Steak Number 22, Your Human is Ready

In an interminable session from the frustrated roadies who check our public address system, it occurred to me that they are missing a real opportunity.

If you work in a building where the safety of the staff is so tenuous everything has to be checked fortnightly, you will know what I’m talking about. The man with the heavy Eastern European accent saying, “Dis iz a tezt ownly, tezt ownly,” followed by a bunch of alarms and messages. These are supposed to simulate the level of distress you are going to feel when your place of work finally bursts into flames. (ie; None)

In the particularly arduous PA system check that we sat through recently, the kid with the unpleasant voice must have said “Check One Two?” 500 times; it went on for the best part of 20 minutes.

I suggested to my workmate, Smurf, that there were opportunities here. Every couple of days the kid with the bad voice should move to a new Shakespeare sonnet. He gets to learn the canon as he tours the town checking the speakers, and I have not met a heterosexual girl yet who isn’t a little impressed if you can whip out some of The Bard. For the workers, if they choose to tune out, a sonnet is usually just hard enough to comprehend it can have the ‘rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb’ effect. For those who can’t help but tune in, it’s a little treat.

Then I thought - the young band trying to make it big can have their new single piped through the system for a few minutes, followed by a bit of a spruik from the ‘Check one two’ guy. He sells the ad time and gets a percentage. It’s a captive audience but we get to hear something different and no one has to be reminded of Craig McLaughlin.