Branching out

I realised today that I'm in the wrong job. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, but the events that have unfolded over the last couple of days have opened my eyes to the possibility of a new career that could make me LOTS more money.

Let's turn back time to Thursday morning at eight o'clock...

Picture this: I'm unlocking the office, and as I step in the front door I discover a piece of paper folded in two on the floor. Written on the front in capital letters is the word URGENT.

Intrigued, I unfold the paper.

Written inside, in a barely legible scrawl that would not have been out of place in a kindergarten, was a brief note that read:

Dear All,

Your tree has fallen into my garden. Please remove it and repair any damage IMMEDIATELY. I shall be at work all day.

Hmmm... I thought. Then I wandered outside to take a look. Now, the use of the word 'tree' was a tad misleading. If I had written that note, I'd have substituted the word 'tree' for 'a bloody big branch'; the tree, you see, was still standing. It had merely shrugged a huge lump of wood into this guy's garden.

Now let's move forward to today, where, despite my suggestion of dousing it in lighter fluid and chucking a match on it, we have hired a tree surgeon to come and sort out our devilishly devious deciduous. Lovely office manager Janice tells me that the tree surgeon is coming round to assess the situation, and adds that if we need some emergency tree surgery it's going to cost £230 per hour.

YOU WHAT?!

Yes - £230 PER HOUR! Now, I'm not an expert, but I've always figured that being a tree surgeon basically consisted of knowing what end of a chainsaw was the dangerous end. £230 per hour?! Even a non-emergency situation costs £170 per hour. I consider offering my services to the surgeon as a triage nurse. Triage nurse. I said: TRIAGE nurse. Geddit?

Anyway, my money making tree surgeon fantasies continued to escalate.


"Stand back," I'd say to concerned tree owners. "He's lost a lot of sap... but I'll be damned if I'm going to lose this one."

So there I am, basically tidying up my desk and redistributing my collection of biros in anticipation of my new career, when the tree surgeon turns up. In his manky old Ford Transit. He looks at the tree, lights a ciggie, revs up his chainsaw, hacks away at random branches, looks at me, says "I've curtailed the problem and poisoned the rest," gets in his Transit and drives away in a nebulous cloud of blue smoke leaving us £170 lighter.

I am definitely getting myself a chainsaw tomorrow, people.