Great bearded twits

As previous intimated the blithering idiot quotient of the business I work for is quite high. The capacity for futile activity remains unclear because those boundaries have not properly and thoroughly been explored and charted.

Which is exemplified by the exchange I had with Sid the Sardonic, a denizen of the newly relocated headquarters at Sweepstake City.

Those who've worked here longer than me will swear that Sid was once upon a time fair-minded, civil and helpful. I don't believe in fairy tales. He has a background on the shop floor and knows the score from our point of view.

A couple of minutes after I'd walked in the door at the start of yesterday's shift Sid was on the phone. All my hackles rise the minute I hear his voice. Every little thing that goes wrong is apparently designed to annoy him and he sprays the blame about with far greater enthusiasm than accuracy.

He obviously got out of bed on the wrong side yesterday because he was actually and quite frighteningly pleasant. Or perhaps he's had a personality transplant. Hm. And he was jolly too. He had a problem, he explained, he'd received a message and he didn't understand it at all and perhaps I might be able to help. Truly, deeply bizarre.

He was looking for the stray manager of another of our outlets. Staff there had given him information suggesting that Little Ben might be with us (to collect some products for transfer between the two stores). I made ostentatious (loud, for the benefit of someone on the other end of a telephone) play of opening and closing the drawers of my desk. Nope, no little managers hiding there.

I rang the two (yes, two) on duty managers. Neither knew anything about Little Ben or indeed a product transfer between our two stores. I relayed this news to Sid who accepted the lack of help with a fine show of grace.

Later in the shift I had the chance to trawl through the store's email to catch up on what had been happening since I'd last been on duty (Sat.). And there, in the deleted folder denoting they'd been read and dealt with by management, confirming they'd been received, and replied to (suggesting that they should, in line with store policy, be in the email file to be read by everybody) were emails concerning a transfer of stock between our store and that of Little Ben.

Ooops. The final email laid out the mechanism by which the transfer would be effected: the usual means of the delivery van collecting.

And the delivery man was to be instructed to collect by none other than one of the email recipients. A chap called Sid.

Sid the Stupid?