The basic structure of Any other Business is essentially simple to understand; at the top there is the head honcho and his deputy, then several directors in charge of directorates, beneath them there are managers and then there are the support staff.

Head Honcho is new - he's been around for less than a year.  Unusually for his breed, he knows his stuff, he works hard and commands the respect of others within the company who hold the same work ethic.  We'll call him Harold.

The Deputy, on the other hand, has been around for years and years - infact she has been deputy to 3 different Honchos.  Deputy is a slave to her hormones and colleagues have been known to plot her cycle on a calendar and have learnt when to steer clear and when to ask for that all important pay rise.  She tends to favour the more disruptive members of staff over those that do the work  She is mad for a laff with the 'galls' and doesn't understand why they won't confide in her.  She has been known to do strange and embarassing things when drunk.  We'll call her Madge.

So far, so good.  A clear deliniation of responsibilities and importance.  Now we move on to the Directors.  These are a highly ambitious breed and therefore are each jockying to appear to be more important than the next.  Each director will have several knives sticking out of their backs at any one time as they have to constantly strike up allegiencies to do another one down.  One of the ways in which a director will measure their own importance is by the number of staff they have under them.  The number of staff usually has a direct impact on the amount of work that director does - more staff, less work - although they do get to take credit for a wide variety of other people's efforts.

The directors then, in order of 'importance'.  The Duchess is in charge of offering advice to business on the way it interacts with its clients.  Much of her day is taken up with meetings where she can pick up other people's ideas to pass them off as her own.  One of the more Machiavellian directors, she will also spend time speaking to the others to see who's hot and who's not.  When not 'working from home' in the local swimming baths, she will aslo discuss at length her divorce and evil ex-husband.

A man to whom many chapters will be devoted is the director affectionately known as 'Baboon Arse'.  He has an eye for the ladies and thinks he is VERY intelligent which makes him VERY patronising to everyone he talks to.  He also thinks he is VERY funny and is a really FUN boss to work for.  He will do his own share of ass-lickan however and his ambitions know no bounds.  In a way he is a lot like David Brent.

The next director is the legal eagle.  He has a penchant for showing off his Rolex and will roll up his left shirt sleeve to display it to its best effect.  He and the Duchess appear to genuinely co-operate with each other, making this a fairly unusual partnership.  He tends to get quite stroppy if he doesn't get his own way and has been known to have little trantrums.  We shall call him Pricilla.

The next director deals with finance and administration.  He can be a good bloke and be supportive of more junior members of staff, however he is prone to the green-eyed monster which brings out a vindictive streak in him.  He too has an eye for the ladies, although this doesn't extend further than buying them drinks.  In this story he will be known as Cerano.

Director number 5 is Cruella - in charge of external relations.  She loves animals and hates children.  In fact, each year the office Xmas card is a donation to a donkey sanctuary.  She is a rampant vegetarian who has been known to eat suckling pig.  Her approach to external relations is basically taking credit for other people's work by promoting it externally - if it gets recognition, it was down to her, if it doesn't then that person's hard work was, frankly, not up to the job.  Essentially lazy and work-shy, she is however a great self-publicist which has enabled her to last as long as she has.

At number six is another new member of staff - a bumbling professor-type, in charge of advising on money matters.  Too new to have established a proper profile, he will be known as Brains.

Finally there is the director in charge of overseas relations.  To say she is 'sunbed friendly' would be a gross under-exaggeration she is so orange that her name shall be Tango.  She looks like she has collided with a gravy lorry.  Her working day consists mainly of complaining how busy she is and 'popping out for a fag'.  She is mad for overseas travel so will manipulate any opportunity so that she can pop off to Amsterdam, Austrailia, South Africa etc. with the Head Honcho of a neighboring organisation.

That takes care of the prominent directors.  Lesser minions will be covered at a later date.