Extract from the book Different Planet – Kindle version here and the paperback version here

Albert Martin reversed his Hummer out of the driveway. Immediately there was a screech of brakes and the honking of a horn. Martin looked behind him and saw the bus driver gesticulating wildly.

He got out of his vehicle and walked down the road to the bus.

“What’s the matter with you, you fat bastard?” he enquired diplomatically.

“You pulled out right into my path,” replied the driver regarding Martin’s large forehead, small, piercing eyes, and two-day’s growth of beard with some alarm.

“For your information,” said Martin pointing at the driver, “I always pull out of my drive at this time on weekdays; I think you’ll find you’re five minutes early on your route. Don’t let it happen again. By the way, do you like my mode of transportation? Does about 10 miles to the gallon, but I can afford it.” Without waiting for a reply, Martin returned to his vehicle and sped off to work ignoring the speed limits as he went.

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Martin had worked in the IT department of Britannical Suppliers, a large manufacturing company, since leaving school at the age of 18. That was 14 years ago. His latest task had been to write a daily update of the database that took 26 hours to run. Martin didn’t see any problem with this until his manager, Jon Wood, pointed out update programs were supposed to be run at the same time each day.

“We’ll just have to run the update every other day, won’t we?” said Martin, after arriving at work.