Sunday morning came & went & I was just debating what to cook for dinner, when the phone rang;-

"Ed can you go & do me some technical cover at that call centre just up the road from you ? - nothing to do really, money for old rope, just sit in the System Admins office & do what he does, look important & not much else .."

Sure says I, rings my mother to do some babysitting & sets off.

So two & a bit hours later, I've read what I had left of the sunday papers, drunk several cups of coffee, got absolutely incensed with the vending machine which kept giving me 'healthy stuff' when I wanted chocolate, & tinkered about doing a couple of fault calls the engineers hadn't gotten around to, but so far so good .. the job is 'as advertised' ..

But then from the depths of the call centre I can hear shouting - oh ffs thinks I - what's this then ?

Toddles off to discover two females being held apart by their co-workers, obviously a fight has just been busted up - so I looked at 'em a bit, shook my head & announced, "You two had better get your behinds down to Human Resources & get whatever the hell this is about, sorted out - you first, & you can stop here .."

The crowd kind of looks at me most appropriately confus-ed & I can hear various mutterings about that being closed, so its my job ! ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH !

Ok says I, taking the two asside, You two can go home & the HR manager can sort this tomorrow - to which both of them turn to me & say NO !

WTF ?!?!? We aren't going anywhere unless you send all those sluts home too ?

Now I'm really confus-ed - what sluts & why didn't anybody tell me ? [dis-engages horny mode & remembers he's supposed to be in charge !]

Err just what are you talking about ladies ?

THEM !

& they point at the crowd I thought were seperating them from each other (the office is about 90% female)

Err why ?

Well look at them - skirts up to their armpits & more cleveage than Dolly Parton ! (that wasn't quite the wording, but near enough) - they want our Men !

This is now getting far too difficult for me, this is gonna require human type skills & tact, as most of you will well know, I like computers better, they don't require that stuff .. SO what to do ? The two ladies who were apparently fighting are of the Asian variety & admittedly far more modestly dressed than the rest of the staff who are mostly young & white..

So foolishly I ventured that, they all looked quite nice to me, infact very nice - at which point round 2 kicked off !

I gave up & called security, who looked at me as if ... well I dunno - but very strange looks indeed. Thankfully peace ensued until the end of the shift.

When my relief turned up, I went through all of this with him & he explained it was an ongoing problem but had never gotten this far before - oh gee thanks for clueing me in then !

So this morning, its time for me to making some irrate phone calls, as being referee on what's suitable work clothing & dealing with cultural issues, I'm pretty sure wasn't in the job specs ! I got no real explanation, other than what folks have probably gathered so far (that some ladies thought other ladies were dressing a bit too provocatively) & a half arsed apology for getting left to deal with it ..

But it left me wondering, just what is 'completely suitable workwear' in today's multicultural & Politically correct world ? What do you think ladies & gentlemen ?