy because it was very echoey.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55The bottles came round and as they came round, me and this other guy
0:01:55 > 0:01:58took the bottles off and put them in crates, that was our job.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01The guy who I was doing it alongside wore a toupee.
0:02:01 > 0:02:05I remember being distracted by that for a while,
0:02:05 > 0:02:09and he'd been doing this job for 23 years.
0:02:12 > 0:02:1523 years. I said, "I don't understand how you do it."
0:02:15 > 0:02:17He said, "it's a great job, you don't have to think."
0:02:17 > 0:02:21And that seemed to me a very unattractive
0:02:21 > 0:02:26thing about a job to me, but to him it was absolutely marvellous that you didn't have to think.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30As it turned out, I later became a disc jockey, and it turned out you didn't have to think there anyway.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34What's the time? Oh, no, I must not look at the clock,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37I'll go to the toilet, that'll kill a minute or two perhaps.
0:02:37 > 0:02:39I've only just been, I think.
0:02:39 > 0:02:42Oh, no, I'm going to look at the clock.
0:02:42 > 0:02:45Oh, no, I bet it's...
0:02:45 > 0:02:51I bet it's only 12:30, I've got half an hour till lunch, I'll die of boredom, I know I will,
0:02:51 > 0:02:56probably survive till one minute to one and then I'll die of boredom, that's what'll happen.
0:02:56 > 0:02:58Maybe it's five to one.
0:02:58 > 0:03:00Oh, if it's five to one, I've only got five minutes.
0:03:00 > 0:03:02I can just about survive that.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05Right, here we go, let's look at the clock.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13Oh, ten past nine.
0:03:13 > 0:03:18You know you're in for three hours of just
0:03:18 > 0:03:24slow-burning doom when somebody says "OK, I've got the minutes of
0:03:24 > 0:03:31"the last meeting, this is the agenda for this meeting,
0:03:31 > 0:03:35"if anybody thinks they have any issues or matters
0:03:35 > 0:03:39"they'd like to add to the agenda, please could we do that now."
0:03:39 > 0:03:42And then they just go through piecemeal, piecemeal,
0:03:42 > 0:03:47just droning on and just achieving nothing.
0:03:47 > 0:03:52One of life's most important lessons to learn is the art of skiving.
0:03:52 > 0:03:59How to pass those endless hours whilst looking
0:03:59 > 0:04:03like you're busily and efficiently fulfilling your work obligations.
0:04:03 > 0:04:07Such as carrying piles of folders down long corridors,
0:04:09 > 0:04:12printing off pieces of paper and hurriedly leaving the office
0:04:12 > 0:04:15or disappearing down to the archive library
0:04:15 > 0:04:18to find a document that simply doesn't exist.
0:04:20 > 0:04:24Surely anyone who works for a company, the rule of thumb
0:04:24 > 0:04:27has got to be to get away with the least work possible, hasn't it?
0:04:27 > 0:04:34It's sort of like social security, it's kind of welfare state writ large really.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37You know, companies, they're all in profit, it all seems to be working,
0:04:37 > 0:04:41there's really no reason why you should pull your tripe out if you don't have to.
0:04:41 > 0:04:47Everybody accepts that air traffic controllers work for... I don't know how it is, what do they do?
0:04:47 > 0:04:5035 seconds on and then two-and-a-half days off.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53I don't know. And I'm reassured by that, I don't want to be coming back
0:04:53 > 0:04:57from my holidays and it being landed by someone on work experience
0:04:57 > 0:05:00who's fried, who's been on the last 18 hours,
0:05:00 > 0:05:07because Dennis hasn't turned up cos his wife's got a bit of waterworks troubles.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10I don't want it, I want people who are right on it.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13"Here I go, my 35 seconds, I'll land this one."
0:05:13 > 0:05:15Bonk, done, great. "I'm off, lads."
