Don't let those neg ferrets get you down at work

A SCOTTISH tourism group is urging its members to banish "neg ferrets", "sinkers" and "bloaters" and embrace the power of positive thinking.

Pride and Passion for Scotland, which has Muriel Gray and Nick Nairn as celebrity ambassadors, is calling on hoteliers, restaurant owners and B&B landladies to eliminate negativity in the workforce.

The body has embraced the jargon-based doctrines of motivational guru Adrian Webster's corporate self-help tome Polar Bear Pirates.

Webster, a former policeman and milkman, uses cartoon characters to point the way for managers to make it to the mythical Fat City, "the home of pure success".

He has also created a range of grotesque corporate creatures to be avoided at all costs, including neg ferrets who have insatiable appetites for other people's problems and a penchant for the negative.

Other workplace enemies include sinkers, who have had no success themselves and are obsessed with making sure nobody else does; bloaters who are "boasting, lazy, obnoxious and tediously egotistical reptilian saddos"; and head treads, "toady, brown-nosers who are terrified their lack of talent will be exposed".