Guru

Having awoken from his traditional festive week-long slumber at a secret location in the west Midlands, Guru this morning surveyed the landscape of a fresh new year.

That is to say, he had a shower, shave and the other one, and then browsed through the FT with his traditional New Year’s three-hour-long breakfast.

Perhaps unaware of the secret location that Guru uses to escape his in-laws, Eastenders and leftover turkey, thousands of UK workers had so little fun at home this Christmas that they looked forward to returning to work last week.

More than three in 10 workers were looking forward to being back at their desk for nine hours a day, according to a survey by business psychology experts OPP.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the workplace, along comes a real reason for staying at home. Or, more specifically, staying in bed, alone, with no form of contact with anyone else… ever. Well for a couple of days at least.

For there is a virulent virus at large across the land, laying low record numbers of men, women and children… Not to mention oldies and quite possibly small rodents and pig-related creatures on account of their genetic similarity to the more upright species – humans.
And for once it’s not ‘bird flu’ – as distinct from ‘man flu’, which is clearly far more serious as Yours Truly often uses it as an… um… reason for not turning up to the latest ligging opportunity… sorry, important corporate event.

Having decided last year that YouTube had little, possibly even nothing, of interest to an HR audience, Yours Truly was pleasantly surprised to find this little treat below for stressed-out businessmen wanting to look super-sharp for an imminent presentation to an important client.

After an initial period of thinking this might be a spoof, a little background research showed that this is deadly serious.

Our beautifully turned out image expert (think Julia Somerville circa 1986) speaks for nearly five minutes about how to look good for a presentation. Her point about shoelaces should not detract from other sound advice.

Guru has learned a lot from these five minutes. He strongly recommends you watch it yourself. See if you can spot all 28 laughable top tips, the best of which is:

Following the (hopefully) one-off re-emergence of ground-breaking rock combo Led Zepellin, Disciple Bob, had been regaling Yours Truly with the admittedly out-of-date news that David Coverdale, the lead singer of 1970s heavy rock band Whitesnake, had been getting in a bit of trouble with the bears in his mountain retreat in the US.

It turns out the local ursine inhabitants have taken to his abode in a big way, and have been using the pool and popping into the kitchen for the odd canape.

Naturally, this reminded Guru of an old flame from way out west called Ursula, even though she was not very hairy.

So this week is the worst on record for staff sickies. Guru can empathise, writing this as he is from his very own, duck-feathered sickbed.

If it's not flu, it seems to be winter vomitting, and Guru feels like he has a combination of the two - with a few extra symptoms thrown in for good measure.

As well as causing misery to the afflicted, all the bugs flying around are costing the UK economy, with more than 3.6m people off work this week, according to reports.

Having felt the wrath of Mrs Guru for failing to iron her dress when pressing his own shirt prior to attending a swanky event recently, Guru has some sympathy for the poor American fools who dared to mess with shy and retiring US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.

Apparently, a pair of banner-wielding dudes started shouting "iron my shirt" in a show of support for her multi-tasking abilities, in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary. The men were clearly looking to get a global audience, as otherwise they'd have put 'iron my pants' instead of trousers, which in the UK is confined to the seriously uptight.

Curiously, in response to the request Clinton said "Can we turn the lights on? It's awfully dark," in some weird coded message to the police who then removed the men.

As the men were carted off they may well have had cause to worry as this incident happened in Salem Massachusetts, legendary home of the witch trials of 1692 when one man was crushed to death under a pile of rocks for no good reason and 19 others were hanged on equally spurious grounds (or, more accurately from the bough of a tree).

As the hapless 'Salem two' disappeared from view, the crowd began chanting "Iron my shirt! Iron my shirt!". Clinton laughed off the incident, but then added mysteriously: "I am running to break through the highest and hardest glass ceiling" – a phrase likely to add fuels to the demonic flames gripping at least one... um... bunch of extremist God botherers, which has been insisting that Clinton herself is an actual witch on account of the brooch she wears on its comedy website.

Of course, it being the good ol' US of A an' all, it's difficult to tell if the group's blessing will be a help or a hindrance as Hilly bids to become the first female American president and strike a blow for workplace equality everywhere.

But she did offer to 'demon'strate (there's another coded message if ever there was one) top ironing techniques to anyone who'd missed that lesson in high school.

Asking a woman to iron a shirt, as Guru has found to his cost, is perhaps a more serious crime than doing magic or turning base metal into gold. Having said that, Mrs Guru regularly takes Yours Truly's base metal and somehow manages to convince a man down the high street to transform his cash into sparkling trinkets.

Wales, a country perhaps better known for hobbies involving sheep than innovative business practice, has produced a revolutionary idea that could shake the employment world.

Paul ‘daffodils-and-leeks’ Thomas, a senior lecturer at the University of Glamorgan, wants a world without line managers – a glorious planet where staff look after themselves.

Thomas believes managers hold companies back, and that if they were scrapped, every member of staff would take responsibility for running the firm.

Having deftly ignored all concerns over the shortsighted nature of going nuclear, Guru was heartened to see that Downing Street did have the time to break the heart of an enterprising 12-year-old animal lover with big ambitions.

