I was always lucky when I was working as a teacher that I had wonderful students (even if some of them were a bit challenging as the jargon goes!) but I also had simply amazing colleagues.
In my last job working in the PRU we were a very small team, very close and I knew I could depend and trust my colleagues in everything As well as having great affection for each other we also had a shared sense of humour, and sometimes I was reduced to helpless hysteria by the funny things that happened. This would sometimes happen in meetings, and especially when someone made a slip of the tongue and got their words or metaphors muddled.
We tried to keep a list, but some of the best, like the biggest fish, slipped away… others became legendary.
Here’s a selection, the names have been changed to protect the guilty! (These are all colleague quotes, no children were involved in the making of this list!!)
- Touchy- monkey
- Bend over backwards and make a rod for your own back
- Thorn in the ointment
- Electric trousers
- Dave, please don’t fart in my rubber pants
- She looks like a tinfoil turkey
- Can’t see the light for the trees
- Going up a niche
- Handed a spoon to redeem himself
- It’s not brain science
- I don’t want this to go between these two walls
- Simon: I’m going to skin a rabbit in the dark… Joey: Is it a real rabbit?
- It only becomes an issue when it becomes a problem
- He sets himself up as a tangent
- Speaking hand on head
- It’s highly unlikely we won’t be having him
- Sometimes you can’t help showing your thong
- It’s good to have bolts and braces
- If a face could paint a thousand stories
- Well, duck, I think you’re swimming without your trunks.
- Tethering (dithering)
- The scatter cushion effect (scatter gun)
- Positivity
- I’m vindicated of all responsibility
- Her hair was like a Beefeater (bearskin)
I think one of my favourites is ‘the spoon of redemption’! I actually really do laugh out loud when I even think about it (chuckle, chuckle!)
Lois Elsden 