And so, 2020, goodbye!

Not wanting to drop into sentimental backwards-reflection, but it’s worth pointing out that, whatever this year has done to us, we have made it through to the end. I am still alive to be able to blog today, and I’m assuming – if you’re reading this – you are still alive to enjoy it.

We made it, folks.

Brothers and sisters, we are the lucky ones. Rejoice in our survival and determine within yourselves to face the net few months with bravery and resolve, and to celebrate the post-vaccine world for everything it has to offer us.

Have a great ’21, my friends……

RC 31-12-20

A thoroughly Chesworth Christmas

Well, what a wondrous time it has been.
I am sitting in my little office at work, surrounded by snacks and decorations, and I can’t believe it’s only a week since I last posted on this blogsite. It has been a long, lovely, light-hearted, luminous, overindulgent, joyous few days. Fun, family, food, festivities, farting, feelgood, fabulous!
Even when the government gave us Tier 4 as a Christmas present, it didn’t dampen my enjoyment.
It hasn’t even bothered me that I’ve had to do some work. The big thought in my head, of course, is “I’ll never have to do this again!” It’s my last ever (hopefully) December in supermarket-linked filling-station management and it’s easier to do unpleasant things when you know you’ll never have to do them again.
The lack of family interaction meant a lack of travelling and a lack of packing the car, which was a welcome change and meant we had even more time to enjoy Mathew’s first meaningful Yuletime. (One thing you never think about when planning to become parents is just how much time you spend preparing, and how much you physically have to pack, just to be able to enjoy a day out somewhere!) This year it was all spent at Chez Nous, and it was wonderful.
My big new taste revelation was Bleu D’Auvergne cheese, which I fear I may consume so much of between now and my birthday that I shall end up sweating it through my nails.
My favourite piece of television (not that we watched much) was my first viewing of “Moana” (Disney’s finest film for years) and my favourite moment all told was a 5pm Christmas Day Zoom link with Sophie, Hannah and Nathan. All merry, all stuffed with food, all happy to be together (remotely) and all full of the festive joys.
It’s been relaxed, son-centred and brilliant, and we still have New Year weekend to enjoy, and then its only three weeks til my birthday!
I am, to be frank, a pig in shit.

RC 30-12-20

Managing the Management

My last day of work before The Big (not so big this year) Day. I’m back in on the 27^th though, so it’s not like I’ve got a massive break, but at least it IS a break. I’ve tried to be as kind as possible with my staff rotas, and we are blessed with a couple of employees at a couple of the sites who are happy to work most days, but I still feel bad when I have to ask people to man shifts at Winter Holiday Time.
It’s the downside of working in an industry that barely blinks at Christmas.
Anyway, to offset my guilt at asking people to work the festive season, I’m doing quite a few days myself. But it’s lovely to have Xmas Eve, Xmas Day and Boxing Day at home, and I assure you I am far more excited than I probably sound in my recent postings! It’s just been a long year, as it has for all of us, and I feel more relieved than anything to have actually got to this point and to be in a position to enjoy it.
In case I don’t post again tomorrow – wherever you are, whatever Tier you are in, however you are celebrating this weirdest of Christmasses, I wish you a very happy, very safe, cough-free, super-indulgent, love-filled Merry Christmas.
xxxx

RC 23-12-20

Busy!

For all the talk of coronavirus and restrictions affecting people’s Christmasses, and for all the appeals from the government for people to act responsibly, we have the usual December madness ramping up in the store today. There’s not a parking space to be had anywhere, and there are queues of shoppers around the side of the building and halfway back to the filling station.

I am so, so glad at times like these that I am manager of the garage and not the superstore!

You might think that a ‘shorter, safer’ Christmas would mean people need less supplies in than normal, but I guess it’s traditional to buy three trollies full of crap you won’t eat just to make yourself feel prepared.

RC 22-12-20

4 more sleeps, kids...

Getting even closer now, and for some reason my Yuletide enthusiasm seems to have waned slightly. Maybe it’s a natural downturn after Mathew’s birthday, or maybe I went too early with my Christmas Excitement Ramp-Up, or maybe the upturn in virus cases has alarmed me, or maybe I’m just tired today. Either way, my plan to spend my workday watching Xmas films has been altered by lethargy. I simply don’t feel festive and I can’t be bothered to make the effort to try and force it.
There is a – surprisingly – professional aspect to all this. There are things I need to get sorted before the madness of The Big Day and I’m working hard to get them all done by midweek, so I can relax then instead of rushing to catch up with myself.
I did have a bit of a sore throat last night and I lay awake worrying that my little mini-tour of our garages on Friday may have exposed me to 2020’s Most Playful Virus, or that maybe I had it already and I now face the prospect of having caused an outbreak around my workforce and I’ll have to get loads of my employees to self-isolate, and I’ll then have to deal with the horror of finding staff to replace them, when it’s literally days before Christmas. But then I woke up this morning feeling fine.
I think the sore throat may have been down to the alarmingly large number of crisps, nuts, snacks and crackers that I consumed during the course of the day. Mathew is too little to enjoy most of those things, but I got some in anyway, because if you can’t take advantage of your offspring’s birthday to overindulge in party food, what’s the point of becoming a parent?

