‘I don’t want to say anything but I think you ought to know….’

Always say ‘well don’t then;’ loudly, at that point.  Trust me you will never want to know. 

It is almost always the beginning of somebody trying to land somebody else in it, because if they don’t want to say something then why the heck are they?

At work if you are the line manager it will be one colleague trying to grass on another.

With friendships it will either be a friend telling you that another friend has been gossiping about you or worse, that your partner has been playing away.

With colleagues or friends at school it will be something your child has done.

With neighbours it will be gossip about another neighbour. 

You can be sure it will never be positive because nobody ever starts positive news with that particular sentence. 

‘I don’t want to say anything but Jenny has just passed her driving test.’

‘I don’t want to say anything but Mickey is going to give his family a dream holiday’ 

Adults have not progressed from childhood, they are just less honest about it.  At least kids come straight out and ‘tell!’  ‘Mum Bobby’s been hitting me, ‘ or ‘Miss, Ginnie’s copying Alex,’ and you can bet that if they don’t want to ‘tell’ they won’t!

Office temp work is useful when you’re a single Mum but it is about as interesting as used bath water. When I find myself calculating how the hourly rate converts to the minute rate so I can use that as the benchmark of achievement as time passes, I am seriously bored.

Whether replacing a PA, office manager or filing assistant, I get tasks such as filing, envelope opening or franking, shredding documents, answering the most futile enquiries and buying or making the drinks. The monotony is only broken by the introduction of another boring task. If I could just unscrew my head, before attending, everything would be fine – just arms and hands doing the work with no need for thinking or speaking.

As I am not going to be a permanent fixture, everyone acts as they wish they could act with the majority of their colleagues and ignores me. They talk around me, over me and near me without directing one measly sentence my way, (because I know nothing about what they are discussing and will not be around long enough to find out.) By the end of the day I feel invisible, like a little office ghost, especially when I say ‘goodbye’, and only one person says it back, almost as an afterthought.

The way they leap at any distraction indicates that they aren’t that interested in their own jobs either. They look up when anyone gets a file, goes to the loo, passes anything to anyone else, yawns or sneezes (great excitement.) Mid-morning they drink coffee, eat lunch and discuss their sandwich fillings. At lunch they scuttle off gleefully to buy more food and return looking slightly sloshed. After a day in this void of non happening it is impossible to fathom what they do with their minds day in and day out.

At least I only shelve mine temporarily.

‘Morning ladies, “Geoff, the manager of the sports centre says as he passes me, my friend Ellie and Chloe on our way out of the changing rooms.

‘Patronizing twerp,’ I mutter.

‘Mum! He was only being polite.’ Chloe remonstrates while Ellie flicks me a conspiratorial look of agreement over the top of her head.

When a man says ‘Ladies’ he may fondly imagine he is being polite but the very word inserts us into (mostly male) thought bubbles with needlework, hot dinners, fluffy kittens and pink things.

‘What’s wrong with it? Toilets always say Ladies, or Gentleman,’ Chloe says.

‘Well firstly I don’t like being called something on a public convenience door and secondly I don’t pass men and say ‘morning gentlemen.’ If I did you’d know I was being sarky or patronizing, ’ I explain. I can see she hasn’t thought of it this way round.

‘Well you could say morning men…no that would sound like you were an army captain’ Chloe giggles.

‘Morning chaps?’ Ellie tries.

‘Morning boys. Morning lads. Morning males.’ We explode with laughter at that one before deciding ‘morning guys’ is probably the best, though still quite cheesy.

We agree that men who say hello to ‘girls’ or ‘lassies’ are equally cheesy especially when they refer to middle aged or elderly women as girls in the belief it flatters them. But ‘hello females’, or ‘hello women?’ No!

We decide that ‘Lady’ doesn’t apply to anyone with a face like a bulldog, anyone wearing tattoos or lip studs, or anyone with a handbag that could knock someone senseless. A lady rides a horse, or a bicycle with a large basket through a pretty village. WI women are usually ladies, with or without their clothes.

‘Gentlemen’ are men over sixty who doff their hats and open doors. Unfortunately they do have a habit of greeting groups of women by saying ‘morning/afternoon/evening ladies!’