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All I can hear is heavy breathing and laughter

Dear Holly,

The last couple of days, I have become the victim of a prank caller and it is starting to irritate me. When I pick up, all I can hear is someone heavy breathing who then breaks out into hysterical laughter and then hangs up. All I can tell is that the person is an older male, probably in his late 60s or early 70s. He phones at all hours of the day so I assume he is retired. Any ideas who it might be?

Louis van Gaal

Manchester 

Dear Louis,

My best friend Olivia has her own phone in her bedroom- can you believe it? She is soooo lucky. Her parents are far too busy playing on their iPads to bother reading their phone bill so we can pretty much phone anyone we like. We often used to prank call our teacher, Mrs Babs, although not so much since she had the breakdown. Looking back, it probably wasn’t a good idea to pretend to be Michael Gove and attempt to woo her. I think she was genuinely heartbroken when he didn’t turn up at the pizzeria that night.

Hope that helps!

Holly

Paid work is a poor career choice, say employers

WORKERS who demand to be paid are missing out on valuable opportunities to showcase themselves and add to their CVs, it has been claimed.

Doing it for the love of phone-answering

Business leaders have warned that candidates who demand financial reward for their efforts run the risk of looking churlish and mean-spirited.

However those willing to work for nothing will find a much wider range of career paths available to them, which could lead to more work at some point in the future.

Media company boss Norman Steele said: “Gone are the days when work was regarded as a weekly grind which you did in exchange for cash to buy food, warmth, shelter and clothing.

“Today that cynical, mercenary attitude won’t get you much further than a dead-end job in a call centre and rightly so. 

“We want workers who find working in itself a profitable experience. Even a simple task like making hot drinks for board members teaches valuable lessons like humility and not putting the milk in first.

“It’s a more spiritual approach.”

Indeed, said Steele, even the idea of working for free is becoming outdated: “The trouble with today’s young “internet generation” is they expect everything for nothing. The real world isn’t like that.

“High end employers like Sting will charge you for the prestige task of picking olives at his Tuscany groves and rightly so. He’s running a business, not a charity.”

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