The Limbo Weekend

I feel strange.

Trying to process the fact that my days in the world of supermarkets-and-attached-garages is finished, while also preparing myself for the fact that I step into the world of holidays and hospitality on Monday.

My staff gave me a lovely send-off, whereas no-one from Higher Management sent so much as an e-mail, which tells you all you need to know about this company. (I suppose I should say THAT company now, as I’m no longer part of it!!!)

I got a genuinely lovely card with some nice messages in, and there’d been a bit of a whip-round to buy me a nice mug and a “World’s Best Boss” T-shirt. I’m too humble and self-deprecating to ever wear it, but it’s instantly become one of my favourite items of clothing, and shall hang in my wardrobe as a reminder that sometimes I did things right as a manager.

I think I shall go for a walk now, and then plan a super, duper, indulgent in-between-workplaces celebratory tea!

RC 28-2-21

The End of an Era

And that – Thank God – is my time in the retail industry over and done with.

RC 26-2-21

Unexpected, Welcome and Relief

I’m stunned this has happened, but I’m quick to criticise my employers on the many occasions that they mess things up, so I have to give them a bit of credit when they make a decision that is sensible. It has been agreed today that Joanna will NOT take over my job on Monday. A temporary solution has been thrown together where she’ll be alongside someone called Martin, who I know quite well and is a good man, until she is fully up to speed with all the complexities of the job and is confident enough to do them on her own.
This is in no way a reflection on Joanna and her abilities, it is just impossible for anyone to learn enough about this position in 10 days for them to then be left to get on with it. There are 4 different sites she is responsible for, all of which run slightly differently, and you would ideally need to spend a month at each one before you would understand what is needed at each. In the time she and I have had together, we have barely managed to leave my office.
Martin is now high up on the technical side of the business, but prior to that he was a manager of stores and filling stations for about 15 years, and was partly responsible for the creation of the current way of doing things, with Area Sub-Division Micro-Managing Supervisors (or whatever the Hell my job title is this week) so he really knows his stuff and will be a perfect mentor.
It’s great for Joanna and it’s great for me, because now I can get through my last day tomorrow without feeling like I’m dropping her in it or sabotaging the jobs of everyone I’ve got to know at the garages over the past few years.

RC 25-2-21

Op-tea-mism

Sister Sophie has had to have a mole removed. I can’t believe she didn’t tell me in advance, but it was supposed to happen last year but got delayed thanks to The Playful Virus, then she postponed it herself to concentrate on keeping the old people in her care home alive. “I didn’t want to worry anyone,” was her rationale behind keeping mum, but it means she’s been going through several months of “Is-It-Or-Isn’t-It-Cancer-And-When-The-Hell-Will-They-Cut-It-Off?” anguish with no support from her family.

I said as much to her this evening, only to be called a twat. She said she knew from the start it wasn’t anything to be concerned about, it was more to do with cosmetics and comfort, as it’s on her neck and anything she wears that has a collar rubs on it and makes it sore, but still….

 

Tonight I cooked a stir fry that was so big we could have fed half the population of Suffolk with it. A new wok arrived in the house recently and I put it through its paces tonight with strips of marinated beef, 17 different chopped vegetables and enough spices and sauce to drown a hippo in.

I am satisfied, but uncomfortable.

RC  24-2-21

Optimal optimism

IT’S NEARLY MARCH!!!
Not sure if I’ve mentioned it at any point in the past 12 years or so, but March is my favourite month. The onset of Spring, the change to BST, the lighter nights, the brighter days, the warmer air, the blooming flowers, the returning birds, the chance to cycle after tea, the first picnic of the year, the possibility of a barbecue…. Even as I type all this, my excitement levels are growing and my positivity is expanding.
It feels accentuated this year as well because it is looking very much like March 2021 will be the month where we finally start stepping slowly forward towards the post-Covid rebirth of an enjoyably less-restricted life.
That was possibly the most complicated sentence I have ever written in this blogsphere, and I’m not even sure it made sense, but I don’t care, because it’s nearly March and I’m happy.

RC 23-2-21

Confusing and Confused

This is my longest gap between blogs for a while.

Almost a week.

But, to give me a break from my own criticism for a moment, I have to point out it’s been a very busy week and I haven’t had many moments where I have the time to post anything, at the same time as having the mental clarity to come up with something coherent to type.

So – an update. Poor Joanna has been struggling with the Job Learning thing, but has managed to pick up an amazing amount of information in just 5 working days. I think she’s perfect for the job, and would be much better at it than I have been in my stumbling, bumbling efforts over the past few years, if she hadn’t been handcuffed by the company before she even started by only giving her two weeks to learn absolutely everything before I bugger off to pastures new.