Cor blimey, would you Adam and Eve it? Polish workers are more British than that wot we are.

Guru was rather unsurprised to read, once he found his copy of the Times among the American DVDs, Swedish furniture and Indian cooking sauces at his local hypermarket, that Poles scored higher marks in a British citizenship test than the Brits.

It all ended happy ever after for the production company responsible for the only TV programme to get close to being a modern-day morality play – In the Night Garden – after it had been taken to court by a former 'Tombliboo' who claimed he was abused for being gay and when he complained was told to ‘shut up and get on with it’ – even when the computer in his big, fatsuit had broken down and he couldn’t see – which is presumably in contravention of health and safety legislation.

He lost his case, putting the mildly psychotropic gang of Night Garden characters in the clear and prompting one – Makka Pakka to exclaim: "Makka Pakka Akka Wakka". Enough said.

However, Guru notes that Ragdoll, the company that produces the programme, has had bigger battles to face over the sexuality of its characters, let alone the dancers inside the hotsuits...

As a young scamp, Guru was hailed by his classmates for his ability to drop a pencil at the right time and place to maximise the view of Miss Robinson bending over to pick it up. It provided entertainment for the masses - always Guru's calling in life - but also did nothing to harm attendances, concentration and ultimately exam results.

So Guru was dismayed to hear that £2,500-per-term Stockport Grammar School, rather than praising one of its teachers for raising its profile, had suspended her from work.

Gordon Brown, according to the Daily Mirror today, "stared death in the face" yesterday. Dramatic stuff.

So how could this happen? Was he ambushed by terror forces on an unannounced visit to Afghanastan? Did he get trapped underwater while examining the floods in Tewkesbury? Was he cornered by Alastair Darling at a Number 10 drinks reception?

Honest, hard-working takeaway workers everywhere will have been dismayed to read the interview with home secretary Jacqui Smith in yesterday's Sunday Times.

Kebab-shop employees have probably not been dealt as harsh a blow since Jade Goody referred to her genetalia as one of their fine meaty snacks in the Big Brother house.

Always being a law-abiding citizen Guru felt a mote of sympathy for our boys in blue as their request to have their pay rise backdated was roundly ignored by the home secretary.

Quite rightly casting aside any notions of a low-key protest and accidentally on purpose not attending when Jacqui Smith requires police assistance down at the peckham kebab shop, police officers are today marching past the Home Office to vent their spleen, as it were.

However, while they could have expected some good-bantered jeering and potentially even cheering from the general public and the police policing the event, they now face close scrutiny in the trouser department.

On hearing that the Police Federation had issued guidelines advising officers to make sure they go to the toilet before marching, Guru has heard that a squad of ne’er-do-wells who will be shadowing the protest with running water kits, fashioned from old chemistry sets.

The paparazzi will no doubt get big money for photographing any leakages that occur. Then the newspapers will be able to run stories saying the police officers had been taking the p*** all along.

News that the government is to pay fatties to lose weight is good news for our growing workforce.

After all, if they manage to slim down a touch, they'll be quids in and will be able to nip down to the local kebab shop to rack up the calories – although clearly not after midnight following the orders of the new fuhrer and curfew queen Jacqui Smith – before starting all over again.

Naturally, they won't be encouraged to nip down to the local coffee shop, what with the dangerously fatty lattés on offer.

Which set Guru's mind a-whirring...

It made Guru feel a lot better about losing £25 on the 2:10 from Warwick yesterday to hear about the antics of a certain Jerome Kerviel.

For while Yours Truly had to face up to a ticking off from the missus, Monsieur Kerviel had to take responsibility for kick-starting a global recession.

First sushi, then karaoke, now this.

A Japanese company is giving its all-female staff the right to take paid leave in the immediate aftermath of a relationship break-up.

Guru was handed a superb article today from the July 1943 issue of everybody's favourite transportation magazine - Transportation Magazine.

Written for male supervisers of female workers during the successful Second World War, many of its lessons hold true today.

The uproar over the strangely un-Tory looking Tory Derek Conway whose recruitment policy consisted of co-opting members of his family to do his bidding has led to a raft of job losses at Conway plc, after he announced he would not fight at the next general election.

Yet there is some strange and beautiful logic to using 'the family' to do all the work – as the Mafia and the Queen will no doubt testify.

After all, why pay some unknown potential scandal-monger when you can siphon off the cash to your siblings? It all makes perfect sense.

No more interviews, no more negotiations, no more fighting over hours worked.

If all managers only ever employed members of their own family, it would secure the future of marriage by ensuring people were financially dependent. Anyone straying would be ostracised by society as a whole.

If only close family members were employed it would limit their power and reign in their egos as teenage sons are not going to believe in the God-like power being wielded by their parents, are they?

And if Mr Top Job had to employ his spouse as his number two, it's certain than expense accounts would come down and any unnecessary business lunches and overnight stopovers would become a thing of the past.

And Guru should know. Just ask Mrs Guru - she's been on less than the minimum wage for longer than Yours Truly can remember. And the main reason for that memory loss? Mrs Guru still holds the rights to the saucepan, the rolling pin and the garden shovel. The mysterious blue follical desert is testament to her unsung power.