RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31117, 21 July 1966, Page 26

RANDOM REMINDER

VICIOUS CIRCLE

Greed and avarice can change men more effectively than brain washing or lobotomy. And women. Its dreadful what a windfall will do. Here in a Christchurch office there was a group of 10 which met for morning tea and which decided to indulge in a mild flutter by forming a race syndicate. For a few weeks, the minor sums involved brought no spectacular return, but recently one of the members, particularly ill-versed in the intricacies of turf form, managed to select a winning double which paid something more than £7OO. This mild flutter produced a great beating of wings—something like £lB for sixpence, each.

The money has all been banked, and the arrangement is that it will all be shared out at the end of the year, in time for Christmas shopping. But it has clearly occurred to someone that whatever the final sum available for distribution, the individual return would be improved if the money had to be divided not among ten, but nine, or eight, or seven. It began with a clerical worker in the group taking a nasty tumble downstairs. He alleges he felt strong hands in his back just before he took off. A girl filing clerk had her head caught in a heavy metal drawer which someone tried to close while she was looking into it

Another woman complained of a nasty bitter taste in her tea. Now the woman who looks after a teleprinter machine is afraid to go near it. Two of the more nervous ones are refusing to use the lift, and go up and down the stairs only when they are together. And an index clerk is now in the habit of examining her retractable four-colour pen each day to make sure that someone has not arranged for the plunger to detonate a charge of explosive. The morning tea group still meets all day. All, however, is silence and sullen suspicion. And it seems an awfully long time to Christinas.