Little people with real powers

Little people with real powers *

By: Sheryl-Lee Kerr

(*a favourite column)

This column is dedicated to the little people of the world: the coffee makers, phone answerers and persons Friday no one notices.

Once upon a time, I was a copykid. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, copykids are the newspaper equivalent of ocean-floor-sucking micro-organisms.

These were the downtrodden they once called “copyboys” in the days when editors had tonsils matching Godzilla and liked to see how far their spittle could travel when they hollered the word.

By the time copygirls like myself had joined Brisbane’s (now defunct) Daily Sun tabloid, the bosses simply screamed “COPY” because it saved them having to look too closely at us to determine which sex we might be. Editors, after all, have little time to waste.

No, truly: I once had an editor who used to phone me, ask me to put him through to the chief of staff who was, all this time, sitting less than a metre outside his office door. See, awfully busy.

In the movies, I remember seeing the Jimmy Olsen-esque copyboys skidding to a halt next to bosses’ desks while editors held up inky, one-word-headlined front pages like KIDNAPPED! or TERRORISTS! and barked at them to “run it down to the stone”.

I kept waiting for this to happen to me. But our front pages went more like: “Bus fares rise” and “Play Bingo and win!”. The most exciting moment in Brisbane was when Joh Bjelke-Petersen tried to complete a full sentence. (Still waiting.)

It was an odd existence. Like many little people of this world, I was invisible. Once, I was in the editor’s office filing his papers and he began a conversation with a colleague. It started: “Right, now that we’re alone . . .”

Being lowly, there also comes a natural assumption of congenital stupidity and deafness.

I recall one superior, barely out of puberty, who suddenly let loose the word “COFFEE!” into my ear. Then he stood over me, giving much appreciated advice on how to stir it to his exacting standards. Still unhappy, he declared me “useless”, grabbed the cup and spooned three heaped teaspoons of salt into it.

I didn’t feel it my place to presume to know more about what went into coffee than he - being so useless and all - so I said nary a word. (Sure beats what he said.)

What most people forget is that the office underdogs see everything. They know more about how any company works than the Board does. They know the good and bad bosses, who’s about to be sacked and who came out of the supply room at 6am with her dress on back-to-front followed by another employee with inside-out socks.

Thus, the power at the disposal of the little people can be awesome - something to consider when planning to share with others your bad-hair-day mood.

And this is no idle threat: A certain bullyboy once found that photos of himself smooching with a woman (not his wife) had been mysteriously pasted up across the Daily Sun building.

The moral is clear: be very kind to the little people. They may one day save up enough to buy a camera. And film.