My stupid day at the office
Peter Jackson
1989
Right from leaving school, Ive always worked for the British Armed Forces, starting out as a civilian craft apprentice back in 1964. By 1989 Id become management and had been flying a desk for around 10 years, when I found myself posted to Glasgow, leading a small team of technicians charged with inspecting the computerised records of all things vaguely electrical that were being used by our forces. Should anyone be curious, these detailed, technical records are the basis of a process called NATO Codification, which is a huge database holding records of ALL items used by ALL Allied countries. Frankly, the job was mind numbingly boring, so I leaned heavily on my colleagues lively good sense of humour to get me through the day! But one day was completely different in a Basil Fawty kind of way.
With the IRA still threatening everyone in the UK, especially the armed forces, security was naturally to the fore. Civilian outfits like mine were thought to be a particularly soft target, so sensible precautions were in place. Specifically, we were all advised to be on the lookout for suspicious parcels or packages (strangely addressed, unusual shape, possibly having a strange smell etc). It may seem like a rigmarole, but the threat was real enough. And like all good civil servants we were well versed at practice emergency evacuations of the building (thats 2000+ people outside and accounted for very quickly). But this particular day it wasnt the usual practice.
The alarm bells went off as usual, signalling imminent evacuation, and while preparing (putting things away and picking up coats etc), a Security Guard appeared, earnestly telling us that this was the real thing, NOT the usual practice! He half heartedly inquired if anyone here might have been expecting a package from Ireland? Well, my guys were accustomed to having day to day dealing with companies all around the UK, which often involved obtaining information about products in the form of catalogues. So I quickly got everyone together and asked the question? ... (continues)
