Dialling Bigmouth

Following the inaugural meeting of the Staff Committee, there is now a phone line where members of staff or the public can report anonymously on anything, or anyone, they don’t like, in any of our stores. Don’t like the posters in the window? Don’t shrug your shoulders, dial 0898 BIGMOUTH. Had to do someone else’s sections because they are on holiday? You’re not alone anymore if you dial 0898 BIGMOUTH. Customer order took more than 24 hours to arrive? You might be entitled to compensation if you dial 0898 BIGMOUTH. Been impregnated by your Area Compliance Officer . . . again? Well, it’s probably your own fault, but dial 0898 BIGMOUTH anyway.
I’m not sure it was necessary for us to have this new phone line, but as all the other ideas involved pay rises, more holiday and compulsory Tokyopop training (it’s only a matter of time) for all non-spod staff, this was deemed to be the cheapest and least contentious option. Oh, but how we are reaping the wild wind . . . /P>Sparky has shopped me for "cruel and abusive behaviour," after he spent the best part of a weekend trying to solve a home-made Soduko puzzle I made him. He claims I added an extra 2, 3 and 7 on purpose. As if.
Sally has shopped me for entering every competition we run under an assumed name (as employees cannot enter), in the hope of winning us a holiday rather than pay for it myself. Kirstie has shopped me for questioning her moral standards (I recently discovered why Roth is always happy to give her a lift home). Roth has shopped me for our Jung Chang promotion. He thinks "Mao That’s What I Call Chinese History" is disrespectful.
Which has left it up to me to shop Onion. His crime? Taking advantage of poor souls at Macmillan’s New Writing initiative--or "The Slush Pile Strikes Back" as we know it. Ever since it was announced, Onion has been digging up old review manuscripts, giving them a new title and claiming authorship for himself. Most recently, he has submitted Jeffrey Archer’s trilogy of Prison Diaries, re-titled as Earth Dies Screaming, Murder in the Red Barn, and In the Colosseum. I may send Macmillan the 0898 GERCHER number. Then again, if they try to make me stock some of these New Writing no-hopers, maybe I won’t.