Daddy, what do you do at work?

Not so long ago, I could answer that question simply.

'I'm a graphic designer, that means I draw adverts, logos, brochures and things like that darling.'

Except.........if you asked me what I do now, I'd be hard pressed to give a definitive answer. Although I'm still employed as a 'graphic designer', and this goes for my four colleagues too, 'WHAT THE BLOODY HELL AM I DOING STANDING ON A SCISSOR LIFT 30FT ABOVE GROUND?'...which is exactly where I found myself yesterday.

Let me explain. We were filming, with the aid of a professional cameraman/journalist who wears Hush Puppies so must be quite normal. Every now and then we produce a 'case study' video on one of our products, and in the last week, other than trying to catch clouds, two of my partners could be found, again with sensible cameraman, doing a bin round with a dustcart, for instance. Not that it was really a dustcart, who makes bricks from fire ash these days! The modern term, and therefore, politically correct name is Refuse Collection Vehicle, furthermore, in the age of abbreviation, an RCV!

So, there I was, the 'trained' operator of the thing pictured right! We were hired this on the basis that it was good on uneven terrain, oh, and also on the basis that we parted with £649 freshly ironed Lizzies. We got around the money issue by giving them Tom's credit card details....4456 7801 2219 ha! Not that stupid!

Neither the cameraman, David, or I like being up too high, although I must admit that my problem is often more to do with width. Being 30ft up on the 3rd floor of a hotel for instance, doesn't present a problem.

Down below, way down below, my friends were standing amidst a 16m diameter circle of beeping lorry reversing alarms, teasing a blindfolded (blindfeld? makes sense!) old lady into pointing in the correct direction to identify where the 'reversing lorry' might actually be. Now, to clarify, our company makes an alarm that isn't annoying and can easily be located. Wait a minute, all that effort in advertising and I've just summed it up in one short sentence! So anyway, blinded lady points at random sequence of alarms, our clever new one comes out top! Oh yes!

Then, we descend slowly to the earth to film our wonderfully eccentric chairman extolling the virtues of our unique product. I get to hold the microphone boom, the grey furry type that often gets into shot in cheap TV sitcoms. Chairman is told to 'talk to Kelly' as he answers the posed questions. I nod, off camera, and getting elbow cramp.

This whole episode, already over 5 hours in (for me anyway....) is joined by The Noise Abatement Society chief exec Gloria (Hello dear) Elliott and her Septic sidekick, PR Girl Lisa Lavia (Oi Tom, no!). Decamping from the village hall field to the office boardroom for an interesting lunch. Randall Pants was dispatched to Waitrose in Dartford earlier in the day for lunch items but was thrown out owing to a bomb scare! An interesting turn of events as the most oft committed crime in Dirtford is mismatched velour attire. Anyway, back to lunch. We all sat down, all 8 of us, picked through spicy chicken wings, scotch eggs and dips, talking amiably about noise nuisance.

Where did we begin again? Oh yes, me being a graphic designer. Do you get it yet? WTF do I do again?

There's more. Next entry. It gets weird. No really.

x