Right Said Fred

I’ve only ever had one proper job. For about 6 months in 1985 I worked for Pipkins Removals. My acquisition of the job is a classic case of being plugged into the right network; I was oddly friendly with the boss’s daughters (and still am: I say oddly because they were 9 and 11 at the time). I was the most casual of the three employees, taken on because they won the contract to move the Oxford courts into the (then new) Combined Court Center in St. Aldates. I was also, surprisingly, good at the job, compensating for my initial lack of physical strength with a good eye for space, which is a vital labour-saving asset in that line of work. Despite my remarkable lack of homosociality I also got along well with the other employees, whom I respected and whom, I imagine, knew that.
What was striking about moving office (as opposed to home) furniture was the bizarre combination of incompetence and self-importance displayed by almost every office manager we worked with. They were paying for our time, but when we arrived they would frequently have no idea where they wanted anything (the courts, and the Dole office, were both exceptions). We moved every desk in one large office three times in the same day — the manager had basically paid us for the pleasure of ordering us about, as the final arrangement differed barely at all from the original arrangement. But they certainly got pleasure ordering us about and I, as the youngest and scruffiest of the men, was a particular target. They assumed, almost to a person, that I was on a YOPS scheme, or something like it, and treated me with extreme contempt, which never bothered me (I knew it was temporary); and my colleagues (who treated me with unmerited respect) took great delight in it.
Every day was punctuated with frequent, and strong, cups of tea. We had one before getting going, had another at 10.30, a third at lunch, and a fourth at 3. We worked bloody hard, and the tea was an essential accompaniment to the brief breaks.
Where is this going? An advertisement, of sorts. I have just acquired the newly released Very Best of Bernard Cribbins which contains the two brilliant songs Right Said Fred (which is about furniture moving) and Hole in the Ground (self-important officials). They sound as fresh as the day they were first recorded to me, and between them sum up my only experience of proper work. The CD contains numerous other gems from the talented man — his When I’m 64 is better than Paul McCartney’s. It’s readily available in the US too.