My Stupid Day at the Office by Peter Jackson
Right from leaving school, I’ve always worked for the British Armed Forces, starting out as a civilian craft apprentice back in 1964. By 1989 I’d become ‘management’ and had been ‘flying a desk’ for around 10 years, when I found myself posted to Glasgow, leading a small team of technicians charged with inspecting the computerised records of all things vaguely ‘electrical’ that were being used by our forces. Should anyone be curious, these detailed, technical records are the basis of a process called NATO Codification, which is a huge database holding records of ALL items used by ALL Allied countries. Frankly, the job was mind numbingly boring, so I leaned heavily on my colleagues’ lively good sense of humour to get me through the day! But one day was completely different… in a ‘Basil Fawty’ kind of way.
With the IRA still threatening everyone in the UK, especially the armed forces, security was naturally to the fore. Civilian outfits like mine were thought to be a particularly soft target, so sensible precautions were in place. Specifically, we were all advised to be on the lookout for suspicious parcels or packages (strangely addressed, unusual shape, possibly having a strange smell etc). It may seem like a rigmarole, but the threat was real enough. And like all good civil servants we were well versed at practice emergency evacuations of the building (that’s 2000+ people outside and accounted for very quickly). But this particular day it wasn’t the usual practice.
The alarm bells went off as usual, signalling imminent evacuation, and while preparing (putting things away and picking up coats etc), a Security Guard appeared, earnestly telling us that this was the real thing, NOT the usual practice! He half heartedly inquired if anyone here might have been expecting a package from Ireland? Well, my guys were accustomed to having day to day dealing with companies all around the UK, which often involved obtaining information about products in the form of catalogues. So I quickly got everyone together and asked the question?
Unexpectedly, one of my guys (his name was Ramsay), immediately came forward and explained that he’d recently requested a product catalogue from an Irish company. The guard asked Ramsay if he might be able to identify it? Ramsay shrugged and gave a noncommittal ‘maybe’. So it was, that we both found ourselves accompanying security guards down into the bowls of the building. We soon arrived in areas previously unknown to us, deep underneath the building, whereupon our security guard guide explained we were about to enter a special, allegedly ‘bomb proof’ room.
We arrived inside a small room which was totally devoid of furnishings apart from a small table, on the middle of which lay a package wrapped in brown paper. There then followed a surreal game of pass the parcel. The security guard handed it to me, and I passed it on to Ramsay. We all sniffed, prodded and eventually gently shook the package. BANG! Well no, it was our lucky day, and it gradually dawned on me just how stupid we’d been! To his great credit, Ramsay was the only one of us to note that underneath the packaging there appeared to be a strange, thick disc shaped object – which meant it was highly unlikely to be his catalogue! This seemed to satisfy the guard who told us to quickly return to our office.
Our journey back to our office was strangely quiet, and we soon realised the building had emptied while we’d been playing with the ‘bomb’. But on the way back we bumped into the ‘Building Director’ i.e. the guy charged with taking overall control in an emergency (who by unfortunate coincidence also happened to be my boss!). He demanded to know why we were still in the building? So I explained that ‘Security’ suspected the package might have been intended for our department, and I’ve never forgotten how the colour drained completely from his face as I recounted how we’d helped ‘Security’ by passing the ‘bomb’ package back and forth between me and Ramsay, until eventually we’d decided the package wasn’t intended for us after all!
After hurriedly leaving the building and reporting to our evacuation point in the car park, we all hung around for another hour or so before being told to go home for the day. I noticed a number of ‘Bomb Disposal’ Land Rovers rapidly approaching as I made my way home.
Despite frequently checking the news, there were no reports of explosions or even our mass evacuation. So I was more than a little curious when returning to work the next morning. It was still a mystery when ‘our’ security guard appeared mid morning. The guard explained that it had all been a false alarm, all be it with the best of intentions! He revealed that the ‘bomb’ package actually contained a data tape, holding technical data of the equipment used by new member country of NATO ....hence the thick disc like shape we’d felt inside the package! This was the new NATO members first ever contribution to the NATO codification database. Unsure of how to proceed, they had sent their first data tape to the UK by diplomatic courier – their Ambassador had then packaged it up, and addressed as best he could, before posting it on to us in Glasgow. Hence we got this unusual, badly addressed package, which by unfortunate coincidence also bore high value UK stamps bearing a picture of an Irish Castle, which only added to suspicions! Myself and Ramsay confessed our role in this fiasco which naturally provided much amusement to our colleagues! On reflection it had the makings of a surreal ‘Monty Python’ sketch.
I’ve since read that normal, intelligent people can sometimes be influenced to do things they wouldn’t ever normally do by ‘official figures’, in my case, Uniformed Security Guards – but no excuses, it will forever be MY STUPID DAY!