0:05:15 > 0:05:18I'm perfectly happy with that, I feel safer knowing that.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25I liked finding places to escape, kind of little nooks and crannies
0:05:25 > 0:05:29where you could tuck yourself in and not be found for a bit,
0:05:29 > 0:05:30all of that sort of stuff.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34I was just quite good at covering my tracks
0:05:34 > 0:05:37when I would award myself a break.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40The smartest thing to do when you're given a task
0:05:40 > 0:05:43that takes you away your desk, is to do it immediately,
0:05:43 > 0:05:47very quickly, to run to the place where you have to drop off the whatever.
0:05:47 > 0:05:53Drop it off and then award yourself 20 minutes,
0:05:53 > 0:05:57roughly what it would have taken to go off and do something else.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00You have to do that otherwise you just become a number, otherwise,
0:06:00 > 0:06:03you just become somebody who gets told what to do by somebody else.
0:06:03 > 0:06:09You absolutely have to keep a sense of your own autonomy in an office like that, otherwise you go mad.
0:06:09 > 0:06:11You have to break the rules.
0:06:11 > 0:06:16I'd get so bored in the end that I had a little cylindrical
0:06:16 > 0:06:22pencil sharpener, and if you rolled it, it would go in a curve.
0:06:22 > 0:06:27So I used to put two paperclips at the end of my desk
0:06:27 > 0:06:32just wide enough for the little pencil sharpener thing to roll though it.
0:06:32 > 0:06:35And I would roll it from the desk there, and I got so good
0:06:35 > 0:06:39at this with all the practice, I could get like 20 out of 20,
0:06:39 > 0:06:43and it would roll and roll and roll and roll and go right through it.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46If it had been an Olympic sport, I'd have had a gold medal.
0:06:48 > 0:06:52NEWS REPORTER: '20 years ago, most adults in Britain smoked. It was fashionable.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54'Today that balance has shifted.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58'Two-thirds of adults don't smoke, yet in offices and workplaces
0:06:58 > 0:07:00'up and down the country,
0:07:00 > 0:07:03'it's still the non-smokers who are on the defensive.'
0:07:03 > 0:07:05The biggest skivers, I have to say, are smokers
0:07:05 > 0:07:09and I used to really, really resent working anywhere,
0:07:09 > 0:07:14particularly on a production line, where they'd say "I'm just going outside for five minutes,.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18"Can you cover me?" So suddenly you're doing this because someone's having a fag outside.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21And they come back, and you say,
0:07:21 > 0:07:24"Right, ready to get back to normal now?" "Yeah."
0:07:24 > 0:07:28Then someone on your left says, "I'm just going outside for five minutes."
0:07:28 > 0:07:30"What?! You're going for a cigarette as well?"
0:07:30 > 0:07:34You're covering for the bloody smokers and they come back in stinking of smoke,
0:07:34 > 0:07:37thinking they're great cos they skived off. Aren't they clever? No.
0:07:37 > 0:07:38I love cigarette breaks.
0:07:41 > 0:07:46I hated it when they banned cigarette smoking from all places of enjoyment
0:07:46 > 0:07:48because we're not allowed to have fun in England.
0:07:48 > 0:07:53This is another one, for those that work at home, you're not allowed to have a cigarette in your own house
0:07:53 > 0:07:56any more, because it's a workspace, and that's illegal.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59Just as a bit of a sideline.
0:07:59 > 0:08:03Smokers are real zealots, they absolutely believe it's their right,
0:08:03 > 0:08:05"You can't stop me", but we should all have the same time.
0:08:05 > 0:08:10They expect you to be working and picking up their phone while they've gone out smoking a fag.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13Well, I'm sorry, it's got to work two ways.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17What you should do, if you work with someone who smokes,
0:08:17 > 0:08:19is if they have ten minutes, you should add it all up.
0:08:19 > 0:08:25And say, "That's like two days this month that you've had, that I haven't.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28"Therefore next Monday and Tuesday, I'm having it
0:08:28 > 0:08:31"and you've got to cover my phones, and then we are all square."
0:08:31 > 0:08:33And they don't like it. They can't see it.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36They say "I need to go and get a nicotine fix..."
0:08:37 > 0:08:39..they think it's almost like their religion.
