Wearing Blue and Brown

Joe Strummer and Mick Jones had it spot on when, in Clampdown, they sang "so you've got someone to boss around, makes you feel big now".

Back to work, this was brought to sharp focus when overhearing one confrontation at my desk this morning. To explain: we've recently had a few new bods starting due to some scheme to get people off the dole. What happens is that they're dumped in offices like ours and put on minimum wage to do whatever they are told.

In this instance, one (understandably) bored and unmotivated young fellow was photocopying some documents when one of the hacks from admin bowled up and started dishing out a bollocking over some incredibly trivial matter. At first this seemed odd to me, but then I clicked on - see, beforehand she was only to be on the receiving end of such treatment, but now there was someone 'below' her in the food chain, and it was time to some payback.

No doubt this is common in offices and workplaces across the world. The worry is, of course, that you'll end up the same sometime. At the age of 29, I've yet to experience having to manage anybody and my chronic lack of career ambition may ensure I'll escape it for a fair while yet. Yet the idea of being a wanker of a boss is a terrifying one.

Office politics is one of the more tedious aspects of modern living. If you're like me, you just turn up to work, do your job and go home, trying to get it over with the absolute minimum amount of fuss and hassle. Some people, for reasons beyond me, decide that this isn't enough and create situations if they don't get their own way. Makes me wish I'd studied psychology so I can perhaps get some insight into why this is so, as it baffles me.