Well, that's not right, surely

Honour...

It's a very dated word for an idea that seems to have become equally dated. I can guarantee most of you had a picture of a knight in armour flash into your head when you read it (Unless of course you have experienced our justice system, where you might have thought of a judge)

Hold on tight kids, I'm going in for the definition:

Definition of honour

noun

[mass noun]

• high respect; great esteem:his portrait hangs in the place of honour [in singular]
• a person or thing that brings esteem:you are an honour to our profession (His, Your, etc. Honour) a title of respect or form of address given to a circuit judge, a US mayor, and (in Irish or rustic speech) any person of rank.
• the quality of knowing and doing what is morally right:I must as a matter of honour avoid any taint of dishonesty
• dated a woman’s chastity or her reputation for being chaste:she died defending her honour

 
I'm mainly talking about the third one in the list, The quality of knowing and doing what is morally right. It's easy enough you'd think - You picture a situation that requires a choice, you decide (because it's usually obvious) what the 'right' thing to do is, and do it...

Simples! As an animatronic/CGI meerkat might say, before being replaced by a dry, scenery chewing, comedian whose character supposedly has a special set of angry clothing.

Not difficult is it? Really? You make the right choice, it gives you a warm feeling inside, you can be forgiven for having a bit of a smug little grin to yourself and the world keeps spinning round the sun like it has for the past however many billion years.

But now let's do some role-playing... Imagine for a second that you're a scrote.

(Some of you will find that easier than others obviously)

And we're gonna need a situation from someone in the audience... What's that sir? Waiting in the rain for a bus with a one-legged German and an Irishman? No, that doesn't really fit our purposes, Someone buying a live duck as a present for a Latvian single mother? - Seriously? What are you people on?

Forget it, I'll make something up. Howabout, you're walking down the street behind a pensioner, she gets a real-live handkerchief out of her pocket, because they're the only people who still use them, and blows her nose. At the same time, she drops a fiver... No, no.. she drops a twenty pound note... What do you do?

Well you steal it, obviously don't you, there's no-one watching (You did remember we were roleplaying being a scrote, right?) You make it so she has to fight the cat for its food for the next week until she gets her pittance of a pension so that you can buy another thirty cans of Dreadnought lager from Mr Patel in the corner shop, who you should really hate, 'cos he's ethnic, but he's very chatty and always asks if your Mum's alright when you go in to buy Rizlas.

And the world STILL keeps spinning round the sun like it has for the past however many billion years.

Can you see where this is going? It seems to me that doing the right thing should the default setting, It's what my Dad taught me to do, it's what I teach my kids to do. But, being a dishonourable scrote is the way to make easy money, you can see why it's on the rise.

A case in point was the news story I heard on the radio on the way to work this morning. It seems a group of 'men' are wandering around the homes of the aged and infirm in the West Midlands claiming to be council appointed rat-catchers who need to check your house for.. erm.. well.. rats. They gain entry, open their toolboxes, which contain previously killed rats (in a 'here's one I hit with a hammer earlier' stylee) and declare that you've got an infestation. Then they charge you for getting rid of it.

They charged one little old lady twenty-four thousand pounds...

I'll say that again so you can ponder the enormity of it...

TWENTY... FOUR... THOUSAND... POUNDS...

I mean, there must be some overheads, buying overalls and rat poison and so forth can't be cheap, but... That's obscene - Seemingly this has been going on for a while, but the 'going rate' for disposing of completely fictional, non-existant rats was about £400-£500 up until recently, and no-one particularly minded.

How much front does it actually take a pensioner's life savings? Would you have the brass neck to stand there whilst she thanks you for doing it?

No? Excellent! Well done - You are a well evolved human being and can commence telling people how brilliant you are - Go ahead, turn to the person next to you and tell them just how gecko-bleachingly wonderful you are.

But what if you answered yes? Well, I mean you wouldn't - No-one who reads this Blog could do that to another human being.

Could they?

You're all brilliant and kind and honourable. You do what's right because it's right, not for the reward, not because it's what people expect of you, but because it's what you expect of yourself, it's what makes you a valued member of society.