RC 21-12-20

A CoronaCoaster Sunday

It’s been a joyous day of birthday cheer for Mathew, tinged with an undercurrent of anxiety and sadness. The new restrictions and regulations announced yesterday are not affecting us directly, but the atmosphere around the whole country, I suspect, is one of despair and fatigue. We’re just getting excited about the distribution of a vaccine and then wallop! – a new strain of the virus is skipping through the South of England like a group of lambs skipping through a meadow.  This was expected to happen at some point, and it doesn’t make the situation any more fatal than it was at other times this year, but the timing does feel like a bit of a bastard. Another kick in the teeth for people who were starting to step forward with optimism.
Anyway – to the important matter at hand! The Little Fella was spoiled rotten and seemed to love every second of it, even if he didn’t fully comprehend that he was the centre of everything, and why.  He was a bit perplexed by his pile of presents to start with, but once we got him started on the tearing and the ripping, he was at it like a cat at a rabbit. I spent two hours late morning putting together his ‘Play Castle’ and he then had fun jumping around in the ball pond. Then he decided it was much more fun to be climbing in and out of the big box it had been delivered in….
We had Zoom calls with various friends and relatives, and Mathew found it quite funny to be poking the faces on the screen. You just never know what they’ll be excited by at this age, do you? Everyone spends loads on toys and cuddlies and clothing, and in the end his biggest smile is when Philippa’s cousin is on Zoom wearing a Santa hat.
Happy Birthday, son.

RC 20-12-20

Officially Official

Most of my staff now know that I will be leaving in a couple of months. I spoke directly to the ones I could, spoke on the phone to those that weren’t on-site, and sent personal e-mails to those I couldn’t reach by mobile. The reaction was mostly lovely, bless them. Quite a few asked if I could get them jobs at the new place, so I guess I’m not the only employee to be slightly disillusioned with life inside this company. Simone, the part-timer who also happens to be a black belt in ju-jitsu, had the nicest response: “Well, I’ll be off then. If you weren’t the boss, I’d have left last year.”
Proving that doing the right thing sometimes gets other people to do the right thing in return, and that karma may not be the joke it is often made out to be, within ten minutes of returning to my office I got a call from Gavin. He apologised for not speaking to me sooner, but said he was trying to be respectful of my current employers and not taking up too much of my time while I’m still with them. He said he’s delighted that I’m definitely joining him, and that we’ll have a meeting sometime in January with the whole management team so we can clarify the new structure and be absolutely clear about who is responsible for what. In the meantime he’ll get all the HR paperwork contract bollocks sorted so I can at least see that I have a job to go to!
Exciting, and it makes me feel more relaxed as I head into a nice long weekend.

RC 18-12-20

A few plans

I am spending this Friday visiting all 4 sites that I am ‘manager’ of, delivering cards and chocolates for all and telling them this will be our last Christmas together.

On Saturday we will finish wrapping stuff and then meet up with Hannah and Nathan for a walk, as that will be the last time we see them until the other side of “Christmas Bubble Time”. Sunday is The Little Man’s birthday so the day is all about him. Monday I am ‘working from home’, so I hope to watch at least three Xmas-themed movies, and to start ramping up my snack intake so my stomach is nicely stretched before the onslaught of ‘Christmas Eating Time'.

RC 17-12-20

Mince Pies & Merriment

LESS THAN TEN DAYS TIL CHRISTMAS DAY!!
I normally find my excitement levels peaking when we get into the 20s (December 20^th, in other words) but this year I seem to be over-the-top with Yule love already. Maybe it’s the Mathew Birthday Excitement kicking in. It’s so nice to have his big day just before Jesus’s Big Day. He’s 2 this year, so I think he’ll be more into the whole experience of tearing paper off and seeing what’s beneath, whereas last year he didn’t have a clue and we did everything for him. This is probably the first year where he’ll be into it, and the first year where he’ll start making memories that will build annually and turn him into as much of a festive freak as I am. And I get to see it happening from the start.
No wonder I’m so excited!