0:08:39 > 0:08:45"I can't work Wednesday because, you know, I have to sit at home
0:08:45 > 0:08:46"with a pork chop on my head",
0:08:46 > 0:08:49or whatever their religious belief dictates.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51Smokers are a bit like that.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55You're at your most informal in a smoking break because you feel that you're not in the office,
0:08:55 > 0:08:58so you can stand there with fag in hand, going,
0:08:58 > 0:09:00"Well, actually, this is what we should be doing."
0:09:00 > 0:09:02I think a lot of decisions are made at that point.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05So perhaps smoking should be made compulsory.
0:09:08 > 0:09:10So when office life just gets too much,
0:09:10 > 0:09:12or you simply can't be bothered to get up
0:09:12 > 0:09:14and face the journey into work,
0:09:14 > 0:09:18the classic response is to pull the sickie,
0:09:18 > 0:09:21simply the best skive tactic of all.
0:09:24 > 0:09:26Hello, it's me.
0:09:26 > 0:09:31I'm really sick today. I don't think I'm going to be able to make it in.
0:09:31 > 0:09:37- Right.- I don't know what it is. I'm really sorry. (COUGHS)
0:09:37 > 0:09:39'OK, thanks.' (COUGHS)
0:09:44 > 0:09:46Weasel's not coming in today.
0:09:49 > 0:09:53The reason people throw sickies is basic resentment because we don't get enough holidays.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57Europe gets far more holidays, they have siestas, for God's sake.
0:09:57 > 0:10:00People over here just try and sleep at their desks for an hour
0:10:00 > 0:10:01and hope that no-one will notice.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04People often say to me when they know what I do, they say,
0:10:04 > 0:10:07"I can't do voices, I don't know how you do it, I can't do voices."
0:10:07 > 0:10:09and I think, "You can actually."
0:10:09 > 0:10:13And there's one voice that everyone can do and it's the off-sick voice.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16It's the making the phone call and going,
0:10:16 > 0:10:20"I can't come in today, I've got this terrible thing, and I can't make it.
0:10:20 > 0:10:25"I'm really sorry, but maybe tomorrow, OK, sorry."
0:10:25 > 0:10:27And I think, "You can all do that voice!"
0:10:27 > 0:10:31If you are going to throw one, a bit of advice from an expert.
0:10:31 > 0:10:33Use complicated words.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37Like, for example, if you're feeling sick, just call it bilious.
0:10:37 > 0:10:39That's a great word for sick.
0:10:39 > 0:10:41And make sure when you phone the office you get hold
0:10:41 > 0:10:45of the most stupid person in the office, who's not going to know what bilious is.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48The kind of person who doesn't know what obese is, but knows what fat is.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52I was a method skiver,
0:10:52 > 0:10:56so I used to do this thing where I'd spin round and round and round,
0:10:56 > 0:10:58make myself really dizzy and then phone.
0:10:58 > 0:11:01But you have to invent some sort of
0:11:01 > 0:11:05biologically valid reason.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07You have to sort of creatively find
0:11:07 > 0:11:10a language that makes your hangover sound like a proper disease.
0:11:14 > 0:11:17So you get hold of Darren, in paper clips,
0:11:17 > 0:11:20and go, "Darren, tell the boss I'm feeling bilious."
0:11:22 > 0:11:27Or something like "Darren, I've got UDI."
0:11:27 > 0:11:33And they'll think that sounds a bit complicated, whereas in fact it's just unidentified drinking injury.
0:11:35 > 0:11:38I have to confess, I'm not proud of this,
0:11:38 > 0:11:44my grandfather has died about...
0:11:46 > 0:11:49..17 times.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54And I don't feel too guilty about it because the grandfather
0:11:54 > 0:11:58that's died 17 times is a grandfather I've never met before.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00He died way before I was born.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03If you fake a death in the family to get off work,
0:12:03 > 0:12:07the problem is that you have to follow that through.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10So I had a job where the next day after the funeral, I had to,
0:12:10 > 0:12:15because I have to take two days off, one because of the initial shock and secondly for the funeral.
0:12:15 > 0:12:20Then I wore black the next day after I rang as a mark of respect
0:12:20 > 0:12:22and then everyone was consoling me.
