Friend of mine...
...once worked as circulation manager for a Japanese newspaper that sold bugger all anywhere apart from Japan. His job entailed making sure that subscribers in various European capitals were getting their paper on time. So he would fly hither and thither, taking clients and printers out to top restaurants on a limitless expense account, all for seventeen copies of whatever unpronounceable (and unreadable) paper this was. He claimed to work like a dog when in London, but always managed to finish both the Times and Guardian crosswords every day (apart from one clue on each, which I used to provide the answer to when I saw him in the pub most nights).

When they finally made him redundant, he dragged the battle out as long as possible, since he'd found out they ran some kind of scam on bringing employees into this country under false pretences. Paid off his mortgage, anyway.

He's now a fairly high-ranking civil servant, so I'm glad to report his workload probably hasn't increased.
(zebideedoodah likes florence but prefers venice, Sat 11 Sep 2010, 18:07, Reply)