RC 16-12-20

...and the downside

If this year, and all its strange occurrences, have taught me one thing above all others, it’s this: People, generally, are f**king idiots.
My cold is quite clearly a cold, and only a mild one at that, so I pleaded my case with Head Office and was allowed to drag myself back into work today. I like being at home, but there were a few things I had to get sorted with the Store Manager and it was just so much easier to do it face-to-face and on-site.
I spent the first hour persuading two members of staff that I wasn’t putting them at risk of death by being back. I spent the rest of the day having people step away from me every time I blew my nose or sneezed, and I spent most of the time in between explaining to customers with less IQ than a fridge door the differences between Covid symptoms and a regular Winter cold.
Nothing has changed since February, how are there still huge numbers of people who don’t have a f**King clue about this stuff? A simple list of symptoms to watch out for, a simple set of rules to follow, and anyone would think you were asking them to recalibrate the solar panel settings on the ISS.
And then there’s the anti-vaccine stupidity and ignorance that is dominating the world of social media. I’m not going to drag myself down further by discussing it, I’m just going to hope that a massive Electro-Magnetic Pulse wipes out all the internet before Mathew reaches 5 so he doesn’t grow up into this shit and be affected by it.

RC 15-12-20

The upside of this here pandemic

I’ve been working from home today. My sniffles got worse as yesterday progressed and I ended my Sunday with a slight cough. Work being work, and my employers being as they are, they want me to stay away for 48 hours, and to get a test if things don’t change. The fact that there are clear differences between Covid and a cold, and the fact that I am sneezing and sniffing rather than coughing, and the fact that my temperature was only slightly raised, and only briefly, isn’t considered. I’m not going to complain, I could quite happily see out the 3 months of my notice sitting at home in the kitchen, but it does show you how little understanding of this virus thing there still is nearly a year after it was first identified. 
In other (but related) news – Ted and Beryl have dates for their vaccine jabs!! Ted apparently reacted to the call by saying “I’m not being a pissing guinea pig for the younger folk” and Beryl told him “Shut up, you twat, and do as you’re told.”
God, it’ll be good to know they’re protected. And it’s really exciting to think we might be allowed to go and see them again soon!

RC 14-12-20

Sunday sniffles

I’m really tired today. I think it’s the ‘old job/new job’ stress catching up. Or maybe I’ve just been really lucky this year and not had any psychological effects from the whole Virus Scenario and now it’s finally hitting me.
Or maybe I just have a cold.
It would be just my luck if I have Covid now, on the very weekend that the quarantine time is reduced from 14 days to 10!
I’m not trying to fight it, I’m just taking it easy and letting Philippa fuss over me. She made some delicious curried parsnip soup for lunch and I’ve followed that up with some cheese and biscuits, featuring a particularly fine Binham Blue.
At least I know my sense of taste hasn’t changed…..

RC 13-12-20

Two weeks from Boxing Day!!

This is the 10^th year running that I’ve posted 200+ blogs in the year.

Philippa has decided this weekend is ‘Wrapping Time’. For some reason (I suspect she bought into the media/facebook hype about everything selling out) she got all our pressie shopping done by Dec 7^th, so now it just needs wrapping and labelling and we’re done for another year! She even sorted things out for MY side of the family. Admittedly, there’s only a couple of them, but it saved me a job I suppose. My suggestion was that we forego buying each other stuff and just spent all the money on food instead, but no-one else agreed. So now we have a house full of shite that we somehow have to deliver to different houses when we’re not supposed to visit anybody.  Hmmm…

Our ‘Christmas bubble’ has been complicated to sort out. Last year, you may remember, we absconded to a lovely little farmhouse with my sisters, and had booked to do the same this year. But 2020 circumstances being what they have been, we had a conflab back before Lockdown 2 and all decided it might be best to cancel. The people running the accommodation basically had the same thoughts as us, and would rather not have groups of people from different locations congregating in their cottages this December, so they welcomed the cancellation and offered to let us re-book for some time in 2021.
Sophie will now be working, and Hannah is with Nathan’s churchy people, so I won’t spend time with them until my birthday. Philippa’s folks aren’t always the most flexible of people, so there’s been some in-family negotiations that I’ve kept myself away from, for the sake of my own sanity.
Ted and Beryl have been having breakdowns about which of their children to have round, but I think it’s all been sorted now. I did feel for Beryl, bless her. Her family are so important to her and not being able to see them constantly this year has been horrible for her. The idea of their usual huge Christmas gathering kept her going for a while, and when it was limited to three households it really upset her. She’s already planning a gargantuan ‘post-vaccine’ party for when we’re all allowed out again.
Ted, in his usual sanguine manner, has been ‘hoping Covid would claim me so I don’t have to wear a paper hat’. He’s so humbuggy in the build-up to Christmas, but I know he loves it just as much as she does.

