"Have you ever worked in an office before?"

Her Indoors had steeled herself to have a proper talk with the lass who is doing maternity cover and wasn't doing a very good job at all. I asked her how it went and she told me that her opening question was "Have you ever worked in an office before?" at which stage I started giggling.

"That's like a line from a film," I said, "I can just see it. Man blags self job as bus driver, tears off roof of bus under low bridge, angry boss asks him 'Have you ever driven a bus before?' Man blags job in demolition and blows up the wrong building, angry boss asks 'Have you ever used explosives before?' and so on. The simple fact that the boss asks the question indicates that the person hasn't. Whatever the context, it's funny!"

Her Indoors (who found the whole experience rather stressful) did not think that it was funny at all. Anyway, I regaled The Lad with the tale a couple of days later and he fell about laughing: "Dad, it IS a line from a film! Right at the start of Nativity! after the new teaching assistant unleashes complete chaos, the serious character sits him down and asks him 'Let me ask you something. You haven't done this before, have you?'"