0:12:22 > 0:12:24That, that's not nice.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27That made me feel like I had to leave that job
0:12:27 > 0:12:29just on principle of being a charlatan.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31When you are off sick as well, you wish you hadn't done it,
0:12:31 > 0:12:34if you ever do do it, because you think, "What do I do now?"
0:12:34 > 0:12:37You have your five minutes extra in bed and think, "Oh, I feel better now."
0:12:37 > 0:12:39And then you think, "I can't go into work cos I said I was ill.
0:12:39 > 0:12:44"I can't go out in case someone sees me and, well, I'm stuck now."
0:12:47 > 0:12:50And you think, "What do I do?" And anybody who rings up,
0:12:50 > 0:12:51you have to remember to do the sick voice,
0:12:51 > 0:12:53just in case it's work, it never is.
0:12:53 > 0:12:56Just go, "Hello, no, I'm not very well.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58"Oh, hi, yeah, yeah.
0:12:58 > 0:13:02"Squash? I'm not sure, tomorrow?
0:13:02 > 0:13:05"I'll probably be off tomorrow, but I'll be feeling better, yeah, OK."
0:13:05 > 0:13:11The greatest art form is pulling a sickie while you're at work.
0:13:11 > 0:13:15There have been times where I've thought I cannot live
0:13:15 > 0:13:18through another moment of this.
0:13:18 > 0:13:20I can't live through another moment of this.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24And so I would wander around trying to look a bit peaky, hoping someone
0:13:24 > 0:13:26would go, "Oh, what's wrong, Shappi?"
0:13:26 > 0:13:28"Ooh, I'm feeling a bit faint."
0:13:28 > 0:13:31"You don't look very well, why don't you go home." Of course, they never do.
0:13:31 > 0:13:33So you end up going, "Hi-i-i-i"
0:13:33 > 0:13:38to these robots who wouldn't care if you lived or died anyway.
0:13:38 > 0:13:43Worse than the sickie is the sanctimonious bellius endiuses.
0:13:43 > 0:13:48Who come into work as ill as possible and display it to others.
0:13:48 > 0:13:50"I'm so sick, but I've dragged myself in.
0:13:50 > 0:13:56"Look at these itchy lesions, oh, my T-cells are so low, but I'm not even going to take lunch."
0:13:56 > 0:14:00Or just coming in with a bandana and no eyebrows, going, "Right, let's do some overtime.
0:14:00 > 0:14:04"Whoo! Let's get into it! Oh, my pancreas is hanging out. Good, it improves me."
0:14:04 > 0:14:06I think men are skivers.
0:14:06 > 0:14:11Just imagine if men had sport and periods.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14Listen, nothing would happen in the world.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19There was a time when the office was filled with typewriters,
0:14:19 > 0:14:23memos would be written and hand-delivered by a mail boy.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27Then computers arrived and supposedly revolutionised
0:14:27 > 0:14:30the way we work, increasing office productivity and efficiency.
0:14:32 > 0:14:38Computers are meant to make life easy. Wrong.
0:14:38 > 0:14:43They were absolutely invented to improve, speed up the work process
0:14:43 > 0:14:46with communication, etc.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49Like it said, with documents spreadsheets all of that... No.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57And now that computers are so portable that they fit into your briefcase,
0:14:57 > 0:15:03there is literally no escape and you can never log off from work.
0:15:03 > 0:15:05What management have managed to do
0:15:05 > 0:15:07is they've managed to make computers
0:15:07 > 0:15:11and mobile phones and laptops and all the new technology
0:15:11 > 0:15:14as a device to get people to work harder.
0:15:14 > 0:15:20So you sit on a train in the morning and people are already having
0:15:20 > 0:15:25to do work, and they're on their mobiles and they're all sorting out stuff,
0:15:25 > 0:15:27whatever it is, on the way to work.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30At least in the 1820s people didn't have to drag their power loom
0:15:30 > 0:15:34home with them and keep weaving as they went up the street, did they?
0:15:34 > 0:15:39I sometimes ring up one of the people at my agency and she almost doesn't know how to speak.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42It's extraordinary, she's young, 24, and she's obviously been brought up
0:15:42 > 0:15:44with the e-mail thing, and it just takes longer.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48You sit there, and especially if you're not a natural typist like me, you know.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51I wasn't schooled in that way. I don't type very well, it takes me ages.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55Like having a speech impediment, you just think, "I can't communicate as quickly as you can do that."
