The dominatrix of Miss Takes…..

Miss Pronunciation, Miss Reading and Miss Apprehension – three stern laydees from the wrong side of the tracks that can turn round and slap the unwary on their pvc clad bums ….


Miss Pronunciation

The scene, last week, leaning on the bar at ‘The Blood Tub’ with an old friend. He was telling me all about a programme on the telly showing ex Goody, Bill Oddie handling those magical little animals that can change their skin pigmentation to mimic the environment in which they are sitting in.

"You know, those little animals, the ones that change their skin colour, you know, they’ve got long tongues and bug eyes…. Shammy – lions! Yeah, that’s what they’re called, shammy - lions"

"You mean chameleons?"

"That’s what I said"


Miss Reading

Years ago, we were thinking about getting our first, new fangled facsimile - ‘fax machine. The sales leaflet for it duly arrived and circulated amongst the staff. One of our rep’s came up – and in ever such a loud voice said "What’s a ‘facee - smile’ then?


Miss Apprehension

Another rep was a right dinosaur though. In the late nineties, we started to design and build web sites. We had a dead important client in to have a chat about producing a virtual package for the ‘web-world’. Our man knew absolutely bugger all about the internet, but insisted on seeing the client anyway. The office, was open plan – the idea being that ours was a modern, transparent organisation full to the brim with vital, enthusiastic, cultured staff – and me.

The meeting was to be conducted in the middle of our ‘hot-desk’ area – and was within earshot of everyone in the office.
We’d produced a few web page visuals with click through buttons to throw up on the display Mac. The client was well bloody impressed I’ll tell you. He loved the preliminary designs – and committed there and then to a full blown site.

KERRRRRCCCCCHHHHHIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG!!!!

You could virtually see the ££££ signs revolving around our dino-rep’s eyes. Clover fields here we come!!

Unfortunately, repisaurus then revealed his Luddite inclinations.. "OK, that’s great. Now, do you want to be on the World Wide Web – or will you be happy to just be on the UK Web?"

"What?"

"Your customer base, is it just in the UK? If it is, then you might as well just go for the UK Web – and not the World Wide one.

"Sorry?" –
Softsoddysaurus failed to pick up on the clients bewilderment – he ploughed on….

"That way, if you have a dot co dot uk address, then only people in this Country will be able to see the site. A dot co dot UK web site cannot be seen, say in France or the USA"........

In spite of frantic ‘cut throat’ signals by some of the more ‘team oriented’ staff members, discernible giggles began to filter through.

Gathering pace, the whole studio descended into laughter – the client suddenly remembered he had a very urgent appointment elsewhere….. and I started to make plans to get another job – urgently.