The Scene: The Newstalk ZB lunchroom, all hands meeting the morning after the staff Christmas Party.
Present: Mike and Kate, Barry and Heather, Jason, Joey, Simeon, Kerre, and “the Boss”.
The Boss stood before the team as a tray of cheap bubbly was passed around in plastic champagne flutes. There was one real glass with chilled Veuve Clicquot, he passed that fawningly to Mike nodding at him.
“Now as you may be aware a lot of your colleagues have called in sick today, apparently there was a bit of a super spreader last night and they’ve all got Covid.” People glared at Kerre, she’d fallen off the wagon hard and had been snogging half the company the night before. Not for the first time the Boss was glad HR was not invited to social events.
“Bloody lightweights” yelled out Barry - “everyone knows you don’t call in sick the day after the Christmas Party.”
The boss ignored Barry, “now we gave a lot of awards last night but I’d like to mention one performance that came a bit too late to make the engravers. Our very own Joey Dwyer took it to the Prime Minister at her press conference with that young lady from Finland. Great work Joey - it was as if one of our listeners got to ask the Prime Minister the question themselves.”
A Phalanx of dishonour was formed by the males present, they cheered and patted Joey on the back as he walked between them.
Mike did not take part, the PM was something of a sore spot with Mike ever since he’d been singled out by her as not being worthy of her time. Just because he was plotting her downfall. He chuckled to himself thinking to be fair he had been plotting her downfall long before that, but it was nice to take the high ground.
Barry left his hand resting on Joey’s shoulder as he went past, his face redder than the heart of an RNZ listener. Joey recoiled in horror at the sight, he looked closely at Barry and asked genuinely “were you Rudolph at the party last night?”
Barry asked what the heck he was talking about, everyone knew that Barry always came as a Roman Emperor in a bedsheet toga and with a crown of mistletoe. There had been one tiny change this year as Heather refused to let him leave the house again without pants, apart from that it was the same costume he’d be wearing since the 70s.
Joey pointed at his nose - “your nose, have you had that checked it looks like a stage 3 Melanoma warning and it seems to be throbbing”. “Bah” ,said Barry, he’d had a red nose since Muldoon was Prime Minister! Aside from drinking like a fish Barry also famously refused to wear sunscreen - “that stuff is for pooftahs” he always said. He used that phrase a lot, Heather didn’t approve of that either.
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