0:15:55 > 0:15:59So I ring her up and she'll say, "Yes, I think so, yep.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02"I'll send you an e-mail." And you think, "Just talk to me!"
0:16:02 > 0:16:07Some work e-mails are so boring and banal you could fit them in the subject line, can't you?
0:16:07 > 0:16:09"Fancy lunch at 1?"
0:16:09 > 0:16:13That's it, I don't even need to spend time opening the thing.
0:16:13 > 0:16:16I hate the dot, dot, dot reveal system.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19"Can I borrow your...?"
0:16:19 > 0:16:23Please, please make this worthwhile, there better be something in there.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26Open it. "..a stapler, ta-dah!"
0:16:26 > 0:16:28There's huge amounts of misunderstanding.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30My ex-girlfriend and I used to e-mail each other a lot.
0:16:30 > 0:16:33And we could tell from the position of a comma,
0:16:33 > 0:16:36or whether it was two dots or three dots at the end, what we meant.
0:16:36 > 0:16:39We had a code. We never said what it meant, but you could just tell.
0:16:39 > 0:16:43She'd say, "You all right?" You'd think, "Yes, why?" She'd say, "You didn't put three dots at the end."
0:16:43 > 0:16:49Nowadays it's all, like, Facetube and, like, MySpace and all of dem types o' fings.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52Apparently I'm on Face...
0:16:52 > 0:16:57Facelook, or -book, or whatever, the inter...web. Apparently I'm there.
0:16:57 > 0:17:01My auntie phoned me up the other day and said, "Are you really going to such-and-such?"
0:17:01 > 0:17:06I said, "I don't know what you're talking about, Auntie." She said, "We had a chat on FB."
0:17:06 > 0:17:09Yeah, Facebook. "We had a chat on FB last night."
0:17:09 > 0:17:13I went, "No. I am not on it. I don't even know how to switch the thing on.
0:17:13 > 0:17:16"I'm not on it, it's not me, someone is being me."
0:17:16 > 0:17:18So there's people...
0:17:18 > 0:17:21being me, out there.
0:17:22 > 0:17:24There was no internet in my day.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27When I worked in offices there wasn't Twitter, there wasn't Facebook.
0:17:27 > 0:17:29It's bad enough now. I mean, I write.
0:17:29 > 0:17:33I write stuff. I write books, I write...stuff.
0:17:33 > 0:17:41And you know that I have a deadline if my Twitter page is really active.
0:17:41 > 0:17:46If I'm on Twitter all day, you know I have a massive deadline.
0:17:46 > 0:17:49And I'm tearing myself apart with panic,
0:17:49 > 0:17:55but really needing to tell people that, "I miss rolling down hills. I used to do it loads as a kid."
0:17:55 > 0:17:59It fits perfectly into our British psyche though, sadly. "I don't want to disturb you.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03"So I'll text you. Can I text you?" This is the one I have now.
0:18:03 > 0:18:08People say, "I'll text you what might be a good time to speak. Then text me back when I can ring you."
0:18:08 > 0:18:13You think, "Why don't you just ring me and see if I can talk to you now? Cos I probably can, in all honesty."
0:18:17 > 0:18:23I'm not a massive Philistine about these things, or even a Luddite particularly,
0:18:23 > 0:18:29but I get more pain from the computer world than I consider I would get pleasure,
0:18:29 > 0:18:31er, so to speak.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35Come on! Come on!
0:18:36 > 0:18:41A hero of mine, Mr Paul Weller, calls the internet "the devil's window".
0:18:41 > 0:18:44And I quite like that. I can sort of see what he means about that.
0:19:03 > 0:19:06For all we hate about work, for all we gripe about work,
0:19:06 > 0:19:11for all it oppresses us into a dark pit of frustration and tedium,
0:19:11 > 0:19:14there's one thing we dread about it more than any other.
0:19:14 > 0:19:18And that is the day when suddenly it's taken from us.
