A day in the life of a Middle Manager...

Runes.

Found this on Buzz-a-roni. At least the runes seem optimistic...

Past Daeg - Increase and expansion, prosperity, growth, major turning points in life, turning in new directions.

Present Sigel - Victory, power, strength, health, the rune of the sun, vitality, drive to work and produce.

Future Tir - Victory, leadership, success over other competitors, increase in finances, virility and passion (especially for men).

Cast the runes here:
Rune Caster

no. 1

So, what was number one in the pop charts when you were born then? You don't know? You can go here to find out...

Apparently mine were

UK : Wandrin' Star by Lee Marvin
US : Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel

Today is a Bank Holiday in the UK so the weather is fairly obviously pretty nondescript, being dull and grey (so, very Manchester then). There's no point trying to get to the beach because Network Rail have decided that this weekend is the right weekend to do major engineering work on all the main lines that connect north to south. Although it does look like the traffic that was predicted on the roads didn't materialise either.

C is working today anyway so we couldn't have done anything really... Ah well. Perhaps we'll manage to do something next weekend? After all, Friday IS our wedding anniversary!

in other news

Carla has managed to give me a cold. Thanks C!

Nothing much exciting happening really so go have a look at this flash version of the Fatboy Slim video for Weapon of Choice.

Yet another wasted bit of time

So, I turn up for the 'consulation' meeting... I sign in (as I no longer work there obviously) and wait... and wait.... and wait..... eventually, after about 20 minutes or so, I get bored of sitting on the couch in reception waiting for someone from HR to bother coming to get me.

I wander through to where my ex-dept is and begin to clear my desk. I spend about 20 minutes doing that and chatting to a couple of people and still no-one from HR has bothered to come and get me so I decide to leave the building. So I sign out.

Another 20 mins or so and I get home, there's a message on the machine... "Hi, this is X from Y, we had a meeting scheduled for 3pm and you haven't attended. Can you please contact me ASAP to reschedule."

WHAT???? You're JOKING right?

I send an email to this person stating the fact that I waited in reception for 20 mins then was at my old desk for another 20 and therefore was in the building for fully 40 mins so they couldn't have tried very hard to locate me. Amazing.

I also find out that my line manager (the guy doing the "study" remember?) wasn't even at this location today, he was in the southern office and was going to join the meeting by phone. NO YOU BLOODY WELL DON'T! I WANT YOU TO LOOK ME IN THE EYES WHEN YOU'RE LYING TO ME, YOU SCUMBAG.

Next meeting is scheduled for next week so we'll see what happens then.

Now this must be the type of meeting they had...

10 ways to know you are not empowered

With thanks to Empowerment Illustrated, originally posted May 8 2003.

1. Your boss ignores your ideas

Could not have been truer of the boss(es) I had.

2. You don't have a boss

That is, when my boss wasn't invisible.

3. You have a boss.

Or too many bosses, or too many people who think they're your boss.

4. You can't talk to people in another department without asking your boss

There are other departments?

5. Customers shout at you if you don't and your boss shouts at you if you do

Oh, the tales I could tell but won't right now... ;)

6. You don't care if you do it right

I did care, now I obviously don't.

7. You do care but you still don't do it right and feel guilty

I did care, hence why I did stop the greedy salespeople just bringing in crap deals because they get paid on revenue and not realised margin.

8. You don't understand what your boss wants

My boss wanted stuff? Shouldn't he communicate that?

9. You know what needs to change but you don't know how to get through the decision making process to make it happen

Or you do know how to get through the decision making process and brick walls are put in your way at every step because the senior management are bonused on reducing costs by 65% over a 12 month period and NOTHING is going to stop them becoming millionaires.

10. The bosses all sit together in a cocoon and don't talk to the rest of you.

Better than that, they manage to sit either in a completely different office or another country... Who is the CEO again?

No.

I hear that there is rumour going around where I used to work. What a surprise.

For anyone who still works there (i.e., they haven't found a cynical sneaky way to make you redundant yet) here goes...

I HAVE NOT BEEN SACKED, I HAVE BEEN MADE REDUNDANT

How much clearer do you want me to be?

Well well well...

... I can't say I'm surprised overall really given that the company are such slimy two-faced backstabbing tossers but I was put 'at risk' today after all of two days back at work.

This essentially means I've been made redundant. The reason given is that they don't need a management resource in the dept I used to run any more. I don't believe that for one second. Not one second.

While I won't be fighting this (I really can't be bothered expending any more energy on this company) I will be documenting everything that gets said so if anyone from there is reading this you can go running to HR if you like.

I do not believe or accept the reason given and will be asking for documented proof of their "study" that shows I am no longer needed. Once I have this I will no doubt be seeking legal advice.

Watch this space for further updates as I have them...

Another mention...

Some regular readers will know that this blog recently got mentioned in the "Doors" ection of the Sunday Times (about a month ago now). I'll see if I can find an online link to the (very) small article and post it at some point.

Anyway, I got another mention on the Manchester Online site. Look for me about two-thirds the way down the article.

Any other journalists that want to mention me or the site, feel free to get in touch. Contact details are on the right in the sidebar. :)

Atkins

As Carla has recently posted talking about diet and what I now can and can't eat I thought I'd follow it up with this small post.

The huge fad here is the Atkins diet and the book has been at or near the top of the amazon best seller list for well over 12 months now. I know a couple of people who absolutely swear by this diet and seem to have done pretty well on it, having lots fairly substantial amounts of weight.

However, we tried it once and lasted 2 days. After the second day we both felt like crap. Possibly because of the caffiene withdrawal, possibly not. We didn't try it again though.

Now I've been diagnosed as diabetic I have to eat a much more balanced diet. There is no such thing any more as a "diabetic diet", just sensible eating. I'll go more into detail about that in a later post as, interestingly, the guidelines from the Canadian and the UK diabetic associations differ quite a bit.

In the meantime, here is an interesting link to read and ponder about the Atkins diet.

I'm back...

... whether you like it or not (this especially applies to the childlike persons who left the nasty comments on other entries).

However, this is not a democracy, nor is it an open forum. I reserve the exclusive right to moderate all comments posted on my site after the fact. This will be posted as a policy page in the next few days. If you don't like it, don't comment

If you've been reading C's blog you'll know that I've been pretty ill and that there have been some erm... "technical difficulties" with this site...

Anyway, I'm back now and there will be pretty regular updates of the site again. I now have something more to blog about, given that I was recently diagnosed with type 1 (insulin dependent) diabetes.