After a year of painful negotiations, a group of teachers has today finally agreed how to allocate the bill from their Christmas lunch, just in time to book into the same restaurant for this year’s event.
‘I know it sounds like a small sum to those in the private sector,’ said one member of the group, ‘but there was an important principle at stake: I didn’t have a starter and Eric had two glasses of wine. And I won’t even mention a certain person who’s just supply, but had a Black Forest gateau that wasn’t even on the set menu. She clearly doesn't do things by half. Except with her job.’
The school’s board of governors offered to throw in £4 in March, which would have resolved the impasse, but only added fuel to the fire as head of maths, Mr Jennings, was determined to solve the problem using bipartite graph matching theory and declined the offer.
‘You can’t just throw a random sum of money at a conundrum with so many mathematical variables, it has to be solved properly,’ explained Jennings, who himself ordered an extra drink on his way back from the loo, despite secretly being one drink ahead of the party.
Restaurant manager Terry Watson, who accidentally accepted the booking over the phone, said: ‘We put signs up every year clearly saying ‘No teachers’, yet they still they come with their calculators. They actually rubbed off all the specials from my blackboard so they could show their workings. I offered to let the £4 go, but they just recalculate the bill with a slightly smaller total and off they went again.’
A DFE spokesman said: ‘We sympathise with the restaurant staff. Can you imagine how fucking tedious our pay negotiations are?'