0:19:18 > 0:19:22- It's our way or the- BLEEP- highway, that's what I'm telling you.
0:19:22 > 0:19:27And if you want to do anything different, go and do it for another firm.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30And before you know it you've got the DCM -
0:19:30 > 0:19:32Don't Come Monday.
0:19:32 > 0:19:38I don't think at the moment we can sort of accept you continuing as Sales Manager.
0:19:38 > 0:19:42I've been sacked from lots of jobs,
0:19:42 > 0:19:45mostly for minor things like not turning up, ever.
0:19:45 > 0:19:49I think you've got the potential, don't get me wrong with that,
0:19:49 > 0:19:52but I do think that the time isn't right at the moment.
0:19:52 > 0:19:57I've never been sacked. I've been axed! Is that the same as sacking?
0:19:57 > 0:19:59- You're sacked!- Thank you, CJ.
0:19:59 > 0:20:03The best job I got sacked from was the sandwich shop
0:20:03 > 0:20:06and they were so lovely that they had a little goodbye party for me.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09Everyone was going, "Oh, why are you leaving?" "I was sacked."
0:20:09 > 0:20:12My boss was going, "Oh, we love her but she never turned up."
0:20:12 > 0:20:17And the reason I stopped turning up to that job was that the boy I really fancied left.
0:20:17 > 0:20:21You know it's happening because it becomes more formal.
0:20:21 > 0:20:25You go in, "Mr Maloney, we need to discuss your...
0:20:25 > 0:20:27"your future with us."
0:20:27 > 0:20:30And at this point you think, "I haven't got a future, have I?"
0:20:30 > 0:20:33I re-employ this idiot here, Morrissey. YOU'RE sacked.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37I got fired from that job because there was
0:20:37 > 0:20:43this miserable sort of chap, who probably originated from Middle Earth.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46He was having a drink out this particular evening
0:20:46 > 0:20:54and I took his glass and I collected it and put it into me little basket and he snatched it back out again.
0:20:54 > 0:20:56And he said, "Hey, hey, hey!"
0:20:56 > 0:20:59And he pointed to the half centimetre of beer still left in it
0:20:59 > 0:21:04and said, "Still tuppenceworth left in there, son. Hey?!"
0:21:04 > 0:21:06And I think he grassed me up.
0:21:06 > 0:21:08- You're sacked. - That does seem rather unfair.
0:21:08 > 0:21:10Oh, it is unfair.
0:21:10 > 0:21:12Life is unfair.
0:21:12 > 0:21:14I am unfair.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16- You're both sacked.- Thank you, CJ.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19I've never been fired, but I've never been
0:21:19 > 0:21:22in a job long enough to be fired, I don't think.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26I'm usually on to the next one before they get a chance to sniff me out,
0:21:26 > 0:21:29and go, "Hang on a minute, you're rubbish. Get out, get out!"
0:21:29 > 0:21:34Technically every time you're booed off stage doing comedy you're being fired, I would argue.
0:21:34 > 0:21:36And that's happened a few times.
0:21:36 > 0:21:41Once I was in a pub doing a gig at the back, under a marquee.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44Still 50, 100 people there, enough to get the old Imodium gland going
0:21:44 > 0:21:47if you're scared of public speaking, like me, which is ridiculous, but I am.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50And the gig was already going badly and the talking was starting,
0:21:50 > 0:21:53and I wasn't far away from the booing and the, "Off!"
0:21:53 > 0:21:56I'm about to be essentially sacked, even though I'm self-employed.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59And this is a completely true story.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01A Great Dane, which obviously lived at the pub,
0:22:01 > 0:22:05has come in right at the moment when I'm trying to hold the gig together, run on stage,
0:22:05 > 0:22:08and anyone who's been approached by a Great Dane knows it's terrible,
0:22:08 > 0:22:13and stuck it's nose straight into my crutch, the way dogs do, and sniffed my balls
0:22:13 > 0:22:16right at the moment when I was trying to hang onto this gig.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19That was it. Because that was the funniest thing that had happened.
0:22:19 > 0:22:22So I was sacked then by the audience.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25I think that counts, right? I did not complete my job for the wage.
