Regular readers will no doubt be aware of UTC’s increasingly-concerning fascination with pointless research, the kind that wastes significant amounts of time and money discovering the painfully obvious.
He particularly likes research with findings that can be presented to his colleagues at SLR Towers in a fashion that could be misinterpreted by his audience as personal insults directed at them.
So, you can imagine the joy on the auld yin’s wrinkled puss when a classic email of the genre dropped into his inbox the other day. A company called Vapourcore – and no, we don’t know what they do – has discovered that body odour tops the list of “Most Irritating Co-Worker Habits”. UTC took great pleasure in pointedly sharing this information with select colleagues, wearing what could have been a smirk on his face.
Upon further inspection, however, all nine of the other things that annoy co-workers on the 10-strong list of stuff were accusations that are levelled at the old boy on a daily basis, including: ignoring emails (“I’m a busy man”); not washing up “I don’t do it at home so I’m certainly not doing it here”); staying in the toilet too long (“I’ve got some minor gastrointestinal issues. It happens when you’re my age. And it’s easier to read The Racing Post on the bog.”); and smelling of cigarettes (“Is a man not allowed a fag these days?”)
