Conversations at work

Today the overwhelming theme was grey... all Fifty Shades of them. It started with a customer asking if one had actually read them. As it turned out we were put off by them. Of course in one small slave's case it was the complete lack of literary merit, while it seems she was slightly mortified by the sexual content. She was also on book three so one couldn't help but think that maybe the lady did protest too much...

The second encounter was a woman looking for grey face makeup for her son's costume party. As one pointed out to the customer, most women want a makeup that enhances their natural colour. She shot back as quick as a wink that it was a shame, grey was a nice neutral colour and there were at least 50 shades of it J

The third encounter... oh that was very different. That was the thing squirmy sensations are made of... and not the good kind either.

Sitting in the lunch room with one of the juniors the conversation started innocently enough with her asking what was the best way to tackle the orange she was dealing with. Yes that probably tells you how young she is. So as she is sitting there, nibbling away at her neatly cut up orange, she turns around and asks have you read Fifty Shades of Grey?

Umm... yes one replied with a note of extreme caution, all the while wondering what was coming next.

What did you think of it?

Well they might not be the worst written books ever, but they are probably close.

Yeah it is pretty bad...

And she would know as she is an avid reader... most of them books far in advance of her years.

But people seem to be getting more bent out of shape about the sexual content than the writing, she added thoughtfully.

Casual shrug... our views are becoming increasingly Americanised, so while we have no problem with  people being killed violently on our screens and in books, we are loath to deal with sex. Ironically your generation is bombarded with sex in a way that previous generations weren't.

That's true and people are so concerned about young people growing up to be sexual, when it is all around us. It's hard not to.

And then of course there is that message that all someone needs is love to fix them... that is a dangerous fallacy, but it is promoted as one of the themes in the book. If love could fix things more people would stay married...

Now that was a deft turn of conversation because her parents are divorced and she is the bone of contention between them. After that things got back onto much safer topics for a modern work place... like what she was going to do for a job when she finished school at the end of the year and when she was going to leave home... both of them J