TheFixOnline.com has run a third entry in their TAR series!

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Its time for part three of the serialization of Rich Fulcher’s fantastic book Tiny Acts Of Rebellion, this week Rich informs Fixers how to improve their listening skills in a relationship.

We’ve all done the following: you’re telling your boyfriend a story about how you thought you lost your cat but then you found it hiding under your mattress playing with a piece of of string cheese, and you start to think your bf isn’t listening. So you throw in an obvious lie or incredible statement, like ‘Jeremy Clarkson dyes his pubes with lemon curd,’ to check if he is paying attention. Sure it’s petty, and an indicator that you’re a likely sociopath- but oh, how it works!

Why not use this tactic and get back at all those dull-eyed bureaucrats who simply nod their head without ever listening to a word you are saying?

So, you’re telling the woman at the Job Centre about your work skills and you mention ‘illegal gerbil fighting’ as one of them. Or you’re arguing about your parking fine and in the middle of telling the attendant you couldn’t have been parked longer than 15 minutes, you usually slip in ‘because I’m Zartron the Enabler, who has six elbows and can combust candy with eyes’.

This is a win-win situation because if the recipient of this statement ignores you, you have successfully revelled against the Kafka-esque nature of bureaucracy. However, if the clerk responds ‘Excuse me?’, then you have awakened him out of his stupor and may actually get some attention (even if it’s in the form of negative attention like a door slammed in your face or a slap on the gonads)

Note: I have inserted one of these somewhere in the book. If you can spot it and send it to my website, you will get a free turkey go-fuck-yourself sandwich.