Is your office politics worse than real politics?

BOTH are filled with backstabbers and sociopaths, but are your office politics worse than what goes on in Whitehall? Find out:

How are disputes resolved?

A) With a shirty email from HR that’s simmering with the thinly-veiled threat of being fired and has a bone-chilling sign off of ‘regards’.

B) Via petty grudge matches waged in public that can be traced back to who got to wear a more colourful waistcoat at Eton.

Who tends to get promoted?

A) Soulless brown-nosers who don’t seem to have a life outside of their job. They will eventually earn £90k a year and retire at 50, while you slog on until at least 75.

B) Charismatic morons whose frightening ineptitude will doom us all. Only the most venal and Machiavellian can stick it for long enough to rise to the top.

Who controls the purse strings?

A) The boss guards the petty cash tin like Smaug but they have been known to splash out on a single ice lolly for each member of the team to enjoy during the summer. And that’s in lieu of a pay rise.

B) Some useless bastard who has already f**ked over the NHS. But it doesn’t really matter as there’s no money anyway, aside from all the spare millions they suddenly find when they want to do things like house refugees on miserable, unsafe barges.

What happens if you bend the rules?

A) If my lunch break overruns because I simply couldn’t be arsed to return, I bring some cakes back with me and am instantly forgiven.

B) Nothing at all. Probably end up with a peerage and a lifetime income from the House of Lords. A bit of corruption is expected, to be honest.

Is your work environment riddled with yes-men?

A) Yes.
B) Yes.

ANSWERS:

Mostly As: Your struggles and infractions are peanuts compared to what the government gets up to, however your job has no meaning and you’ll be completely forgotten by history.

Mostly Bs: Your abuse of power has wrecked the country for the foreseeable future. But at least you don’t have to go on tedious team building exercises with people you hate.

Celebs you hypothetically wouldn't shag for unreasonably picky reasons

YOU’RE in no position to pick and choose which attractive, multi-millionaire celebrities you’d sleep with. But here are some who wouldn’t make the grade for admittedly strange reasons.

Kim Kardashian: overexposed

Kim is undoubtedly attractive, and she’d certainly be the star attraction in your local, even on Pie and a Pint Night. But thanks to her job you know everything about her: her fashion tastes, her exes, even her contouring techniques, and that’s not normal for a bloke. There’d be no surprises in the relationship, and you’d grow jaded and split. With plenty of other entirely hypothetical celebrity partners you don’t know much about, eg. Heather Graham, why take the risk?

Benedict Cumberbatch: too gangly

Once you’ve noticed the similarity between Benedict and the giant teacher puppet Pink Floyd took on tour for The Wall you can’t forget it. It could quickly become an issue when going to sleep, with Benedict’s spindly limbs sticking out everywhere like a posh spider, and you wishing you’d shagged a more compact celebrity, like Hobbit Martin Freeman.

Anya Taylor-Joy: looks like she should be at school

The star of The Menu is actually 27, but looks a lot younger, and it doesn’t help if you remember her from 2015’s The Witch. In paedo-obsessed Britain just going to the pub could be a bit scary, or a non-starter if she forgets her ID. Sure, it’s all in your head, but you couldn’t enjoy spending time together if you were irrationally worrying about whether she’d done her homework. At least you’re being responsible for once, in an utterly deranged way.

George Clooney: too suave

George appears to be as suave and sophisticated as his characters, but that’s a double-edged sword. If he found you eating Dairylea slices out of the fridge, he’d probably say: ‘Darling, stop, I’ll get my chef to bring you some French truffle-infused cheddar with a 1990 Bordeaux.’ You’d get sick of the non-stop palaver, and you could forget about slobbing out in stained jogging pants or picking your nose and eating the bogies. No one wants to live like that.

Rihanna: was in Battleship

Should you bear a grudge against a beautiful, talented woman because she was in a shit film in 2012? Yes, if it was Battleship. From the opening scenes of unfunny comedy to the illogicality of alien craft that refuse to leave a grid pattern, that film sucked megaballs, and Rihanna was partly responsible. ‘Let it go,’ your friends would say. They haven’t seen Battleship.

Daniel Craig: probably doesn’t like fun days out

Daniel had better be a bit more f**king cheerful in real life than James Bond in the last few outings. However, you suspect he’s not and interviews suggest he’s pretty up himself. Every time you suggested going to Stoke Waterworld he’d be making excuses or droning on about wanting to do Chekov. If you finally persuaded him to go to Chester Zoo he probably wouldn’t even laugh at the penguins, and they’re brilliant. What a twat.

Gal Gadot: comics noob

Is Gal even aware that Kristen Wiig’s Cheetah in Wonder Woman 1984 is a travesty of the comic version in Wonder Woman #6 (1986)? Has she read Crisis On Infinite Earths, compulsory for any serious student of DC canon? You couldn’t introduce Gal to your comic book mates in case she made an embarrassing faux pas like not knowing who Harbinger is. Sadly it seems some entirely hypothetical fantasy shags just weren’t meant to be.