The Rye Whiskey Review : The (Not-So-Politically-Correct-Trigger-Happy) Song By Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos

Margaret was late, and she hated running late as much as she hated waiting. As she made for the door of the conference room, Karen grabbed her arm and, as the head of Human Resources, advised her to hire Chris. He might not be the best candidate for the job—far from it—but he was their chance to get The Badge; the logo to add at the bottom of their home page, the smiley face to officialise them as being politically correct, the seal of approval from a society that read titles, glanced at pictures, and judged within seconds without bothering to read further, to investigate, to learn. A society that ignored the fine print or reality.

Karen shook her head. ‘No pressure, Margaret, but… we need to hire men… I know it’s ridiculous, but this one is old, he’ll retire soon enough’

Margaret had attended many meetings about the new company’s ‘inclusive’ policy. She sighed and nodded.

The problem with Chris was that everything triggered him; being greeted in the morning, anyone putting the kettle on without asking him first if he would like a cuppa, talking about one’s cat or dog, kids were also a no-no as were parents.

The IT skills mentioned on his CV had obviously been a lie. He hated computers, refused to use spell check, to format documents—the Enter key sent him into a panic—or to use the printer. He did not answer the phone, and needed long breaks—as long as most people’s days off.

Chris would not be in a room where there were bananas, brown sofas, pineapple, Guinness, white chocolate, red meat, carrots tops, white trainers, nuts, staplers, pink shirts, orange cheese, rose, green tea, leather, black notebooks, the colour yellow, blue soap, coffee, black and red pens, spider plants, lavender, rosemary, face cream, hairy legs and armpits, led lights, green books, ponytails, brown rice, grey birds. Straight married people and women made him sweat.

When Margaret first mentioned the lack of formatting of his marketing report, he got so upset, he deleted the whole document and called in sick for a week.

He refused to take the minutes for the staff meeting—it was a woman’s job. The fact that he was the Admin Assistant was lost on him.

He took a two-hour lunch break, because his DNA test showed he was 1% French. N’importe quoi.

Margaret sent him on three computer courses ‘The Enter key is your friend’, ‘As simple as pressing on and off’ and ‘Printing made easy’, five ‘How to communicate with your coworkers’ seminars and two marketing training sessions before she gave up. She took over the admin of the department and waited for Chris to retire.

On his last day, she organised a party at the local pub—an old-fashioned joint with brown leather sofas and bright yellow walls serving Guinness and rose. They all chipped in to buy him a couple of black notebooks and red and black pens. She stapled branches of lavender and rosemary on the gift bag.

Margaret got drunk on rose to celebrate her department finally being free of him and having the potential to become efficient. When the band started playing, she crawled on the stage and grabbed the microphone. “I’ve written a song for you, Chris.”

The room fell silent until Karen clapped and cheered and whistled.

Margaret nodded to the band and began singing.

“You love coffee?

You have a cat?

Your favourite colour is yellow?

Da dee da da dee.