But moving on. David starts the meeting by saying that he knows there have been rumors and he wants to “take this opportunity to put the record straight”. Gareth interrupts him and says that as team leader, he should know first. The camera pans to Tim who is laughing quietly. David says he will tell everyone at the same time. Gareth says David should whisper it to him, which is utterly childish, and the others are impatiently grumbling that they want to hear it now. Gareth, who obviously lacks the skill of reading a situation, asks David if he should be the one to tell them. “You don't know what it is,” says David, for once acting as the voice of reason. Gareth now gives his boss the PERMISSION to tell others. “I don't need your permission,” says David, laughing a bit awkwardly and – you guessed it – adjusting his tie. Gareth says, “Permission granted.” He is such a sad little man. David rolls his eyes but says nothing, just glances at Gareth. He tells people what Jennifer told him. So far, so good.
But when Malcolm, an older employee, asks David if he's gonna let them, David starts acting all macho, says he's “the head of this family” and that they can boss around Neil's people all they want but he won't let anything happen to the Slough branch. Angela isn't convinced and says, “David, if they do downsize here..” David interrupts and keeps saying he won't let it happen. The employees are talking nervously, someone says, “You have to be honest”. Malcolm says, “What if it's out of your hand?” David stupidly promises that it won't be out of his hands. How can he control if something is or isn't out of his hands? Malcolm asks if David can really make that promise. Word. Gareth says, “On his mother's grave.” OK, that's a phrase no one should ever use, especially for someone else. David says he's offended that Malcolm has to question his promise. Malcolm starts to say something, but Dawn raises her hand and David takes the opportunity to shut Malcolm up: “Sorry, Malcolm, Dawn wants to speak. Go on, Dawn.” Little does he know that Dawn wants to point out that Jennifer did mention it could be this branch that gets downsized. People get upset and start talking nervously again. David tells Dawn, in jargon, that she should have thought of the confidentiality of the meeting. Well, he did just promise Jennifer he wouldn't tell the employees anything, and here he is telling them, so... Malcolm tells David he can't promise anything if that's the case, and David says “this is my ship”, and it's a question of trust. Malcolm says it isn't, but David says it is. “Do you trust me?” he asks. “Yes, I trust you,” says Malcolm quietly. David acts like it's case closed. “Meeting ajourned,” he says, pronouncing “ajourned” in a French way and acting like it's very funny. Gareth wants to know if the people trust him, and asks them to raise their hands if they do, but everyone's leaving. Sheila raises her hand. Aww, poor Sheila, ever the obedient employee. Gareth says the “assistant regional manager” thing again and says he needs to know if people trust him. David doesn't think he does. “Put your hand down,” he says to Sheila who is still raising it. David smiles looking at Gareth and adjust his tie. He looks a bit smug, as usual.
Gareth says he's not worried for himself, and says downsizing is “natural selection”. Right, it's got nothing to do with business. He takes an example: “Imagine a warehouse where a little midget feller is driving a forklift. He can't see over the top, he's got great big platform shoes on so he can reach the pedals...” As if that isn't a bigoted enough example, he makes it worse by showing he's talking about a real person: “I mean, Anton's a lovely bloke, but should he be working here?” If this were a real documentary, Anton would have seen that, right? I think Gareth just expects disabled people and everyone who's a bit "different" to take "he's a lovely bloke, but..." as a compliment and leave it at that.
Tim is sitting and working behind his fortress. Gareth asks him a work-related question, but he tells Gareth he can't see or hear him, and Gareth needs to call him. He does, and it's on voice mail. “Leave a message,” says Tim. Gareth starts leaving a message but feels it's stupid. Tim says he's right, and it is stupid. He tells Gareth to repeat the question, but gets up and leaves with a mischievious grin on his face. Gareth asks about the price of “mat-coated SRI1”, and I have no idea what that means, but it's just one of those details they put in to make it seem more real. After a while, Gareth realizes Tim isn't there, and he says, “I know you're not there, and obviously you can't hear that, but I'm not talking to myself because.. They're filming.” To make matters worse, he peeks over the files to see if Tim really has left. He's just trying to appear dignified and failing miserably. It's the funniest thing about Gareth, I think.We see that Tim has gone to Dawn's desk, where she's trying to rearrange his hair, but it's not working: “You can't do anything with your hair!” she laughs. They're cute together, but it also shows how little work they're doing at the office.
David introduces Ricky to an Indian employee called Sanj. In his ongoing attempt of showing what a fun workplace this is, David tells Ricky what a great Ali G impression Sanj does, “Aiiight! -I can't do it, go on.” Sanj says he can't do it and David must be confusing him with someone else. “Sorry, it's not you, it's the other one,” says David, making a complete fool of himself. “The other what – Paki?” says Sanj. “That's racist,” says David and leaves. Dude, if you make an obviously racist statement, even if it is by accident, you can't save face by calling the other person racist! David has some of the worst people skills I've ever seen. Second only to Gareth.
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