"Are you Being Served?" - The Mannequin Cleaning Machine Incident
Preamble: For those who don't know AYBS? is a British TV comedy about a down-at-the-heels English department store (Grace Brothers) where the third floor is shared between mens' and ladies' wear departments. The interaction between the mutually antagonistic sales teams, coupled with the use of satire, innuendo and pompous personalities is the source of the humour that permeates the series. One of the recurring themes is the use of sales demonstrations - gadgets and automations that usually manage to misfire in the worst possible way at the worst possible time.
Links that explain the show:
title/tt0068040/ - best explanation of the class structure and period inherent in the store and its structure.
wiki/Are_You_Being_Served%3F - another description of the show, and here are three complete episodes:
watch?v=MRZ-JAgSCcc&feature=related
watch?v=cvgefqIZR2w&feature=related
watch?v=hFZTSy82b58&feature=related
Well, enough background.
What happens when a new maintenace appliance arrives and it has to be stored until the Board of Directors meeting in a few days' time? Obviously, the only place for it is on the third floor in the ladieswear staff cloakroom...
Opening scene: cleaners are finishing off dusting the stair bannisters as the staff arrives to be greeted by Mr. Harman, who's standing at the bottom of the staircase with Mr. Rumbold.
"Ah, good! You're all here. Gather around, everyone. Mr. Harman has an announcement", said Mr. Rumbold as the staff came down the stairs.
"Ahem! Thank you. Mr. Rumbold. As you know the Board of Directors is having their annual meeting later this week. Part of this year's meeting is demonstrations of new equipment that may be used in the store," Mr. Harmon bunced up and down on the balls of his feet with his hands behind his back. "One of the items being demonstrated is a new automated mannequin cleaning machine. UNFORTUNATELY, it arrived early and has to be stored somewhere."
Captain Peacock paused in taking his coat off, cocked one eyebrow and glared at Mr. Harman. "And I can assume that it is being stored on our floor?" as he glanced from side to side, taking in all the displays on the floor.
"Not in the men's cloakroom, I hope. There's not enough to hang our coats and turn around without getting poked in the posterior by something," quipped Mr. Humpfries as he draped his coat over the counter and faced Mr. Harmon.
"No, no, not there! Not close enough to the freight elevators..." Mr Harmon drawled as he stepped away from the ladies towards the menswear counters.
Mrs. Slocombe slammed her coat, hat and purse on the main ladieswear counter, and stalked across the floor and shoved her face into Mr. Harman's face. "Oh, let me guess? What area is close to the freight elevators and you MEN can always put your toys and stuff there because the WOMEN won't put up a fight over getting pushed around? Am I right, MISTER HARMON?", the last words coming out as a growl.
Mr. Harmon blanched, Mr. Rumbold went pasty white, Captain Peacock winced, Mr. Grainger looked like he was about to have a heart attack. Mr. Humpfries quivered, and Mr. Lucas looked like a rabbit in a headlight. Mrs. Slocombe sniffed and all the men took a step back from her.
Miss Brahms gave a look at all of the men that said "you are cockroaches and are about to get squashed" as she deposited her coat and handbag on the counter and walked up beside Mrs. Slocombe.
"Um, um! Close but not quite right," said Mr. Harmon as he gathered himself and raised one finger.
"How close and how right?" came Miss Brahms' words in a tone like treacle.
"Uh, uh, uh... it, it's the alcove between the freight elevators and your cloak room." came the words from Mr. Harmon, more like a squeak than anything else.
"The.. alcove.. next..to..the..stock room," Mrs. Slocombe's words were quiet and slow, with only her face showing her growing rage. "The alcove that is ACTUALLY our stockroom because we had to make room for THE MEN's stockroom overflow?"
Mr. Rumbold stepped forward, quite out of character. "Now wait a minute, Mrs. Slocombe!" Mrs. Slocombe's head slowly swivelled like a lioness focusing on a gazelle marked as dinner. He blanched, gathered himself and stepped closer to Mrs. Slocombe.