0:22:25 > 0:22:27I was fired by Clapham.
0:22:27 > 0:22:31"Heckle him with hummus, heckle him with a quail's egg. Get off, you'll never entertain Clapham.
0:22:31 > 0:22:33"What do you know about us, mon?
0:22:33 > 0:22:37"Take that. I've been to Sudan, you don't know jack."
0:22:39 > 0:22:41I've been fired from the Radio 1 Breakfast Show.
0:22:41 > 0:22:46I mean, fired is an emotive word cos I was halfway through a contract and they gave us an afternoon show,
0:22:46 > 0:22:51but I signed a contract to do the Breakfast Show for two years and was fired after seven months,
0:22:51 > 0:22:55but I wasn't on the dole, so I know "fired" is an emotive word.
0:22:55 > 0:23:00I think there are bosses out there who love sacking people in a kind of sado-masochistic way.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04You know the kid, at the age of 11, first day at school, wet themselves.
0:23:04 > 0:23:07They know that from the age of 11 to 18 they're always going to
0:23:07 > 0:23:11be known as the kid in that school who wet themselves on the first day.
0:23:11 > 0:23:15They're the ones who become bosses and they're the people who take out
0:23:15 > 0:23:19that little puddle of pee on everyone personally for the next 40 years.
0:23:19 > 0:23:24"I'm sacking you because, at the age of 11,
0:23:24 > 0:23:27"I peed my pants.
0:23:27 > 0:23:28"It's personal."
0:23:29 > 0:23:34We were absolutely overjoyed, once we knew that we had another job.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37We regarded it as a mercy killing.
0:23:37 > 0:23:45It was. It was the radio equivalent of being taken to the Dignitas clinic.
0:23:45 > 0:23:50You don't see it any more, when people had had a dog for ages
0:23:50 > 0:23:53and its back legs had gone and they'd had wheels put on.
0:23:53 > 0:23:55# Rollin', rollin', rollin', rollin'
0:23:55 > 0:23:57# Keep rollin', rollin', rollin', rollin'... #
0:23:57 > 0:24:01Old women dragging this poor thing with wheels round the market.
0:24:01 > 0:24:04It's like, "Listen, I know you love your dog, but it's over.
0:24:04 > 0:24:06"This thing is finished,
0:24:06 > 0:24:09"you might as well...
0:24:09 > 0:24:12"There are other dogs, let it go."
0:24:12 > 0:24:15The dog has got wheels for legs.
0:24:15 > 0:24:21Our Breakfast Show had wheels for legs after the first fortnight.
0:24:21 > 0:24:23# Rollin', rollin', rollin', rollin'
0:24:23 > 0:24:25# Keep rollin', rollin', rollin', rollin'... #
0:24:25 > 0:24:29The only time I've been sacked was as a warm-up man...
0:24:29 > 0:24:33(AS ROSS) ..for Jonathan Ross's programme in about 1992,
0:24:33 > 0:24:36Fascinating Facts, or Fantastic Facts, it was called, for ITV.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40Jonathan wasn't doing much at the time, a comeback thing after The Last Resort had finished.
0:24:40 > 0:24:45We did the first one and it didn't go very well. And I was booked to do eight, and I was sacked.
0:24:45 > 0:24:50I take great delight in telling Jonathan, yeah, you might like my impression of you,
0:24:50 > 0:24:53and you might say, "You do a really good impression of Stewart Lee"...
0:24:53 > 0:24:58(AS LEE) ..but don't forget, Jonathan, for all those compliments, you were the one who sacked me.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01And you're the only person, ever, to have done that.
0:25:01 > 0:25:05And that's what I call a fascinating fact.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07I got sacked without knowing it once. I walked on...
0:25:07 > 0:25:08It was one of these jobs,
0:25:08 > 0:25:11I was a young actor and I had to get myself out to
0:25:11 > 0:25:14somewhere like Maidenhead. I don't know where Maidenhead is.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17So I get all the maps and things, and I find my way.
0:25:17 > 0:25:22Bus, train, Tube, train. I get out there and you're in the middle of nowhere
0:25:22 > 0:25:25and someone then comes and picks you up.
