was thinking along the lines of someone with a degree,” Mrs. G-S immediately adds. “Preferably one with a degree in literature. Or a language.”
I give up! Really, at this point in the conversation I’m waving a mental white flag of defeat.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I tell her, thinking that there isn’t a cat in hell’s chance of fixing this one. Which would be tragic, because it would blemish our, well, unblemished reputation.
See, when Charlie and I quit our respective jobs two years ago and formed Odd Jobs, we adopted our company ethos: to find exactly the right jobs for the right people. Or the right people for the oddest of jobs. Our guarantee: successful placement for all.
I don’t think we’ve ever turned anyone away before…except for the company searching for chicken sexers, because it was just too, too horrible to think about. And immoral.
The reason we turned it down: In order for the large company to capitalize as much as possible on its profits, it wanted to feed and raise only female chicks. Therefore it needed to determine the sex of the chicks as soon as they emerged from their eggs.
The chicks would be placed on a conveyer belt, and the sexers on either side would check the chicks for tiny testicles. The male chicks’ fate was to be thrown into barrels with hundreds of other male chicks. Result: Chicks would either be squashed by the weight of their brothers or generally be left to die, or be horribly disposed of.
Euck. I mean, how inhumane is that?
Anyway, it didn’t even sound legal, so I complained to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Plus I also wrote a strong letter to the Ministry of Agriculture.
But since we started out, just Charlie and I, we’ve had a good deal of success. So much, that we now have books full of people we can call on for different odd jobs, and we also have three employees to cope with the workload. At least we usually have three employees, but as I said, things are unusually quiet because of the holidays.
Today it’s just myself, Charlie (when he’s finally settled the Kitty Princesses) and Colin, who is manning the front office and the phones.
I have to find a carer for Maxie on my own, it seems…
I lay my head on my desk in the hope of some kind of inspiration, until there is a knock on my office door.
“I’ve got a failed sex kitten in the front office,” Colin tells me in his monotone voice.
Due to the special nature of our agency I’m not exactly surprised. However, I’m also wondering if Colin has finally cracked.
“Says she wants a new job with low responsibilities and no sex.”
Colin’s monotone delivery is not deliberate. He says it’s areflection of his monotone personality, which is why he kept getting “released” from jobs before he came to us.
Poor Colin. He suffers so from lack of self-esteem. I mean, he’s very interesting when you get to know him. And he has a real knack for fitting the right people to the right job.
But sometimes, entirely due to his monotone voice and beige clothes, Colin does tend to fade into the background a bit. We all tend to forget he’s there. I feel guilty about this because I don’t mean to hurt his feelings.
On infrequent occasions, to compensate for his lack of intonation (and to shake us up a bit), he sprinkles his sentences with unignorable words.
“Says she’s had enough of porn flicks and having to arouse all those penises.”
Because “porn flicks” and “penises” are extremely unignorable words, aren’t they? This is obviously a cry for help.
“Come in and sit down, Colin,” I say, because it’s not Colin’s fault that he’s so lonely and has to say strange things in order to get people to actually hear him. I mean, if I was forty-six and lived with an aging, deaf, demanding mother, I might get lonely and depressed from time to time.
“Would you like some coffee?” I ask, because I don’t want Colin to think I am only going to
I give up! Really, at this point in the conversation I’m waving a mental white flag of defeat.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I tell her, thinking that there isn’t a cat in hell’s chance of fixing this one. Which would be tragic, because it would blemish our, well, unblemished reputation.
See, when Charlie and I quit our respective jobs two years ago and formed Odd Jobs, we adopted our company ethos: to find exactly the right jobs for the right people. Or the right people for the oddest of jobs. Our guarantee: successful placement for all.
I don’t think we’ve ever turned anyone away before…except for the company searching for chicken sexers, because it was just too, too horrible to think about. And immoral.
The reason we turned it down: In order for the large company to capitalize as much as possible on its profits, it wanted to feed and raise only female chicks. Therefore it needed to determine the sex of the chicks as soon as they emerged from their eggs.
The chicks would be placed on a conveyer belt, and the sexers on either side would check the chicks for tiny testicles. The male chicks’ fate was to be thrown into barrels with hundreds of other male chicks. Result: Chicks would either be squashed by the weight of their brothers or generally be left to die, or be horribly disposed of.
Euck. I mean, how inhumane is that?
Anyway, it didn’t even sound legal, so I complained to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Plus I also wrote a strong letter to the Ministry of Agriculture.
But since we started out, just Charlie and I, we’ve had a good deal of success. So much, that we now have books full of people we can call on for different odd jobs, and we also have three employees to cope with the workload. At least we usually have three employees, but as I said, things are unusually quiet because of the holidays.
Today it’s just myself, Charlie (when he’s finally settled the Kitty Princesses) and Colin, who is manning the front office and the phones.
I have to find a carer for Maxie on my own, it seems…
I lay my head on my desk in the hope of some kind of inspiration, until there is a knock on my office door.
“I’ve got a failed sex kitten in the front office,” Colin tells me in his monotone voice.
Due to the special nature of our agency I’m not exactly surprised. However, I’m also wondering if Colin has finally cracked.
“Says she wants a new job with low responsibilities and no sex.”
Colin’s monotone delivery is not deliberate. He says it’s areflection of his monotone personality, which is why he kept getting “released” from jobs before he came to us.
Poor Colin. He suffers so from lack of self-esteem. I mean, he’s very interesting when you get to know him. And he has a real knack for fitting the right people to the right job.
But sometimes, entirely due to his monotone voice and beige clothes, Colin does tend to fade into the background a bit. We all tend to forget he’s there. I feel guilty about this because I don’t mean to hurt his feelings.
On infrequent occasions, to compensate for his lack of intonation (and to shake us up a bit), he sprinkles his sentences with unignorable words.
“Says she’s had enough of porn flicks and having to arouse all those penises.”
Because “porn flicks” and “penises” are extremely unignorable words, aren’t they? This is obviously a cry for help.
“Come in and sit down, Colin,” I say, because it’s not Colin’s fault that he’s so lonely and has to say strange things in order to get people to actually hear him. I mean, if I was forty-six and lived with an aging, deaf, demanding mother, I might get lonely and depressed from time to time.
“Would you like some coffee?” I ask, because I don’t want Colin to think I am only going to
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