Civil servants who were supposed to be administering the government’s much-criticised farm subsidies system have been taking part in ‘depraved’ office pranks such as leaping naked from filing cabinets.
The beleaguered Rural Payment Agency has begun an investigation into the behaviour of its staff at its Newcastle office, which allegedly included leaving cups of vomit in cupboards, taking drugs, having sex in toilets and holding breakdancing competitions during office hours.
The agency, which delayed the payment of £1.5bn worth of European subsidies to thousands of farmers, said it has so far sacked one junior member of staff over the allegations.
Some of the pranks were caught on CCTV in the office where more than 900 people are employed.
They were exposed by a whistle-blower who wrote to the Newcastle Chronicle: “I’m appalled at the level of depravity that is being tolerated at my work place.”
Of course, if this was a state agency, say, in California — you could file suit for discrimination against the depraved.
As a Britain I say more! Center-right I maybe, but we need to liven up my work place!
I work in the (now sidelined) Deputy Prime Minister’s old department, and the worst we get up to is crying off early to watch the world cup (yes the real football competition with the word “world” in it where countries from around the planet compete…)
Whoever’s running that Agency needs to be fired, along with all the senior and middle management by the looks of it – what a bloody disgrace!
And that’s Briton Stuart… sorry, a “spelling police” moment there – I do apologise old bean!
Of course, if I lived in the UK, I still would vote for Ricky Gervais over the lapdog any day.
Come to think of it, I’d vote for him over any of the crowd in office over here.
I *did* like Ricky Gervais until he happened on the idea of charging hard cash for his podcast.. needless to say he went from being the top UK downloaded podcast to about 100th overnight…. stupid sod should have asked for donations – he’d have been rolling in the green stuff by now 😐
Is this on casual Fridays?
casual Fridays??? I just take my tie off! What am I missing *sob*
I like the picture. I loved Mystery Science Theater 3000! That particular episode lampooned a particularly bad B-grade SciFi. MST3K was one of the only shows to ever make me laugh out loud. I miss that show.
BTW, I bet every office has had someone have sex in it at one time or another. I worked at General Dynamics and I remember two security guards for a secret military aircraft program that got caught having sex on the roof (all on CCTV) and were promptly fired. Uncle Sam would not have approved.
Hey, if they want to jump naked over filing cabinets, let them.
By the picture you can tell a Dvorak trained man.
Who cares? Queen Victoria? This is hardly a firing offense. If you really want to give them cause to stop, release the videos.
And how many damned cameras do they have in Britain, now?? They’ve cameras on the filing cabinets?
#12….they have cameras EVERYWHERE in Britain now.
Since the Deputy Prime Minister can have sex with his calander secretary in goverment free digs, the sex angle isn’t why the manager got fired. It’s because the agency this took place at is causing farmers all over the U.K. to go belly up on their mortages and other bills because they can’t seem to get the subsidy checks correct or out to the farmers on time. As the article said….1.5 BILLION pounds….thats a lot of file cabinet jumping.