Aibohphobia is a fear of palindromes

Mrs Marchmount announced that she has taken up internet dating.  The rest of the office is expecting P45s at any moment.   Even the frogs seem to have jumped ship – although that may be due to the menu.  (I wonder if frogs can jump ship?) Derek came in and asked who the Head of Personnel was. When he was told it was Janice he gave her a long and protracted kiss and hug.

This is singularly unfair. How come Janice gets to be Head of Personnel and I just get to stick pointless postcards in my windows at home?

Janice announced that she did what she did because it was a “skill.” “Skill,” she further expounded, “is the Ability to Learn New Tricks Fast.”  I wrote that on my computer, put it into Ariel 72pt (which is about as big as the printer can take) and stuck it on the wall. 

At lunchtime Derek returned to the office and took Janice out for lunch. Janice readily agreed and gave me a silly wave goodbye as she left. I am not in a good mood.

I decided to consider how I could use my “skills” to better effect and started by considering the various jobs that the Deputy Head had given us recently. As I recalled the list was timetabling, exam organisation including invigilation, the organisation of supply staff, personnel, playground duty, and health and safety.

I wondered where to start. Timetabling would allow me to put classes in the deputy head’s office, but that seemed childish. Likewise mucking around with the students’ exams could harm them, and as far as I was concerned they were innocent parties in what happened in the school. Organising supply teachers seemed a possibility for my talents, as did health and safety (I wasn’t going to touch playground duty with a pole attached to a barge). I had no idea what I would do with those areas but something would come to mind. I typed out another large notice: Supplementary Staff and Health & Safety, and stuck it on the wall over my desk.

Ten minutes later I had my first customer – Mrs Felixstowe from French, who I still think of as the silly prat who at the start of term brought a car alarm into the school office and said that she had found it in the wrong, and that something should be done about it. Today her proclamation was simple: the supply teacher she had teaching German could not speak German, and she rather presumed that the ability to speak German was a pre-requisite of teaching German and would I try and get it right this time.

I listened to her sad tale, and tapped meaninglessly on my computer keyboard. “I can get you someone who speaks Serbian,” I said.

“Serbia,” she pointed out acerbically, “is not near Germany.” I said I thought it was. She stamped her foot and said it was irrelevant, and left, shouting over her shoulder that she wanted a German speaking German teacher in her German class on Monday.

I phoned Aaron Swift, who was, as I expected, thrilled to hear from me. I said I would take him up on the offer of the meal, if he could come in to school on Monday and speak in Latvian to a teacher. He agreed. A plan was forming in my mind.

At 2pm, with Janice and Derek still not back from lunch, a letter arrived from the Dept for Cushions and Soft Furnishings asking for £40,000.   I decided the letter was meant for the Columbus team who now run the local authority finances and sent it on to them. 

At 4pm the bursar came in and said he had studied the dictionary but could not find an explanation for aibohphobia.  I told him it was a fear of palindromes. He asked where Janice was, and I said I didn’t know. He scuttled away to look up palindrome. I sent a text to Janice saying that it wasn’t skill that was the answer: it was planning. And would she and Derek care to join be in the Toppled Bollard for a drink that evening?