Hypnotising earwigs with a billiard cue

I'm getting heartily fed up of the Shakespearean mutterings about the staff consultation meetings. After years of muttering that nobody listens to them, staff are now muttering that they don't want to have to say anything.

"I don't do ice-breakers."

It's not helped by the utter lack of information coming from our betters. We've been told nothing save the date and that lunch will be prepared.

"I asked Mary about the lunch and she says it will be spicy. I shall take my own sandwiches."

I can cope with most of it until somebody accidentally hits one of the recurring banes of my work here.

"There won't be any rôle-playing will there?"

Aaaaaargh!!! What is it about this place and rôle-playing? Any time you mention anything to do will training you're asked:

"There won't be any rôle-playing will there?"

"Yes of course. You will be issuing books on the new management system in the style of the Medieval mystery play. You will be Jack-the-Devil. Your costume is in the box over there; we had to guess at your tight size."

To be fair, we have so little training or development activity in this service that we have not yet been able to erase the racial memory of training sessions back in the eighties when librarian-managers conducted the compulsory August Bank Holiday Training Days in the style of 1970s drama workshops.

You can take the librarian out of the corduroy but you can't take the corduroy out of the librarian.