RC 12-12-20

Did I jump too soon?

Gavin has not yet officially offered me the position he asked me about before I chose to resign. Since I let him know that I’ve handed in my notice he has gone worryingly quiet.
I don’t think he’s changed his mind, I think this is just ‘Change Fear’ on my part descending into anxious paranoia, but it would be nice to know that I definitely have a job to go to.

Thinking about it, I do seem to remember that my exact placement in the management structure was still unclear. He was quite honest about that and I said it was absolutely fine. If I recall correctly (now wishing I had taken some notes instead of just chatting away and drinking coffee) there will be four of us, including Gavin, who between us will cover all the necessary duties, and the exact details will be ironed out now he knows who the four people are. Because it’s a bit of a restructure, there’s probably lots of HR considerations and protocols that have to be followed before anything becomes completed and defined.

There are now three paragraphs in this blog posting, and they’ve been written at three different times of day. My mind is a whirring flurry of flurrying whirriness. I am partly worried that I have made a mistake, partly worried that I dreamt the whole thing, and partly worried that Gavin has changed his mind. I need to just accept my decision to quit, wait patiently for it all to fall into place, and relax and get on with my day.
So I’m going to make myself a seasonal gingerbread latte and enjoy the Roast Chicken & Herbs Pringles that have just accidentally fallen off a shelf and become too damaged to be sold to the public.

RC 11-12-20

Hope he's not reading this...

10 days ahead of time, we have finished our Birthday Shopping for Mathew. We got him an elaborate Play Castle thing that you build in his bedroom and he can go in and out of it as he pleases. There’s a mini ball pond and the walls are full of educational tools and toys and trinkets. All very bright, all very expensive, and I’m disappointed that it didn’t come with a qualified construction engineer to put it together for me, because the instructions look as complicated as an attempt at a Unified Field Theory. We also got him some books and a few bits of clothing, and we’ll stick some money away in an account for him as well.
It’s hard to know how to play it when your child has a birthday 5 days before Christmas. I imagine it will change year-to-year, and as soon as he’s old enough we’ll let him make his own decisions, but for this year we’ve said we’ll make it a big, separate occasion and he can have separate presents for each.
I think it’ll be great when he’s older. If there’s something he wants on his Christmas list that’s a bit beyond our planned price range he can have it as a combined birthday/Xmas pressie. I know the downside is that he won’t have another big event to look forward to during the year, but he won’t know any different will he? As someone whose ‘big day’ is just a few weeks into the New Year (subtle hint, there) I know what it’s like to have everything crammed into a small part of the year, and for me it actually heightens everything. Hopefully it will be the same for him, and if it isn’t he can just celebrate his birthday some other time of year.

RC 10-12-20

Bring it on (Xmas edition)

In a strange, sadistic way, I am quite looking forward to the pre-Xmas madness that every December in the world of retail brings. It’s nice to know it will be my last time experiencing it. It’s also nice to feel the familiarity of it all. I’ve hated the phrase ‘a bit of normality’ and I’ve hated everyone who has used it, but I must confess that in this year of uncertainty, confusion and constant change, knowing exactly what is going on for the next 3 weeks or so is rather comforting.
(Now I just have to hope our esteemed government don’t decide to change what tier we’re in a few days before Christmas.)

RC 9-12-20

Thanks, Susie.

My Area Manager has been in contact and is the first person within the company to react to my resignation like a human being! She gave me the corporate spin bollocks about her getting a promotion soon and me being in line for her job, but apart from that it was just a nice chat between colleagues. I scoffed at her suggestions about the ‘great career path in retail’ for those with a bit of intelligence. I told her ‘that’s fine if you want it, but my years in this industry have taught me that I don’t’ and left it at that. We then had a bit of a chinwag about the new job and she did actually make some good suggestions – things I won’t bore you with here, but ways in which my time in Supermarket Filling Station Area Sub-Division Multi-Site Management might be useful.
See – that’s another positive aspect of making this change. For the first time in years, I’ll know exactly what my job title is!