I have said as much in a long e-mail to Those Above Me, which I doubt will have little impact, and probably won’t even be read.

In other ‘New Job’ related musings, I have (alongside being a trainer and still fulfilling my current duties) been giving a lot of my time over to Gavin and the upcoming position I will be in THIS TIME NEXT WEEK!!

I have to confess the nerves have begun to kick in a bit – especially over the weekend when I sat at home trying to learn about the various regulations and laws relating to permanent residency on a holiday centre site. There is so much to take in and get used to, which is exciting and an opportunity to get my brain back in gear again, but is also incredibly difficult when you’re still working your notice in a job where you barely have enough time to do everything in a day, without thinking about the laws relating to a whole new industry you haven’t been in before.

 

I fear I may now be making no sense at all, and may have abandoned the English Language somewhere in the second paragraph of this posting, so I will leave it there for now.

RC 22-2-21

Overwhelmingly underwhelmed

Inspired by the surprisingly good “Greenland” the other day, I decided to try another Gerard Butler movie today, and settled on the submarine action/suspense movie “Hunter Killer”.
It was awful.

RC 16-2-21

Depressingly unprepared

Today was Day 1 of my “Try And Teach A New Employee Everything You Can About Managing 4 Filling Stations In 10 Working Days” scenario and it went about as well as can be expected.
Having been given very little notice that this was going to happen, I didn’t have time to plan a schedule and prepare stuff for her, so poor Joanna was like a blind person being led through a dark room by another blind person who has forgotten what shape the room is.
She has also, it seems to me, not really been given the necessary background information to make an informed choice about whether to take this on or not. It looks like she’s been dropped in it by an Area Manager who had not planned ahead and by a Head Office that has very little understanding of what it is that I do. They all seem to think a few shadow shifts are all that are needed to bring someone up to scratch on all the systems and how the rotas work (they’re slightly different at each site) and everything that is needed in each location. You would think it would make sense to have someone in place for more than a month, so they can see how the monthly figures are compiled, and what factors are taken into consideration when ordering stock, and have time to try stuff themselves and ask questions, but no…
By doing it this way, they are saving themselves a bit of money, I expect, so we’ll just have to make the best of it.
10% of our time together has passed, and I’ve probably told Joanna 0.1% of what she needs to know.
Hey, ho….

RC 15-2-21

Worrying symptom

When your piss is coming out like hagfish slime, that’s not a good sign, right?

RC 14-2-21

Surprising outcome

I watched the Gerard Butler-starring disaster movie ‘Greenland’ today. I mention this because I can’t remember the last time I was so pleasantly surprised by a film!
It’s a bit silly, of course it is, but for the kind of genre it comes from, it is nicely made, with decent characters and characterisations, and some very original action sequences. I put it on and waited for a bilgefest, and it turned out to be worth watching!
So sometimes, you see, expecting nothing is a good idea because then you’re pleased with whatever you get. (Something Philippa should bear in mind, with it being Valentine’s Day tomorrow….)

RC 13-2-21

Tonight, I have decided, I shall drink

Starting on Monday, I have to spend all my remaining time at work with a lady called Joanna, who has been selected by Head Office as the poor person who will be fulfilling my duties until they get their arses in gear enough to decide whether or not to replace me.  On the plus side, this means it looks like they’ve finally given up on their efforts to persuade (or force) me to stay beyond the end of Feb. On the downside, it means I’ve got to spend two weeks teaching someone all the systems and routines that it’s taken me five years or so to make run smoothly, while also trying to make sure I’ve done all I can to make the sites carry on efficiently without me, such as getting ahead with orders and rotas til Easter. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased – for the sake of the employees I’m leaving behind – that they’ve finally put into place a succession plan of sorts, but it’s not fair on me, or Joanna, or anyone else at the four locations she’s going to have to get her head around in the 10 working days she’ll be with me.

 

In other news, I asked Philippa if she was going to update her facebook status to include the phrase “I’ve got vaccinated and so should you” or whatever slogan that stupid campaign is pushing people to pollute social media with.

She gave a long, passionate answer that I can paraphrase thus: “No I’m not, because I use facebook to keep in touch with family and friends, not to keep giving myself a pat on the back for every little thing I do in my day.  I’m also not arrogant enough to think that me putting a picture of myself with a ‘Jabbed’ tag online will persuade anyone else to get the vaccine.”

I do love her.

RC 12-2-21

Down in the mouth

I have another ulcer, less than 2mm away from the site of the double-headed oral monster that tortured my mealtimes last week.

What have I done to deserve such pain?

It’s not as if my diet has been full of sugar-rich foods in a never-ending daily onslaught of indulgence that has barely paused for breath since Christmas Eve…. Oh, hang on.

