Changing rooms

There are times when Eileen baffles me. She is not unintelligent and can be quite industrious and has a good understanding of electronic information issues. She just isn't especially productive and is astonishingly conservative and set in her ways.

They're playing musical chairs up in the reference library at the moment, shifting all the shelving round and making some space for group learning. The most difficult parts of the process are the moving of the enquiry desk, so that it's actually easy for the customers to get to, and the daily newspapers (they've been told that they should let the customers read them).

Seth's scheduled to move the desk this morning, ready for the usual Friday afternoon rush (unless they're both watching the tennis).

"I'm just going to move your desk," he told Eileen.

"Right-o, I'll get out of your way then."

"Erm... Aren't you moving all the crap off the top of the desk first?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there's all that scrap paper. And the newspapers you've put there this morning. And all them boxes you were supposed to be getting shut of last month. And why is there a pile of pencils?"

"Customers might ask for a pencil."

"Can you move it please?"

"I'm busy at the moment, can it wait a bit?"

"Busy doing what?"

"I've got to stamp these newspapers."