Head, desk

I know, I know, my neglect of Lady Bracknell's once-proud blog is nothing short of shameful....

Mea maxima culpa.

In an attempt to kick start it again, I must share an anecdote from today with my last remaining half a reader.

For my sins, I have been co-opted onto the committee which oversees the provision of parking bays on DDA and H&S grounds at my office. This, of course, is my own fault for having so often and so publicly stated that, were the bays to be allocated entirely fairly, then those who have a genuine right to one would no longer need to run the gauntlet of abuse from colleagues who 'know' that so and so who has bay such and such can run five miles. With one hand tied behind his back.

Leaving aside the issue that many people who are entitled to a bay as a reasonable adjustment do appear quite sprightly to those who expect that they should have at least one leg dropping off, there is no doubt that a proportion of the people who have been allocated bays in the past have had no entitlement to one at all.

My commitment to ensuring that everyone who is entitled to a bay gets one without question, and that nobody who isn't entitled to a bay manages to slip under the radar is, as you would expect, creating a lot of work.

While I was wading through the scant information scribbled on the application forms by those who would quite like free parking five days a week, thank you, I was visited by the very nice young woman who provides clerical support to the committee.

She, it appears, had been tasked by the committee chair with emailing everyone who currently has one of the bays and reminding them that it is crucial that they let her know when they're not going to be attending so that their bay can be used by one of their non-disabled colleagues who would otherwise have to park either the best part of a mile away, or pay a significant parking cost. (Rather unsurprisingly, said non-disabled colleagues have a tendency to get just the teensiest bit hot under the collar when they could have parked close to the building for nothing if only the bloody crips had stuck to their side of the bargain.)

Anyway, amongst the replies to this missive was one from the email account of one of the miscreants. It read something like this.

"I am Miss Creant's line manager. She can't reply to your email at present because she's on leave."



Always good to see people taking their managerial duties seriously....

The Editor