Ah, Friday the 13th, traditional for bad luck. So, what bad luck did I have on Friday the 13th? Erm… none really so far. (Admittedly the day is not over yet.)

This morning I slept through my alarm, which had been cunningly set to play the radio very very quietly. I blissfully slept until almost 8am, but since I didn’t have to be anywhere in a hurry, one might almost call this good luck. And yesterday I left my yearly ticket at home. It cost me an extra $5 to get to work and back, but not exactly fatal.

But just in case you are tempted to relax, thinking that nothing bad really happens on Friday the 13th, take note of this: a colleague of mine was in a rush this morning. He left the house with his laptop computer and some folders. Realised before he got to the car that he’d left something behind. Put them down, ran back into the house, got what he’d forgotten, and then came back and got in the car.

He drove out of his driveway, wondering why the car felt a little odd to drive. Stopped, got out, looked, couldn’t see anything askew. Drove off down the road. Realised a short time later that his laptop and folders were not in the car. Went back to find folders of paper strewn across the road, and the laptop computer missing, presumed stolen. Argh. He showed me one of the folders he recovered. Yep. Tyre marks.

So, there you have it. Some people do have bad luck on Friday the 13th.

Mystery Man has gone. Vanished. His desk is cleared. His computer is off. His deodorant is all gone. The nameplate from the top of his computer has been removed. Only his chair remains.

His last hurrah was his arrival on Tuesday morning, when he found his chair missing. This prompted that most rare of events - an actual conversation with the guy - which for my part I denied all knowledge of his missing chair. He then went on the prowl for it around the office, and spotted its legs and wheels in the clear bit of glass below the frosted bit of glass of the adjacent meeting room. He must have been very attached to this chair, because he then found a spare one from elsewhere, knocked on the door, and interrupted the meeting in progress to demand his chair back. Obviously the actions of a desperate man.

But now he’s gone. What he did (well, apart from show up for only a half hour at a time to make phone calls and read e-mails) will remain forever unknown.

4pm. Now his computer has gone too.