Soft re-starts

Francis goes off for his 'meet the new company' day. He is taken out for a 'hello' lunch, which makes a change from all those farewell ones, and is introduced to the products, his colleagues, and his responsibilities.

Not only will he be in charge of sales to Boot's, but there's more.

"I've been given Eastern Europe," he says, with a tinge of pride.

"As part of your bonus package?" I say. "How very generous. And just when they'd got used to democracy, too."

This job is better than Nojob, but not by enough. It pays 25% less, for a start, and while we're not on the breadline, we're certainly on the hydrogenated fat masquerading as a tasty teatime treat line. Bearable for now but not healthy in the long term.

The side effect of going back to work is that Francis, who has just become jargon-free, thanks to the Ribald Laughter programme much advocated by his loving family, is plunged into the addictive world of management speak, with disastrous results.

"I'm just going to commission the fridge," he announces, lugging our latest Freecycle acquisition through the front door.

"You what?" I ask him. "Surely you commission boilers or soldiers. But fridges?"

He looks a little hurt but carries on, switching on the fridge freezer in a small but simple ceremony that involves no more than a very small speech and the symbolic opening of a can of Stella. The fridge, which obviously doesn't like jargon either, whirs away busily but, in an interesting reversal of normal refrigeration principles, produces only hot air and the occasional burp from the coathanger bit at the back that looks like a 3D IQ test.

Francis is on to the problem at once. "I think a soft re-start is called for, this time round. We may have missed out a crucial stage in the ignition process."

He switches the fridge on again, but in slow motion. It still doesn't work. I know this is the first day of the rest of our lives - though, come to think of it, isn't every day the first day of the rest of our lives? - but I am feeling strangely unsympathetic. "You're rolling your eyes again," he says, accusingly.

I deny it. I am definitely not rolling my eyes. But as to muttering under my breath -well, that's a different matter altogether.