The Devil's Work

The Devil apparently lives in Hell, which is a hot or cold place depending on how your "evil" points get converted into torturous entertainment benefits.

This of course is not true. Hell is a mythological and a religiously theoretical place made up from the minds of men in an effort to keep us from being bored on Sundays.

However, I can confirm the Devil does exist and currently works for numerous flat packed furniture designers and in particular the production of their construction manuals.

An example, three boxes arrived on Wednesday containing a wardrobe. They weighed about 33kg - 40kg each with large labels reminding you that if you aren't a gorilla, you will need two people to carry them.

Each box was marked box 1, box 2 and box 3 with a stern warning on each.

[box 1] - OPEN THIS BOX FIRST
[box 2] - DO NOT OPEN THIS BOX FIRST
[box 3] - DO NOT OPEN THIS BOX FIRST

Fair enough.

After almost renting a chainsaw, you get into the box which seems to be designed for you not to get into it.

There it is, the bible, the instruction manual.

Time to get to work!

Page 1 shows you a nice diagram of the piece you will need which is of course the base of the unit. So far so good.

Until you notice the manual tells you the part you need is in Box 2, the second part is in box 1, while the third part is in box 3 and the forth part is in box 1.

And thats the beginning.

The drawings of screws within the manual shape shift into something that is similar but is it the same? There are holes in the wood which aren't shown in the manual, so is it the right way round?

Firmly in the grip of the Devil's design you realise you should have booked three weeks off work to assemble the wardrobe and maybe invited all your facebook friends round to help.

Perhaps you could have lived with the old one after all but no this one is going to be much better you tell yourself, not realising a Devil's imp has been sent to move your screwdriver every time you put it down while you rotate the manual 360 degrees and swear.

Three months later you have a wardrobe. Now all you have to do now is hope it doesn't fall and kill you while you put a shirt in it.