Taking my finger off the self-destruct button

RosaBernicia

Wordsmith wrote: »

I hope your efforts are noted by other people in your workplace. And I hope you enjoy your job enough to make it worthwhile. You will get your reward one day, in some form or another. It must be so frustrating for you. Don't give up the fight though - while you are still being reasonable, you have the moral high ground.

Thanks - certainly I think my immediate manager can see my point of view - and more so since the MD situation was taken over his head inappropriately as well . Luckily the rest of my team are fab and I have some interesting stuff coming up. I just need to keep reminding myself that ME putting effort into this means that I am improving my management skills and therefore gaining something for my future... which will ultimately be better than the satisfaction of explaining to the other party that their criticisms are unjustified, their own performance is inadequate, their communication skills are appalling, and their arrogance is entirely baseless.

Obviously it seems I will need to vent occasionally while reminding myself :rotfl: - apologies for hijack.

Rosa xx

DDpimp

Hello you thought I would stop by and show some support (wave's franticly) youll have to tell me if its ok to inbox you or not .One thing that is always certain.....things change.

chevalier

hey word just running into say hope things are going better
*runs out again*

savingwannabe

Horace wrote: »

Rackhams is a swanky department store in Birmingham (House of Fraser) although it is a bit jaded now that Selfridges is in the Bullring. It always used to be a saying in Birmingham when folks were skint that they would go and stand up the back of Rackhams. I think that ladies of the night used to hang around by the cathedral which is up the back of Rackhams.

I am not going to nag you about your tenants - I just hate to see your good nature being taken advantage of.

Horace, OMG Rackhams that brings back some memories!!!

Wordsmith this is so complicated. I am sending you a big hug. I think you are doing the best thing which is staying calm and rational. I would be climbing the walls and screaming like a banshee. Big hug, love sw.

Wordsmith

Thanks, SW. That's kind of you.

But never mind all that ... what are these memories of Rackhams??? Are they anything to do with "up the back of Rackhams"?

savingwannabe

Wordsmith wrote: »

Thanks, SW. That's kind of you.

But never mind all that ... what are these memories of Rackhams??? Are they anything to do with "up the back of Rackhams"?

You are making me laugh. I grew up in Birmingham and Rackhams and Lewis's were the nice shops we all went to in my youth!!!

PS if i stood there i would earn about 1p! maybe not such a good idea:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

chevalier

Rackams was the kind of place when i was young, where you only went in in the sales....

Wordsmith hope things are going ok
chev

DDpimp

Hi, havent heard from you in a wee while hope everything is all right.

Horace

savingwannabe wrote: »

You are making me laugh. I grew up in Birmingham and Rackhams and Lewis's were the nice shops we all went to in my youth!!!

PS if i stood there i would earn about 1p! maybe not such a good idea:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Aah..Lewis's - I remember having my haircut in there when I was quite young, I remember sitting on a seat shaped like a chicken. I can also remember visiting the place with grandma (it was a huge adventure going to the city centre) and buying bags of broken biscuits:D

Rackhams has gone down hill a bit - they ditched their silver service restaurant for a self service canteen, so if I am in town now I tend to go to Selfridges have lunch their in their restaurant where they have proper table cloths and they use villeroy and boch crockery and glassware, I tend to visit when I am MSing:cool:

Even the Kardomah coffee lounges have gone to be replaced by chains of coffee shops which are not very pleasant, although a nice little coffee shop has opened on Temple Row called Six Eight Kafe and they sell proper cake (made by a chap who used to sell insurance) and they have freshly ground coffee and can even tell you when the beans were roasted.:cool:

I was up near the old Lewis's today in fact.

The other place to go when you went into the city centre was Midland Educational but it closed and it was fab.

Wordsmith

I am so very tired. Exhausted actually. Lots of work – for which I am truly thankful, but I so need a day off.

Nothing particularly different about work, just all coming at a rush. Shop and PO as usual, except we have a wages inspection. Ooh, three little words, “a wages inspection”. _pale_ Well, I keep saying I want to do some creative writing, and this has been my opportunity! I closed my eyes and crossed my fingers when I was writing the disciplinary procedures, including under the examples of gross misconduct “falsifying company documents” . We haven’t actually been doing anything wrong in terms of leaving the tax–man short, but we are just not particularly good at putting that on paper. The way we work suits all of us (and we would go to the ends of the earth for lovely boss man) but we are not allowed to give up any of our rights as employees (don’t want a tea break? YOU MUST HAVE A TEA BREAK. Don’t want extra pay for working Sunday? YOU MUST TAKE EXTRA WAGES). Anyway, contracts, disciplinary procedures and health and safety statements now in place, along with two years’ worth of rosters – which were all fine and dandy until one of the domestic goddesses came in with a hangover (now a disciplinary matter ) and signed eight months’ worth in the wrong place. :mad: The inspectors are due today. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

