After lots of dilemma, I *did* go dressed up to the “Christmas” party that was held at the weekend.

I think I look rather fabulous! Not so sure about the long blonde hair though - short and spiky is so much easier to manage.

Did get a bit drunk, but wasn’t too bad. My ex-boss managed to fall off her platforms and sprain her ankle - and got carted off in a wheelchair. She spent most of the night in Casualty. She has been into work today, and her ankle is hardly swollen - while I feel a bit of sympathy for her, I know what it’s like to properly sprain your ankle, and hers is barely a bump.

Food was crap, but like last year they seem to have spent most of the money on the entertainment, which was pretty good, including a full size bumper car thingy.

Subject - Vacations in Australia

Both N and my parents are visiting soon. It is turning out to be a nightmere… all this planning and booking. I hate this stuff! Much better when you visit!!!!!!!!

My parents want everything down by the day. All the hotels, etc. I don’t understand…can they not figure it out when they get here?

N has the trip planned by the hour. What if it rains… what will they do? that will screw it all up.

I WAS WRONG IT IS RASPBERRY MMM

Text just received -

THE DAMSON VODKA IS DELISHOUSH XXX

Z hasn’t been in, it’s been so pleasant.

We had a team meeting, which turned into a bit of a whinge from all of us, culminating in S booking me, her, P and Z into a meeting to ‘discuss the plans for the next 2 months’, to stop him from making our lives hell with constant, niggly, micro-managing demands.

Still worried about LELI. Heard today he is going away for the weekend, which is a very sudden plan, since when I asked on Saturday he had no plans. I am wondering if it’s his mysterious “can’t tell you tet” thing. He’s gone to football tonight, so I am not expecting to find out tonight.

Even better is I am sitting here with a bottle of Portuguese rose wine. Mmmmm.

I had such a nice weekend.

Saturday - shopping (new jeans with sequins and embroidery, new jacket), hair do (purple and blonde and spiky and interesting - no more “flat and boring like everyone else”), dinner with Italian Stallion LELI, then on for drinks with LELI, Krazy K and her friend. Last bus home caught with seconds to spare.

Sunday - parents bring my pussy cat (little darling that she is), shopping at the farm shop, lunch is bread still warm from the breadmaker served with extra strong cheddar from the farm shop and pickled onions, on to a craft shop, where me and mom see the same woman I saw last week give a demonstration, buy a few crafty things including some ‘lucky dip’ bags of hand made paper. We sat for an hour when we got home going through all the paper we bought, just oohing and ahhing over it. Salmon curry (me and mom) and salmon and jacket potatoes (dad) for tea.

Then back to work today - which went pretty well for most of the day - including the 2 hours taken to see the annual “aren’t we wonderful” roadshow.

When I got back to the office, S calls me over. “The Twat was over here earlier, talking about a paper he is writing. Apparently it’s about putting a manual process in - isn’t that your area?”

“Oh god, is that still being talked about?”

“Oh, you know about this?” she asks, in an almost accusatory manner.

“Yes, this is the incident where I nearly kicked him in the balls, and shouted at Z.”

“Oh, I see, I wondered why he got very defensive over it. Well, I am not happy - I told him I thought it was a stupid idea, it is not our place to put in manual fixes for them, and it’s not the right thing to do anyway.”

“I agree - that is what I said about 2 months ago, I thought it had died down. The Twat was supposed to be doing some analysis to see if it is even worth doing.”

“Well,” says S, “I told him we shouldn’t be doing it - is Z really that stupid? He thinks that one little not to operations will ensure these 20 or so people a month will get special treatment on the off chance they ever ring in, like they are going to remember this one piece of paper in 2 weeks let alone 2 months, given the staff turnover and the sheer volume of paperwork that passes their desks.”

“I’ll go and speak to The Twat, see if he ever did any of that analysis, because if he did, he never showed it to me, and he really shouldn’t be writing papers making recommendations for what we do without at least discussing it with us.”

I go over, but it is his turn for the roadshow.

About 5 o’clock, just as I was about to leave, Z turns up. I call him over. “Z, did you know The Twat was writing this paper? Did he ever do that analysis.”

“Yes, he is writing the paper, and I *do not* understand why you guys are so against this. It is a no-brainer, we should absolutely treat these customers with no respect, just write them off up front, take them on because we have to but do all we can to piss them off so they leave.”

I gape at him. “You can’t be serious? Surely, if they are that bad, their behaviour will take of that anyway.”

Some discussion ensued, with neither of us convincing the other. Until Z just announces to the whole office, “I do not care what you think, this is not up for discussion. We are doing it my way.”

I felt the shutters come down over my face. “Okay.” I turn back to my pc.

Z, however, after saying this wasn’t up for discussion then spent a further 15 minutes repeating what he had already said. Right. So it’s not up for discussion, but you are going to ram this down my throat. Repeatedly.

Made even worse when he says, towards the end, “I don’t mean to be heavy-handed about this, but…..” Yes you do, you wanker. You entirely mean to be heavy-handed. But that is fine. I will do it. The Twat will have his name on the paper. I will just do as I am told.

On a plus note, I updated my CV last night, and passed it over to the big boss in the other team.

On a minus note - I am worried about LELI. He told me Saturday night he would be talking to someone in Italy on Sunday about a possible job. I asked if he wanted to go back to Italy (because I am pretty sure he doesn’t), and he replied that he didn’t want to, but he might have to. He said he could tell me more Tuesday or Wednesday. Then today, on the way back from the roadshow he got a text message, and then went very quiet.

… through and through.

He’s had ONB and P working their arses off today, putting figures into his ‘model’ he has created.

The ‘model’ I spent a couple of hours going through, trying to figure out what he has done and why, only to find out that it has changed.