RC 8-12-20

Weird Insomniac Thoughts About My Job

This all piled through my head, between the hours of 2 and 4 am this morning:

Damn, I shall miss my staff discount card!!!
It’s exciting to think I’ll be dealing with people on holiday (and therefore cheerful) rather than people shopping or on their way to work (and therefore grumpy)
It’ll be nice to lose the permanent smell of petrol.
The times that I am normally my busiest (approaching Xmas) will be the times things are quieter on the holiday scene.
And even if the point above this one is not true, I can refer you back to point 2 on this list – holidaymakers in December will be cheerful rather than stressed!
This might be the first time in my life that I have been excited about upcoming employment.
A change is as good as a holiday.
I feel young again!!!

RC 7-12-20

Calm

Today was a beautiful, family, stress-free, non-work, out-of-lockdown, enjoyable Sunday of loveliness. We met up with a couple of Philippa’s cousins for a law-abiding, socially-distance stroll on the beach, we had a lovely lunch (provided by our nearest pub, who are doing some gourmet takeaway options all Winter) and then we spent time finishing the Christmas decorations. Our house is now a gorgeous grotto, resplendent with cheerful colours and as luscious as a Lapland lovenest.


RC 6-12-20

Decsup!

Our tree is up and decorated and I am glowing with the joyous internal fluffiness that can only be felt in Yuleland!!
Over the course of a year I seem to forget just how wonderful and magical it is to be in a home full of twinkly lights and sparkly tinsel! Then we get into December and the loveliness starts again! And don’t tell me this just takes me back to my childhood, when I would have felt all safe and unstressed, and excited about the imminent arrival of Santa. My mum never bothered making an effort at Christmas, so this has all come to me in adulthood.
Mathew (nearly 2) is finding it all very entertaining and bewildering. He keeps rolling baubles across the floor and trying to push tinsel into plug sockets. Then he tried to jump into the tree while I was putting lights on it. Young ‘uns are great but sometimes they behave worse than kittens.

RC 5-12-20

Unwanted Feeling of Unappreciatedness

Those Above Me have sent me a response, of sorts, to my resignation e-mail. I was starting to wonder whether I had sent it to the wrong people, or whether I had accidentally written it in Swahili, but no. No mistakes were made, they’re just unbelievably crap at communicating with the staff that do all the work for them, and that’s a huge part of my motivation to leave.
There was a waffly paragraph about ‘understanding frustrations’ and ‘accepting it’s been a difficult year for the retail trade’ and then a few lines about wanting to discuss things with me before I make a final decision. I’ve read it a few times and I still can’t work out if they’re letting me go, persuading me to stay, or simply indifferent. My suspicion is they’re going to drag things out as long as they can, so my 3-month notice period can’t officially start, so they can keep me in position until they either find a replacement or wipe the job from existence completely.
I need to decide now when to start telling my staff. I’ll still be around until the end of February but I don’t want them to start worrying about their own jobs and who might be dropped in above them as their new boss. Things have a habit of slipping out when you don’t want them to, and I’d like them to hear it from me, and hear the truth, rather that react to any rumours that will no doubt start flying soon.
It’s strange how quickly I have adapted to the fact that I’m leaving. I thought I’d take a while to get used to it and have a few days of doubting my decision or regretting the fact that I’d taken it, but that hasn’t happened at all. If anything, it feels like I’ve woken up and realised just how much I dislike about the place and the position and how pleased I am that I’ve got a way out.
I’ve often spoken to people before about the terrible situation that so many adults find themselves in – falling accidentally into a job that they then convince themselves is good, and end up getting stuck with – without twigging that I was in that situation myself.

RC 4-12-20

Happy New Month / Same Old Job

I feel very odd. It’s been a while since I’ve handed in my resignation anywhere and I had forgotten that it makes you feel excited, anxious, vulnerable and weird. I’m doing my usual duties, but I’m only keeping the seat warm until they find someone else to replace me. I’m planning things for the future of the company that I will not be around to see the results of. I am in a strange Limboland of my own creation.
I didn’t know what the reaction from Head Office would be, but I expected there to be a reaction of some kind. Instead I’ve heard nothing. Their response to my decision to leave has been complete silence.  No doubt there are a couple of under-worked middle-managers somewhere, twiddling their abacuses and speaking to external consultants and deciding whether to let me go and save some wages or ask me to stay and offer me a few more quid. I imagine, in the end, the chance to reduce their staffing outgoings will win out over any chance of improving my contract conditions in an attempt to persuade me to hang around. It’s pretty much a given that my job title is on the way out next year anyway, so me leaving in February means they avoid having to pay me redundancy when the restructuring finally happens.
Anyway – that’s not my concern anymore.
But it might have been nice to be acknowledged, at least.

RC 2-12-20