It's time to exorcise a few ghosts.
A good few years ago, when I was a councillor, I had spent most of Saturday working on casework. I was going out Saturday night and it made sense to call into the Members Room in the Town Hall en route to the Tube to do some photocopying and stick some letters in the post.
I switched the photocopier on and it started to beep at me. 'Replace toner'. Oh no, I thought - these letters are already overdue, I need to photocopy them. I did not have a clue how to change the toner cartridge, but figured it can't be that difficult. Plus, there were instructions. Okay, they were in Japanese, but they were instructions.
Two minutes later, there is a little heap of toner dust on the floor of the members room, a thin dusting of toner over the photocopier, black dust on my hands and, as I later discovered, my face. Toner powder sprinkled in an abstract pattern on the letters and envelopes I was supposed to be sending. There was even some powder in the cartridge in the photocopier, so I was able to complete my casework.
On Monday I was at work, and was in the room where the photocopier lived. Not photocopying, as it happened. One of the chaps said "How do you change the toner in the photocopier...?" I said, "I don't, because when I try, I make a complete mess of it." Laura said "Ooh, I don't go anywhere near it - did you know that that powder they put in toner cartridges is so carcinogenic, it's the most poisonous substance in the office environment, apart, perhaps from asbestos."
That evening I got home and checked my emails, surprisingly, there were no meetings that evening. There was one from the PA to the Labour Leader, addressed to all members, "Which ever councillor it was who attempted to change the photocopier cartridge over the weekend, please refrain from doing so again..."
I've never told anybody this before, but I just blinked a few times and pressed 'delete'.
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