A seven-year-old girl went with her father to his work office on Take Your Child to Work Day.
As they were walking around the office, the young girl started to cry and get very cranky.
Her father asked her what was wrong.
As the man's boss and co-workers all gathered around the father and daughter, she wiped the tears from her eyes and sobbed very loudly "Daddy, you said you worked with a pack of clowns and that your boss was a baby-faced pig!"
Apparently, the following day for Daddy was Take Yourself to the Unemployment Line Day.
We've all had to work with difficult co-workers. Maybe we've been a difficult co-worker to someone else and we never knew it. It's a little bit like when people tell you why their relationships broke up with that common explanation of "my ex-spouse/partner was so manipulative and selfish".
The world is still waiting for someone on a romantic date to say: "All my previous relationships ended because I was so controlling and toxic, and they all simply had to get away for their own safety; especially when I start drinking alcohol and become enraged and violent ... more wine, darling?"
At least with a difficult co-worker, we've always been able to go home and forget about them for a while.
But is even that fast becoming a thing of the past?
We've been hearing the term global village since the 1960s.
It was coined by Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan, acknowledging the reality of the world becoming more interconnected.
This has helped create a global economy and thus, in some ways, a global workplace.
When Holden, Australia's last car-manufacturing plant, closed in October 2017 it left 2500 Australians without a job and all Aussies more dependent on the global village.
You have to be able to get on with those you live with, and COVID-19 has shown us with merciless clarity that, now, that is everyone on the planet.
Australia has been one of the earliest and most vocal proponents for an independent investigation into the origins and initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
To make this protest is very Australian. It's very Australian to have your mates' back when they're in a fight.
But it's equally Australian to tell your mate to pull their head in when they're acting like a...
More and more countries have now thrown their support behind our protest. But what would Jesus say?
I think Jesus would agree with a protest for an international investigation. Jesus said: "'If your brother does something wrong, go and have it out with him alone, between your two selves. If he listens to you, you have won back your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you: whatever the misdemeanour, the evidence of two or three witnesses is required to sustain a charge. But if he refuses to listen to these, report it to the community."
We are, in a sense, now a global workplace. The countless many who have lost their jobs here and abroad bear witness to this.
It's not like someone left the office kitchenette fridge open overnight and now we need to find the culprit behind why we can't have milk in our coffee this morning. People lost their lives.
Our actions do have consequences in the lives of others. A good question to always ask before we do, or neglect to do, something that plays on our conscience is "could this affect the lives of others, for good or for bad?"
Somehow, we almost always instinctively know which way, even if we do not know how much.
Also, not everyone who protests is right. The Chinese Communist Party initially protested there was no need for an inquiry into the cause of COVID-19.
Now, Chinese spokesperson Zhao Lijian has told reporters in Beijing it is too soon to think about an investigation.
As the old legal maxim goes "justice delayed is justice denied". The guilty know this. Beware of those who wish to delay you justice.
Let their delay strengthen your argument that perhaps they knew you were in the right all along.
Twitter: @frbrendanelee