"This comes from Young Mister Grace, himself. The freight elevator broke down at this floor, and parts won't be coming until tonight. It was decided for safety reasons to unload the mannequin cleaner on this floor until the elevator has been fixed. The machine is actually in the hallway and does block part of the floorspace, but you can reach your stock. Before the machine was taken off of the elevator, the stock in that area was moved so that you can reach it."
It was probably the longest speech that he'd ever delivered, and he'd managed to actually sound like a competent manager for once. The effect was not lost on MRs. Slocombe as she slowly stepped back from Mr. Harmon.
"I'll have to look at what's been done to my stock before I raise an official protest. Come, Miss Brahms!", she said as she turned and marched across the floor to the entranceway to the back rooms of the ladieswear department. The men slowly followed behind the ladies.
By the time the men had passed through the curtain doorway, Mrs. Slocombe and Miss Brahms had reached the alcove and were inspecting the piles of stock that had been carefully stacked against the walls and in neat rows on the floor away from the massive machine that took up the hallway and extended several feet into the room.
Mrs. Slocombe sniffed. MIss Brahms sniffed. The men gulped.
"Well, Miss Brahms, can we reach our stock?"
"Yes, Mrs. Slocombe. Well, almost everything is reachable. The only thing that is going to be hard to get at is the cashmere twin sets, and we aren't selling many of them right now", Miss Brahms said, pointing at the shelf at the far end of the room, near the machine.
Mrs. Slocombe sniffed again and turned to face Mr. Harmon. "Mr. Harmon, it looks acceptable, but just barely," she said is sweet tones that belied the menacing expression on her face. "How do you propose that we be able to reach those cashmere twin sets?"
"Um, um. I believe that the warehouse people have some grapplers that they can lend you for today. Let me check on that for you right away," he said as he sidled towards the gap between the machine and the hallway wall.
"Not so fast, Mr. Harmon!", Mrs. Slocombe reached out and snagged the back collar of his coat without looking. "What, pray tell, is this machine that's so flaming important that it couldn't remain on the loading docks for another day?"
"Actually, Mrs. Slocombe, it's top secret and I really can't talk about it. All I can say is that it arrived a day early, and we couldn't let it remain where anyone from outside the store could see it..." he whispered just loud enough for everyone to hear while trying to pull his coat out of Mrs. Slocombe's grip.
"What? Top Secret? Around here?! This is Grace Brothers that we're talking about, not the Home Office!" Mr. Harmon's head snapped around as Mrs. Slocombe dragged him backwards to face her.
"It's the latest in British technology and the first such device in the world. Our competitors would pay a king's ransom to see how this works."
"And what, pray tell, is it supposed to do?", Mrs. Slocombe hissed in his ear, but loud enough for everyone else to hear clearly, while not relinquishing her grip on his collar.
"It's designed to eliminate one of the major problems in department stores, and it actually works! I've seen it in action and it works as designed, not like some of the other -ahem- promotional displays." His words brought back memories to all of the staff members of the less-than-successful mechanical items that Mr. Harmon had brought unto the floor over the years.
"Ahem!" went Miss Brahms, spearing Mr. Harmon with a glare worthy of those used by Mrs. Slocombe and Captain Peacock. "You didn't answer her!"
"It... it's a mannequin washing machine, but just not a simple washing machine, but one designed to handle all types of mannequins, regardless of type, appendages or dress!"
"Dress!? What do you mean by that?" asked Captain Peacock.
"You can take a mannequin right off of the floor, put it in one end, and it will come out of the other, stripped, washed, dried, polished and dressed in new garments and back on the floor in minutes. That's the wonder of the machine. Nothing like it existed before, and it'll save hours and hours of manual work and drudgery. Something like that will put Grace Brothers yards, if not miles, ahead of all of our competition."