I’ve had a fair bit of proofreading, including a cookery book, which is not one of my usual genres to work on (or read, Lula!). It was a total nightmare – although much easier for me than it was for the editor or typesetter, both of whom were just starting their nervous breakdowns by the time I got to do my bit. It was all a rush rush rush, of course. So I got stuck in and they phoned to say to stop as there was a problem that needed sorting pre proofreading. Then they rang to say get going again. Then they rang to say there was another problem. Then they rang to say get going again. Then, when I was well into it, they rang and said they’d sent the wrong file and could I stop what I was doing and work on the new file. Oh, and could I please be quick because it’s a rush job. The whole thing was such as disaster (because, I might add, of the organisation commissioning the job) that I actually got it back a second time to proofread because they had insisted on so many changes. In the vegetarian section they were listing ingredients such as fish paste. I pointed out, quite forcefully, that vegetarians don’t eat fish (pescetarians do). When I got it back the second time, I saw that the fish ingredients had by them “(optional)”. Duh! :wall:

I’ve had a few novels to proofread, too. It amazes me how people who write novels for a living are so incapable of doing a bit of research. For crying out loud, we have google now! Add to that the web sites to update, the admin for clients to do, and the editing job (that is also rush but I haven’t started yet), I am fit to drop. In a nice way, though.

I keep thinking I have picked myself up and dusted myself down over the disappointment of the house, then I remember that the tenants/buyers haven’t even contacted me to apologise and I get all gritty-toothed again. I am gutted that I could be sitting here out of debt or with the work started on my hovel. I am still waiting for a structural engineer to check the house before I plan my next move. I had vaguely talked to a chap here about buying his house (as an alternative to getting the hovel fixed up) – after my sale fell through I phoned him and said that I definitely wouldn’t be making him an offer. He got back to me and offered to rent the house to me for a couple of years, and if I then decided to buy it he would deduct however much I had paid him in rent. It would all be done legally and I can’t understand why I didn’t jump at the chance. I wasn’t committed to buying the house and if I didn’t I would just have paid the rent – which I am paying anyway. I think it is because the builder got me fired up again over the hovel.

Money news: I haven’t yet had the bill from the solicitor, which I find odd. Still, I doubt she has forgotten me. My windscreen wiper fell off again – in the rain, miles from anywhere and I couldn’t get it back on. I struggled on, leaning over and looking out of the passenger side while trying to steer in a straight line, and stopped at a garage where a nice young man sorted it out. I don’t think he was going to charge me anything, so I asked how much I owed him and he said €4, probably fairly sure I’d give him a fiver, which of course I did – well spent, though. Other than that, everything is just trundling along, although I really will have to get a new laptop soon.

What am I talking about, trundling along? The trauma was so great, I’ve blocked it from my mind … when I was sorting out the wages for the inspection, I discovered I had been overpaid. :eek: I ranted and raged at the wages department, and the wages department screamed back at me – all to no avail, of course, since I am the wages department. I decided to pay it back by not taking any wages for two weeks. I had quite an argument with lovely boss man over this as he wanted me to take the wages anyway – and in MSE terms I should have done, but it was my mistake and I wouldn’t have felt right keeping the money. The reason I got it wrong was that because I am part self-employed and part-employed, I have quite a high tax code which means that I pay nearly a fifth of my wages to Mr Revenue (although less at the end of the year on my self-employed return). So, I suppose I should be glad of the inspection since otherwise I might have carried on overpaying myself for the rest of the year and would have had to pay it all back then.

The animals are all fine. Finn got to be too much of a nuisance in the office, so I reluctantly left him at home shut in (he protested by shredding toilet rolls over the carpet). (I did think of bringing him in today and leaving him in the office with the inspector – that should ensure she didn’t stay too long.) Then he learnt to take himself out through the bathroom window and now there’s no knowing what he gets up to. I don’t know whether he’s found his way down to MrP’s yet – the other two undoubtedly haven’t let him in on the secret of the free sausage they get down there. He's just started coming for a walk with us in the mornings - I am having to go slower than ever as he keeps stopping to bat stalks of grass or leap on imaginary beasties, and I am afraid to march too far on in case he doesn't know where he is. I worry about the road, but I can’t keep them locked away forever.

My social life isn’t picking up any. Lovely boss man is getting married in a couple of weeks’ time. All of us have been invited, but we can’t shut the shop so I am working instead. I am somewhat peeved that the other ladies didn’t discuss with me which of us would go and which would work – they just assumed they were going and that was that.

Well, what a lot of words to say that actually nothing much has changed in my life! No change there, then!