Tesco has hit the headlines with its trial of a scheme under which employees will not be paid for the first three days they go off sick. After that time has elapsed, they will be able to claim sick pay, but will not get any for the previous days.
Some staff who might make Tesco itself sick to the back teeth are the 30 employees who were kicked off an aeroplane before take-off after the captain ruled that some of them were ‘drunk and disorderly’.
The employees were returning to Belfast following a company meeting in Glasgow.
Tesco said in a statement: “While we are still investigating this matter, all our initial findings indicate that this has been an over-reaction on the part of the captain and crew.”
Whatever the result, the other supermarkets must be rolling in the aisles. Aisle seven, anyway – wines and spirits.
Singing detective nabs karaoke thief
An employee from the Meridian Business Support recruitment consultancy has taken it upon himself to lift 50 tonnes in three hours to raise cash for the British Heart Foundation.
At the other end of the philanthropy scale, another chap got in trouble for ‘lifting’ what wasn’t his. In this case, Willie Mitford from New Zealand, was let off a theft charge after a hung jury meant he had to be set free.
Detective Dave Wishnowsky, who had led the investigation into the robber’s misdeeds, then bumped into him at a karaoke bar. The thief sidled up and said that if the copper could sing a song well, then he would confess.
Unfortunately for Mitford, the policeman truly was a singing detective, and had been a musician in a previous incarnation. After only two lines of Robbie Williams’ Better Man, the thief was singing like a canary himself.
All the President’s Moonwalking men
Last week saw a phenomenon that can’t be advocated enough – 15,000 women in their bras walking the streets of London for the annual Moonwalk in aid of breast cancer.
Now, there are two things Guru tries to avoid: one is any dish labelled ‘meat curry’, and the other is political satire.
However, some opportunities are too good to miss. Voluntary Moonwalk recruits were sent a list of code phrases that translated into minor and major incidents that needed to be tended to on the walk.
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They involved the recruits using different names to reflect the seriousness of any incident. And here’s where the irony kicks in: a major incident called for ‘the President’s representatives’.
Were the organisers having a laugh? Or did they simply not realise that, based on recent events across the globe, the ‘President’s representatives’ (or rep, for that matter) were almost certainly the last people you would want on hand when disaster strikes?
