I was just in a lift with a most distraught woman and 3 or 4 of her work colleagues. She was on the warpath, or perhaps in a warcorridor leading to the warcanteen. “And how am I supposed to find the time to complete the PMA slips? John Wellesley is going to have to email me within the hour, or there'll be hell to pay.”

I dispute that there will be even a few old pence of hell to pay. I have no idea what a PMA slip might be, but I don't think an uncompleted one will lead to the downfall of a book retailer. For possibly the first time in my life I felt like saying “chill, lady!” But I remembered that when I hear people using the word “chill” (as in “oh, we're just planning to chill at the weekend”, not “I intend to place this bottle of Viognier in the fridge to chill”, which is entirely correct)I get agitated and aggressive. So I didn't.

I have worked in an administrative roles in offices before, so I'm aware of how worked up one can get about dockets being completed accurately in triplicate, and so on. But a PMA slip? Forget it.