RC 11-2-21

The beauty of snow and the horror of management

The locality is housed in a scene akin to a Christmas card. It is picturesque and pleasant and should be pleasing to the eye, but I am strangely unmoved by it this time around. I think I’m just desperate for Spring to roll in early and give us some warm days and some light nights and seeing three inches of snow everywhere is making me feel like the solstice is months away. In truth, we are roughly six weeks removed from Xmas, and roughly six weeks away from BST, so the year is flying by like a wasp flying by a child’s ear during a picnic and there really are better times ahead. But sat in my cold office with a dull sky and the ugly sight of exhaust-fume-enhanced, engine-heat-induced slush out of the window is depressing. I need the sensation of sitting in the garden with the sun on my back sooner rather than later.

In other news, someone at Head Office is continuing to try and convince everyone that I should have to work on beyond the end of this month. They claim there are sentences in my contract that mean they can force me to stay in place until a suitable replacement has been found and adequately trained, but that’s not true. The only way my contract says that is if they’ve edited it since I signed it. I’m not accusing them of anything, you understand, but I think this is a case of A Big Company trying to bully A Small Cog In Their Organisation by confusing them with legality and threatening them with action. It ain’t gonna work, and she’s wasting her time trying.
Thinking about it, I’m not entirely sure I even signed that contract in the first place, so I could have left in December if I’d wanted to.

RC 10-2-21

Rites of passage

The internet is full of ‘Things Everyone Should Do During Childhood’ lists, so here’s mine:

 

Getting a splinter

Building a snowman

Climbing a tree

Getting sunburnt

Stealing fruit from someone’s garden

Falling off your bike

Nettle rash

Swimming in the sea

Having a water fight

Skipping a day of school

RC 9-2-21

February flying, continued

This has often been the time of year that Philippa and I would venture abroad for some Winter Sun, and I must admit I’m missing it. I have spent long periods of today having a look at travel agency websites to see if there are bargains to be had, and I’ve even been watching some 24-hour webcams broadcasting from beaches in Madeira, or the top of a hotel in Bermuda. Maybe that was a bad idea as it’s just filled me with a wistful longing and made me even more fed up with the British Winter.

It’s hard to know how to feel about booking a foreign holiday. It would be nice to have something to look forward to in a few months’ time, but who knows where we’ll be with the pandemic and if we’ll be allowed to go anywhere? We could book a lovely stay at Lame Como (for example) only to have it cancelled the day before and be left in an awful mood.

Thinking about it, this is all feeling rather familiar, so I think I must have covered all this in a previous blog, so I think I’ll leave that subject there for now.

On the plus side – I am about to start working for someone who runs a holiday company, and I imagine he has lots of interesting contacts within the industry, so as soon as the skyways open up again I bet he can fix me up with a super stay somewhere sunny and splendid.

RC 8-2-21
1900 GMT

February flying

Three weeks today I start my new job. Madness. Hardly seems real.

Today – rarely for a Monday these days – I am ensconced in the office rather than working from home. We had a few people ‘unable to negotiate the snow sufficiently to be able to start their shifts’ and as I live only a short drive from work, I have braved the elements to sweep in and save the day. It wasn’t too bad a journey, actually. Getting out of our drive was the hardest bit, once the tyres hit the road it was plain sailing all the way here. A few mini-drifts where the light snow covering had been blown across the fields and accumulated near the hedges, but apart from that it was fine.

I am warming myself now with a luxury hot chocolate while listening to the Australian Open tennis on the radio.

Decadent, perhaps, but deserved.

RC 8-2-21

Annual Super Bowl prediction post

God, I need Spring.

The weather is awful and it’s too cold to go for a walk.

 

Anyway – to the matter in hand.

I’ve gone backwards and forwards with this all week. You can’t go against how brilliant Kansas City have been all season, but the Buccaneers have looked like they’re surging through the post-season. Mahomes is an absolute freak, but he’s carrying a couple of injuries. Brady is The Best Ever, but he made some big mistakes in his last game, and the Chiefs defence will be all over him.

I’m going for a 41-35 scoreline, but I still can’t decide who’ll win.

Sod it – I’ll go for TAMPA. I keep predicting against them in the play-offs, and they keep making me look silly. Might as well back them once.

 

Can I really see the KC D giving up 40+ points against a 40+ year-old quarterback though?

Oh, stop overthinking it Rory, and stick to a bloody decision for once.

TAMPA 41 CHIEFS 35.

There.

Done.

RC 7-2-21

February Friday Fri-ku

Quite cold today, but

We are creeping towards Spring

And that warms my heart

 

Three weeks left at work

A new adventure begins

In twenty-four days

 

Super Bowl weekend

Let’s stock up on drinks and snacks

Indulgence ahoy!