But you know... In the roleplay, it was only, like, £20... And I could do with a bit of a 'buffer' where the old petrol budget is concerned.

I mean, if I'd just found it lying in the street and there was nobody about, I wouldn't think twice would I?

Is there any difference? Should I really take it to the Police?

I probably should...

But I probably won't...

And I'd say that most of the rest of you wouldn't either...

Damn! We're all scrotes!

You know that person that you turned to a couple of minutes ago and told that you were great? - See what they think of you now...

I, personally, am very disappointed in us all.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu.

Just looking through some old emails and found my 'Goodbye' letter to my previous colleagues.

(Please note, this was sent to friends within the company and not to anyone in the management team - I can do professionalism sometimes you know!)

Thought you lot might find it funny.

So, that was my last shift for the unstoppable global technological supergiant that is [My previous employer].

 

Cool.

 

It was quiet, but then you’d expect that I guess, with the first part of the Helpdesk transfer to India now being completed.

 

Firstly I’d like to say that on the whole, the past sixteen months or so (apart from anything involving actual work or being able to pay my bills of course) has been, at worst bearable and at best, uproariously funny.

 

The people I’ve worked with have been a mixed bag, mostly mad as badgers (But in a good way) a couple certifiably psychotic, and still fewer with their heads so far up their respective poop-chutes that it’s a wonder they don’t jump to another dimension every time they break wind.

 

OK, so this is the part where, traditionally, I should rail against all the injustices that I believe have been visited upon me without fear of retribution…

 

Well, here’s the turn-up for the books – I’m not going to. It’s pointless, we all know about the history of ill considered, knee jerk reactionary, short-sighted, parochial decisions that have been made on a more and more regular basis over the past six months or so. We’ve all received the same morale-sapping, draconian, divisive emails. And if any of us had cared enough for it really to have been a ‘showstopper’ as our colleagues over the pond might say, then we would have stood up and tried to do something about it or at least voted with our feet.

 

Instead, let’s remember some of the good times:

 

The night the drunken old guy got in and urinated down the stairs before the Police arrived.

 

The ghost of the cute little girl upstairs (Now I’m not sure that anyone who hasn’t worked the nightshift has ever experienced her) but you can often hear her running around up there in the early hours of the morning – And it’s quite an experience the first time you get woken up by her giggling or tugging on your shoe if you’ve fallen asleep on the sofas in reception during your break. (And as of last night we have two new believers).

 

The vending machines with the undocumented gamble feature – I don’t mean the gamble you take that there’s actually anything in the vending machine when you come on shift and the shops are closed (Same applying to tea, coffee and/or milk) – But the gamble when you put your money in and it either eats it then sits there looking at you with that ‘Come at me Bro’ expression on its readout, or the crisps (because it’s invariably crisps) get stuck against the glass and you spend your next 60p using another bag of crisps (bag price 49p) from the row above to try and knock them down.

 

So, time to sign off because I’m starting to bore myself, and I’ve got a lot longer attention span than most of you.

 

I’d just like to take this time to thank [My Manager] for doing the best job he could be expected to do with the tools he was allowed to use (and finally agreeing to put me out of everyone’s misery) and [The Customer Services Manager] for reminding me on several occasions of the importance of not indiscriminately murdering your workmates with a blunt instrument.

 

I’m not going to send everyone an individual ‘I liked you because..’ message, because I’d probably forget someone, and there’s the whole thinking of nice things to say about everyone issue, which most of you by now, will know that I’m not particularly good at.

 

Good luck to the Helpdesk team and Luke, I hope you make a go of your new positions within the group (P.S. Luke, my Dad – Who spent a lot of time in Germany after the War - advises using this formal, traditional German greeting every time you meet someone new “können Sie mir helfen? Ich habe meine Hoden in der Küche Schublade gefangen”)

 

It’s time for me to go now, but let me leave you with my one and only regret…

 

I only ever got to see one of you completely naked (and if that single, completely true statement, doesn’t put the rumour mill into overdrive, I don’t know what will)

 

Please feel free to keep in touch using the details below, connect to me on Facebook, use smoke-signals, carrier pigeons or an Ouija board – Whichever makes you happy.