Recovering from holidays (and troubling surgery)

The ratio of sarcasm to genuine in what you say will be governed by how exotic/enjoyable your break was.

Thus, if you've just been to Australia and had a ride on a Harley round Melbourne's Formula 1 circuit and been in a delly-bopter, you achieve maximum sarcasm.

Conversely, if you've been in the hospital to have something uncomfortable removed from your anus, then the sarcasm is close to zero, although somehow the phrase still isn't quite 100 per cent genuine. "I bet you're glad to be back!" - as if being glad to be back is utter madness but that's the only option with which you have been left, what with that nasty anus surgery.

Then, inevitably, you will ask what has happened since you've been away.

You will receive blank looks and some shuffling of paper as people desperately search around for some news.

People will say that nothing happened, and half joke that nothing ever happens, and you'll share a look of fear of the knowledge that life here is meaningless and eventless and we'll do this same futile nonsense until we die.

But then they will brighten. They will say that at least no one got sacked.

And they will remember that time that someone else went away, and something really big happened that they must have heard about, and then they came back and jokingly asked if anything had happened while they'd been away and it was very funny.

You will repeat all those conversations with different people all morning.

And in that morning you will be able to divide the office into two groups: those who noticed your two-week absence, and those who didn't. It is probably safe to assume that those who didn't notice your absence wouldn't notice if you died a miserable stroke death, like those awful adverts on the telly.

It's nothing personal. People can only keep so many other people in their heads. But it is useful information: it shows to whom you shouldn't bother offering sweets.

Because although sweets aren't the whole point of going away, they are certainly the prime reason for coming back. We have a sweets arms race in our Unit.

This week my Tim Tams, mint M&Ms, weird chalky chocolates and sours were trumped by some finest Devonian fudge.

Volume is important, you see, but not as important as taste.

Both, though, are trumped by strangeness. Little chicken claws in chocolate jelly? Yes please.

Then you can dare yourself to eat it. And you can leave them out as bait for the workstation vultures - every office has them, they're the people who wouldn't notice if the whole office died, they'd just be scared because their food source had disappeared.

And you can have a good laugh with people who you care if they live or die.

I bet you're glad to be back.