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In a past life, I ran the Cargo Reservations department for Lufthansa at Heathrow.

It was frantic.

British Airways moved to a new terminal. Nothing worked. They closed down.

We worked 20 hour days.

British Airways went on strike. Frequently.

We worked 20 hour days. Sometimes 36 hour days.

There was no time for niceties when you answered the phone.

It was “LufthansacanIhelpyou?” or just “Lufthansa”.

But mostly “Lufthansacanyouholdthanks?”

This didn’t go down well with Dick Haynes, the Cargo Manager, who was so impressed with the service that he got from his garage that he wrote a memo INSISTING that we answer the phone just like his garage did under penalty of death.

“Good morning, this is Victory Motors, Bruce Bayliss speaking, how can I help you”

Some people (stupid bloody Poms and not realising that they didn’t work for Victory Motors and their name wasn’t Bruce Bayliss) actually did answer the phone like that.

We did for about 2 minutes, before it became apparent that we’d be working 48 hour days at that rate and went back to “Lufthansacanyouholdthanks?”

I just called up Mrs jb at work and my mate Christoph the Janitor answered the phone with the classic Victory Motors greeting.

Turns out that the boss is back after his Christmas break and has nothing better to do than make up new rules.

Can’t see Mrs jb buckling under on this one.

Just as much chance, in fact, as he had getting her to sign a paper declaring that she would comply with the various anti-discrimination (i.e. be nice to foreigners)  laws.

“Sod that” she probably thought “If I sign that, I won’t be able to discriminate against my own husband. Can’t have that….”

PS
Christoph asked if he should announce himself formally with all three Christian names.

Didn’t go down well. Not at all well, in fact.

Well” he said “We certainly shouldn’t employ the current Minister of Defence (Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg) then. By the time he’s finished the Victory Motors into, the caller will have rung up a phone bill of €5