0:25:25 > 0:25:29And it was a job...Ray Winstone was on it, A Very Secret Army, something like that.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Geoffrey Palmer as well, some really big actors in this thing.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35Oh, God. He does go on, doesn't he?
0:25:35 > 0:25:39It was called Fairly Secret Army, Morrissey. Shut up.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43So I arrive and I'm met by someone and they send me to a room, the green room,
0:25:43 > 0:25:47where the actors hang out while they're waiting to go and work.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50And all the other actors come in and I recognise them,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53I recognise Ray Winstone and Geoffrey Palmer and I'm so thrilled.
0:25:53 > 0:25:56I'm not long out of drama school and I'm thinking,
0:25:56 > 0:26:01"This is the big time. I'm going to work with some really top acts and I'm so excited."
0:26:01 > 0:26:06Someone's brought me a cup of tea and the actors have come in and they nod at me, they don't know who I am.
0:26:06 > 0:26:12I can hear them talking when they're making tea, going, "Have you heard, they've brought some poor actor
0:26:12 > 0:26:15"all the way out from London and he hasn't got a part.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18"They've just cut it, they've just cut his part."
0:26:18 > 0:26:19And I'm sitting there...
0:26:20 > 0:26:25..listening, like this, and I have a sip of my tea.
0:26:25 > 0:26:27And they say, "It's so terrible.
0:26:27 > 0:26:32"I hope they pay him. He should have a word with his Equity member," and all this is going on.
0:26:32 > 0:26:36This chitter-chatter, Ray going, "Yeah, it's terrible, innit?"
0:26:36 > 0:26:40All of a sudden, someone comes in and goes, "Neil Morrissey?"
0:26:40 > 0:26:43as if there's a bunch of strangers in the room.
0:26:45 > 0:26:46"Can we have a word?"
0:26:46 > 0:26:51And they're all going, "Oh, my God, it was him, it must have been him, it was him."
0:26:51 > 0:26:55So they take me out and tell me, "We're terribly sorry, the director thinks you're a lovely actor
0:26:55 > 0:27:01"and he really wants to work with you again, but unfortunately your part's been cut.
0:27:01 > 0:27:02"Sorry.
0:27:02 > 0:27:07"Here's the bus fare to the train station. Ta-ra."
0:27:07 > 0:27:09Bastards!
0:27:09 > 0:27:11Oh, Morrissey.
0:27:11 > 0:27:18As CJ would've said, I didn't get where I am today by making excuses. Hard graft, man, is what it takes.
0:27:18 > 0:27:20Something this colony knows little about.
0:27:20 > 0:27:25Nine to five was an anathema to me, it could never have been done.
0:27:25 > 0:27:29Work is a pain in the arse. And at the end of it you only get a quid.
0:27:29 > 0:27:34More than anything, that job taught me that one of the worst smells you can ever encounter in your life
0:27:34 > 0:27:36is the smell of a potato peeling machine.
0:27:36 > 0:27:40All I know now is there's no guaranteed career path
0:27:40 > 0:27:44that will keep you away from management stupidity.
0:27:44 > 0:27:51I was like the contestant on The Generation Game who did the job very badly in an endearingly rubbish way.
0:27:51 > 0:27:58If you wake up in the morning and you don't need to be somewhere, that is a step into the abyss.
0:27:59 > 0:28:04Cleaning toilets in the factory in Oldham, it taught me never to have
0:28:04 > 0:28:09a man piss in your house, that's what it taught me.
0:28:09 > 0:28:11# Working nine to five
0:28:11 > 0:28:13# What a way to make a living
0:28:13 > 0:28:15# Barely getting by
0:28:15 > 0:28:17# It's all taking and no giving
0:28:17 > 0:28:22# They just use your mind and you never get the credit
0:28:22 > 0:28:27# It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it
0:28:27 > 0:28:31# Nine to five, yeah, they've got you where they want you
0:28:31 > 0:28:36# There's a better life and you think about it, don't you?
0:28:36 > 0:28:40# It's a rich man's game, no matter what they call it
0:28:40 > 0:28:45# And you spend your life putting money in his wallet... #