The thing about January work days is that they’re very much like all the broken biscuits you shove into your mouth while you transfer the rest of the new pack into the cookie jar: they don’t count. January workers are there but they’re not really there, much like old aunt Mavis who puts the TV remote to her ear when the phone rings and tries to change the channel on the TV with one of her slippers.*

In January, many workplaces operate with what’s commonly known as “skeleton staff”. This is the term used to describe employees who passed up the opportunity to eat for Australia over the Christmas break and who, rather than lying bloated on the couch with their pants undone, moaning “There’s only 17 plates of leftovers still in the fridge”, instead chose to do things like keep going to work. I know, disgusting. Compared to the people at home with shards of leg ham protruding from their skinfolds, these people look like skeletons and hence their name. **

Skeleton staff are paid by their employer to make personal calls, design and print their wedding invitations on office equipment and set up fake Facebook accounts with which to monitor/stalk people who gave them the shits at high school. Skeleton staff will go through the desk drawers of colleagues who have managed to avoid being skeleton staff and take away all the staplers. Some skeleton staff have also been known to spend entire work days fashioning fancy badges that say things like “Skeleton Staff Member of the Month” and “Skeleton Staff Now? Ask Me How” and then wearing these badges while standing in front of the fridge in the tea room for half an hour, waving cold air down the front of their blouse because the office airconditioning doesn’t work properly when the outside temperature gets over 30 degrees. Don’t even ask me how I know this.***