I started off this “literary” journey by asking people in our group, for stories they might have of me breaking chairs in their offices but for some reason, no-one has come forward. I suppose there are many out there with chuckleworthy tales about me but they are STILL scared of me in my role as Auditor or reluctant to hurt my feelings. If you’re one of those, I’m NOT the least bit scary anymore and my feelings definitely don’t hurt easily either.
One or two people from East London have touched on my spectacular chair demolition there so here is the story from the horse’s mouth. East London was a large branch with a substantial staff complement. We Auditors were busy with the branch audit, at the time when Personnel had a roadshow doing the rounds to familiarize the staff with the pros and cons of the new pension scheme. Francois Marais, Regional Personnel Manager came to speak to the gathering. Chairs had been set out in the banking hall and as there had obviously been a chair shortfall, plastic garden chairs were set as well. I found myself on one of those. Those white, moulded models were comfortable but had a definite but unspecified weight limit.
Francoise was well into his talk and waxing lyrical about the new pension plan when I found myself going a bit numb in my left “cheek”. I moved slightly in the chair to redistribute my weight and that was a huge mistake. The chair did not really just give way. It “exploded” into dozens of bits with a crack like a rifle shot. There was not the slightest warning such as ominous creaking or anything like that – just a loud bang and then I was lying on my back on the floor looking up at the ceiling. My Auditor’s Assistant Reuben Ndaba told me afterwards that he had noticed some people arguing at the auto teller outside and he immediately thought that one of them had accidentally shot me!
I wasn’t hurt but I was helpless with laughter as I had never managed to destroy a chair so thoroughly before. Francois at the podium had paused in his talk and shaking his head said, “Jeez, you can’t take these auditors anywhere”. I piped up and said, “Francoise, can I have my pension now please”. I eventually sobered up enough to get up and find another chair, this time right at the back. Two young black ladies there had the giggles and I didn’t dare look at them because it would have unleashed in me the most unstoppable gales of laughter EVER. It would have been most unseemly to have a Senior Internal Auditor sitting there giggling with the young girls at nothing in particular.
Much further back in my career, in 1978 in fact, I was on a team auditing Windhoek Branch. Being the junior on the team, I wanted to be in the engine room i.e. The Ledger Department. The department was housed in a separate room with swinging doors, presumably to confine the noise the battery of old NCR ledger machines was causing. The charming Nola Tawse was in charge of ledgers and I felt very much at home among all those ladies. I sat with my back to a wall, the desk being between me and the clattering machines. My chair was a welded steel model and seemed sturdy enough even for my weight. But I was very wrong.
I remember sitting up in my chair and stretching, lifting the front legs of the chair slightly off the floor, so throwing all the weight onto the rear legs. The next thing, the welds at the back gave way and the rear legs simply came off and I disappeared unceremoniously behind my table with a crash. I waited for the gales of laughter to start but believe it or not, there was an unearthly silence. Every single machine had stopped and I swear all those girls were holding their breath waiting to see if I had survived the fall. That silence was maintained as I gathered my scattered wits, my wounded pride and my shattered chair and walked out of the doors to go and find a replacement chair. I had not gone far when bedlam broke out in the ledger room behind me as the girls fell about laughing. I found another chair but gave them plenty of time to sober up before returning to my table with it. I walked in and made a point of looking around at all the girls but not a single one would meet my eyes. I have a suspicion that I might have set them all off again if I had just smiled at someone!
I recently discovered that Nola Tawse lives not that far from me and I have been in touch with her. I had to know if she remembered my fall but she denied that she did and indignantly said that she would not have laughed at a fall like that in any event. Oh Nola, you’re a real lady but you’d have made my day if you had laughed, believe me.
I was born in Kroonstad and although I didn’t grow up there, I have been back to audit the branch on several occasions. My great grandfather was the town blacksmith as well as the mayor from 1914 to 1916. I think I can claim Kroonstad roots, can’t I?
Mike de Villiers and I were auditing there in the early 80’s and I had been given a table right behind the tellers’ boxes, in full view of the public and one of those stainless steel , cantilever chairs to sit on. To try and clarify it further, the seat bit actually hangs in midair and relies on the flexible strength of the steel to keep the seat level. I’m a trusting sort of soul and I saw no reason why I should question the ability of the chair to hold my weight. My trust was badly misplaced as I discovered after a couple of days of punishing the chair. The bank was full of clients and I sat back to take a quick break. Imagine my horror when I found myself slowly and inexorably sinking backwards towards the floor while still sitting flat on the seat. It was a slow, majestic fall and didn’t hurt at all but there I was lying flat on my back, staring at the ceiling with my legs dangling over the now upright seat. All dignity gone, I joined the gales of laughter which had erupted among the clients and staff and was utterly unable to rise. Only Nellie Steyn, the accountant was not laughing as she came running from her box to come and help me up. I guess she saw an Occupational Safety Act charge coming from the situation – not funny in the slightest!
On another occasion in Port Elizabeth, I had taken my laptop in for repairs and was shown to one of those idiotic cantilever chairs. Precisely the same thing happened again and once again I was lying on my back while still sitting. What was REALLY funny was the tiny little fellow who came running out from behind his counter, with every intention of helping me up. I was laughing so hard that it took me a while to ask him to let me be as I’d make it up by myself. He would have been like a rowing boat trying to keep the Titanic afloat. My left leg probably weighed more than he did.
From then on, no more cantilever chairs for yours truly.
Humansdorp branch had just moved into their modernized premises sometime in the 90s and everything, including the chairs, was spanking new. I did not for a moment think a new chair would let me down but when I leaned over to get something out of my bag, the whole side of the chair peeled away and dumped me on the floor. Louis Linde, the rather irascible manager, came out of his office and glared at me and had some choice words about auditors who came into his branch and smashed up the furniture! (I described him as “irascible” in his personal report and he queried the word angrily. I had the dictionary open at the right place and when he had read the definition, “Easily irritated” he grumbled “Ja, orrait, dit is seker so”.)
Not content with smashing chairs in branches, I also incurred the wrath of one manager’s wife by breaking one of her rather smart dining room chairs. The chair was quite a massive piece of furniture made of what looked like expensive wood so I had no qualms about sitting on it. But break it did, suddenly and spectacularly revealing that what I thought was an expensive wood, was something a lot more common like pine or something similar with a veneer overlay . I bet they paid a lot of money for that boxwood furniture too. I don’t know what hurt most, me breaking the damn chair or having it revealed that they had been had by the furniture store who sold them the set.
While I’m at it, I know a toilet is not a chair but one DOES sit on it so just quickly this one. I was auditing Sterkspruit but had elected to stay in Lady Grey. The road was not tarred at that stage, so I arranged to travel in and out with old trader friends of mine, Charlie and Carol Mather, in their capacious kombi, to save my own car. The Mountain Shadows Hotel was an old but adequate place but I fear their bathroom fixtures might have been in service a tad past their sell by date. I was, shall we say, communing with Nature one morning when all of a sudden, the toilet seat decided it had had enough punishment and disintegrated, in the process trapping me in a most painful way. All I could do was let out a high pitched scream (Of which I was suddenly capable!) and fall down on the floor to writhe around in pain. When I finally was able to rise I was shaken to the quick. Charlie and Carol must have noticed that there was something behind my strained cheerfulness so I had to explain, so what else could I do but tell them? I said that it all reminded me of Tchaikovsky and when they stopped roaring with laughter asked why Tchakovsky, I said it literally was THE NUTCRACKER SUITE.
Carol giggled the whole way there.
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