Accountability

Just into the Easter Holidays and I get a letter through the post telling me I've lost my plastering job. My boss, who is a decent bloke, tells me that the work I did for Dandara was substandard and that the plaster fell off the walls.

It turns out I got the mix wrong and only put in half the amount of lime putty. You can imagine that I'm still in a state of shock and I went and lay down on the couch and thought about how that had happened. It's obvious now that because the measure was in kilos and our scales are in pounds, I just got it wrong. It's a shame it happened then because since then I've got myself a calculator that will do the conversion for me, as well as convert litres into pints. That was the other reason the plaster ended up on the floor.

Anyways, so I rings him up and apologises for calling him on a Saturday and I explained that although I got it wrong before, it was really the fault of the person who started buying from a supplier in France rather than England. Also, I had now learned from my mistakes and had put procedures in place to make sure it wouldn't happen again. I said, "Jim, we are in a different place now and I am confident that the measures I have put in place will ensure that nothing like that happens again."

"Dave," he said, "you are a ****. I'll lose all my business with Dandara unless I sack you. When you cock-up like that, you have to pay the price. I'm sorry mate, but you have to go."

And that was that. I now find myself amongst the ranks of the unemployed, but like Senator Perchard advised all of them last week on Talkback, I'm going to go out and get myself another job. Watch this space!

PS Because this is a family site, I don't allow oaths and swearing so you'll have to guess what he called me.

PPS It seems a bit unfair that I got sacked for not converting between metric and imperial but the bloke who ordered the incinerator and forgot about the exchange rate, losing 9 million quid in the process, gets a promotion. Funny old world!