I learned all about Easter on the bus this week, and in the spirit of the season I'm going to share it with you.

There was a very young girl on the bus with her grandad and she shared with him - and the rest of the passengers - what she had been learning at school recently.

"Do you know," she said, "in the olden days if you were really bad they didn't just send you to jail. They put you in a chair and electrocuted you."

Don't worry, this bit isn't the real meaning of Easter. This was just a precursor to it. But I was so interested that I lost my thread on the book I was reading and put it away to listen properly.

"And," she said with some authority, "in the even more olden days, they didn't do that. What they made you do if you were really bad was carry a big cross up the street. Then they stuck it in the ground and put you on it and banged nails in your hands and your feet."

Everyone took a silent moment to contemplate this. Grandad said, "Well, that's what happened to Jesus, isn't it?"

"It is!" said the girl excitedly. "But Jesus hadn't been bad."

"So why do you think they nailed him to a cross?" said Grandad, entering into a theological discussion that I thought might have been above the girl's head somewhat. I was wrong.

"They nailed him to a cross because there was this manager and he said bad things about Jesus," she said confidently.

Now, this is the first time that I'd ever heard Pontius Pilate referred to as "a manager", but suddenly it all made sense. He was a Roman prefect. And he had the power to authorise crucifixions. Of course he was a manager!

And there it was, the true meaning of Easter, and one that will be familiar to anyone who has ever spent their waking life working for any kind of company or firm.

You have to watch the managers! There you are, just like Jesus, getting on with your work and not putting a foot wrong. But then you get on the wrong side of the manager.

You don't know what you've done. Maybe you came in late one day, or your lunch-hour overran. Maybe you were going around telling everyone you were the son of God, disrupting the workplace, that sort of thing.

Whatever the reason, the manager decides to say bad things about you. Maybe there's a trial, like Jesus had. Or, as we refer to them these days, an appraisal or even a disciplinary hearing.

And you get crucified by your manager. Just for being late, or stinking the office out with your kippers, or telling all and sundry that you're the son of God.

So you might want to take the extended Easter break to think about this a bit. Managers are bad news. The next time one gives you grief, just tell him that you forgive him, because he knows not what he does.