RC 5-2-21

Wheels of Weirdness

I watched the documentary film “Lance” on BBC iPlayer this morning. Its not about medieval weaponry, its about the cyclist Lance Armstrong.  Well worth a watch it is, too. I knew most of the story, and I have watched the rather excellent motion picture version “The Program” but it was good to see interviews with the people involved, and to hear the man himself reflecting on his past and his behaviour and his legacy. He didn’t come across well, in my opinion. He was saying some apologetic and remorseful things, but they seemed to be coming from a place of necessity rather than from a place of honesty. His mouth was producing the appropriate words, but his eyes betrayed a sense of arrogant defiance. It seems to me that he still doesn’t think he did anything wrong, at any point. He cheated, he lied, he ruined people’s careers, he took money that he hadn’t earned and he still seems shocked that people didn’t like him.

It’s a tough one, because as a friend of mine has pointed out (and as was indeed covered in the documentary) the amount of good he did through his Foundation and the positive impact he has had on cancer sufferers and how they view themselves is astonishing and must be acknowledged. But it’s very hard to separate the Good Man who improved tens of thousands of lives through his efforts and inspiration, from the Bad Man who was at the centre of possibly the biggest, worst self-serving deception ever perpetrated in sport. Can we admire someone for their achievements while admonishing them for their crimes? Can we love someone who does hateful things?

God knows, so I shall leave it up to him and go and put the kettle on.

RC 4-2-21

The Politicisation of Vaccination

This blog will be nothing to do with politics or vaccines, but you have to admit the title is pretty catchy and I couldn’t resist the temptation to use it.
I had an e-mail from someone quite high up in the company today, making a half-hearted attempt to convince me to stay beyond the end of the month. It was full of sycophantic waffle and ego-massaging bullcrud, but I know for a fact that she doesn’t have a clue who I am, so it was just some facts and figures from my sites cut-and-pasted into a pre-written document, and some badly-worded compliments thrown together in the hope I might feel appreciated.
I have not replied, and I probably won’t bother. It’s almost insulting rather than gratifying. Note to Higher Management – if you want to keep staff happy, praise them for the good things they do when they do them, rather than leaving it until they’re heading for the door. Employees only feel valued when nice things are said appropriately, rather than to serve a purpose. Treat us less like small cogs and more like valued human beings and you might get better work from us.
There.

RC 3-2-21

Double whammy

I checked my gob in the mirror this morning, and it turns out my painful bastard of an ulcer is actually two separate ulcers overlapping each other. How is that even possible? No wonder my gum feels like someone’s scraped a red-hot razor-sharp garden spade across it. I’ve been rinsing my mouth out with salted water, which is ridiculously painful but strangely refreshing, and I’m using Bonjela for the first time in years, but it’s still distractingly painful.

Don’t tell my current employers, but I’ve already started doing little bits of work for Gavin and the holiday people. They’re planning to relaunch their website before the end of the month so I’m just re-writing a few bits for them to better reflect my plans for the future. I haven’t made those plans yet, but maybe the act of writing a few bullet points about them for the website will provoke my imagination to develop the ideas and I’ll find myself swamped with inspiration.
It’s a weird situation, because we don’t know yet when the parks will be allowed to re-open, and so we haven’t yet worked out who will be responsible for what, but we’re having regular video meetings now and I’m getting to know the management team a bit better. I like them all immensely. I’m used to dealing with the inner workings of a huge national company, where everyone is fighting each other to prove themselves to the faceless entities at Head Office, whereas chats with Gavin and the team feel more like a family Zoom quiz. It’s a small group and they obviously work well together, and care about each other, and are working towards a common goal, rather than shitting all over each other for brownie points, like in my current situation.

RC 2-2-21

My March 1st start date is becoming more and more exciting by the day….

Miserable start to the Month

My problematic tooth is playing up again, and I have an ulcer on my gum that is roughly the same diameter as the Isle of Wight.  Thank God I paid seventy quid to a hygienist last week or my mouth might be really sore….

 

I’m sick of the constant cloud cover. Everything – typically of a British Winter – is cast in an overhang of grey. I’ve checked my 14-day weather forecast app and it tells me we’re due to have a grand total of 1 hour of sunshine over the next two weeks.

Brilliant.

 

Trying to be positive for a moment, though, we’ve ticked one month off the year already, Philippa is vaccinated with nothing more than a small discomfort in her arm muscle as a side effect, and it was still pretty light at 5pm yesterday. Spring is on the way! I even noticed some daffodils poking through the ground as we went for a freezing cold walk on Saturday afternoon.

And, of course, I only have four more weeks of supermarket filling station management work to survive!

RC 1-2-21