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How to lose your job can sometimes be harder than you think.

Let me tell you about one friend's effort to lose his City job about five years ago. Unimpressed by his company's integrity and indeed ability to serve their customers any longer, not to mention their inevitable slow sidling towards collapse (therefore leaving him naturally referenceless), he decided that the best and most entertaining course of action would be to see how far he (their best salesman) could push them before they'd push him.

Step one was to casually disregard the dress code being a City firm, and client-facing, anything less than a suit simply wouldn't do. And to his credit, he did continue to wear a suit, every single day. The variations included no shirt at all (this was late May, so not too cold), a studded dog colour (and no shirt), a frilly ladies' blouse, a bra (no shirt), and finally, the coup de grace, a gold lame suit borrowed from a bingo caller acquaintance. This, twinned with a purple shirt and silver bow tie, must have looked glorious, but sadly, no one took photos. Or indeed said anything. About any of the week's sartorial blinders.

Week two brought the charm offensive. With the emphasis on "offensive". One of the benefits of being in a customer facing position is that when you are faced with the sheer bloody-minded ignorance and ill-will of the public general (and you are, naturally, trying to get the sack), you have the perfect opportunity to fight back. Words were spelt out in the most inventive manner possible P for Pterodactyl, O for Oesophagus, K for Knight, C for Ctenophore, and his personal favourite A for Anile, meaning of course an aged woman, and not a part of the anatomy. Not that his customers heard it that way (and indeed neither did he intend it to be so). Closed questions were answered with "yes" or "no", and the phone was replaced, and then there was "Tourette's Day", where the word "teacup" was randomly inserted into the sales pitch at inopportune moments. Call it British reserve if you like, but nobody teacup complained, or indeed teacup mentioned some of the more frequent teacup occurrences of strange teacup behaviour.

Week three was the final straw. He mentioned on the phone that the only way he'd ever get the sack was to deck the boss in a fist fight. Then went quiet. Too quiet. I pointed out the obvious flaw in this plan of a possible appearance before the beak a muttered "worth it" came back, and his fate, I thought, was sealed.

So picture the scene. Last Friday of the month. Not only payday, but bonus day too, and he was top salesman again. Pints were drunk, and he tried hard all evening to pick an argument, failing dismally at every turn, largely because his boss was actually quite dim. Eventually, he decided just to punch him. For no immediate reason, although he had five years of reasons on back order if the necessity arose. So he did. The bloke just got up off the floor, clapped him on the back, and made him a Partner.

So his efforts failed, and Monday morning brought the usual grind.

What does he do now? Well, he owns the companyand is constantly on the watch for gold lame.

Learn more about this author, The Dormouse.
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