So I got the new version.

Two hours later I found it had changed again.

This fucking ‘model’ he is making up as he goes along - as soon as either P or ONB find strange numbers coming out of it, he plays around with some of the figures and assumptions until it gives him the figures he wants to see.

He got *very* pissed off when I asked if finance had seen his ‘model’, since we are not supposed to produce anything without their sign off. Of course they haven’t seen it (how could they have?) and he is now refusing to include them, saying he doesn’t have to. My issue is that he will present this to a big meeting, including finance people, who will just throw it out, and ONB and P will be made to look stupid. Because I know for a fact Z will not take the blame for it.

Mom rang last night, and announced that her and dad are coming down early Sunday morning, bringing the cat with them (they are going on holiday, so she also gets to go onher holidays, to my house). Puts paid to my late night out with Krazy K. We are still going out, just for a drink, and it looks like LELI might be coming too. I might even have a dinner date with him!

Went to Pizza Express for lunch with the girlies today, which was nice. Apparently we saw someone famous from Little Britain, but as I don’t watch it, I didn’t know who she was.

Went to lunch with LELI today. He is such a sweety. We talked about my approaching his big boss about a job. I also suggested that maybe ONB wouldn’t stay in the team too long, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to move over to the same team in the near future.

Had a 1-2-1 with ONB today. I told him I had feelers out for a new job, told him it looked promising. He said that he didn’t want to stay in this job too long, and that he would like to move to another area after maybe another 6 months….. I can’t believe I got him so spot on - part of it was wishful thinking on my part.

I also had to tell him that I will be writing his appraisal this week, but that L had already told me the rating I had to give him, as it has already been agreed back in December. I despair of these stupid appraisal systems, where they make you fill in forms when they actually mean fuck all, your rating has already been decided and there is no chance of anything you say at the appraisal meeting making any blind bit of difference. Especially when it comes to ONB, who is going to get an average rating, not because he is average, but because he has only been there a few months. Even P has come up to me and said how outstanding he is. I think it is very unfair.

I emailed K telling him I had spoken to his boss about a possible job. He asked how it went, and I told him it looked promising, he had spoken about a specific job. The more I think about it, the more I think the job might actually be a manager role, which would be fantastic, although it is not the main factor in me moving. He says he will “sound out the boss” to see what level the role is.

I am not sure who I love most, K or ONB.

I declared this to S and P, and a bitch fight ensued. “You can’t because I love K and ONB too.” “So do I”. “I said first.” “Bitch.”

I am off out with Krazy K on Saturday night, which is always fun.

I am also having my hair done on Saturday afternoon. I am not sure what to have done. I am already getting bored of growing it - especially having to remember to brush it in the morning - I haven’t brushed my hair in years, it’s been far too short to. Just a smidgen of gel, and my fingers, and it’s done.

Not helped by ONB’s comment yesterday. “What’s happened to your hair? It used to be all funky and exciting, now it’s just flat and boring like everyone else’s”.

Still very busy at work. Got called into the big meeting yesterday to present mine and ONB’s paper. I was supposed to be in there for about an hour tops, just before lunch. Me and P got in there (she was also presenting two papers), and K (one of the guys I *love*) was presenting his paper.

Now, I really do *love* K. But, well, no nice way to put this, he is incredibly geeky. His paper, rather than being a nice high level summary, was full in-depth documentation. Which, give him his due, he did make an attempt to summarise. But he went on for about an hour (this was not as bad as some other guy earlier in the meeting, who is supposed to be the same level as me - known to LELI as “the Arsehole” - who basically read out his paper, word for word, and took 2 hours). Then P had to present her paper (it was very important to Z, apparently, the order in which things were presented). We had already run over into lunch break.

We broke for lunch, and I also broke my own rule of “always take an hour for lunch” since there was only a half hour space. Back to the meeting. Rather than P present her second paper, so she could leave, I had to present S’s paper. It went okay - a few comments (although Z, the tosser, has overnight changed how we compute things so he has to re-run all the figures, what a wanker).

Then P presents her - also received well.

We had taken about 45 minutes between us.

Then N - known to LELI as “the Arsehole’s friend” - presented a paper. It was blatantly obvious to me he had no clue what the paper was on about - it had been written by someone in K’s team. (We spoke about it today - even K has no idea why N was presenting it, he has had no input into the project at all, knows nothing about it, somehow he has managed to get his name attached to it because it could potentially give him brownie points I think). It took him over an hour.

By this time, we were way past the scheduled finish time of the meeting, and it was agreed we would carry on until it was finished.

At this point N jumps in, “Can I just talk about this?” he says, brandishing some sheets of paper.

“Is it a paper?” asks J, the chairman.

“Well, no, not really.”

“Then can it wait? We still have a lot of papers to get through and we are already over time.”

“Oh no, I must show it now, I need to get ‘buy-in’”. (Tosser).

He hands out some paper - all printed on the nice and expensive colour printer, the one we are not supposed to use unless we absolutely have to - which is basically some graphs and some tables. It is not a paper.

It was a blatant, “Hey, here is a room full of managers, I am going to show you what sort of work I am doing.” Only I am pretty sure he hasn’t done any of the work, because my friend L does a lot of work for him, and hates him because he never gives her any credit.

S, K and I are sat at one end of the table, rolling our eyes at each other.

He went on for over half an hour.

And to make matters worse, once he had finished he just upped and left, because his time was so precious he couldn’t waste any more if it!

It got to 20 to 5, and S and I still have a paper each to present.

I go first. “Well, I will make this brief, S’s paper is very similar to mine so that will also save us some time……” and off I go.

Then S presents hers.

We were both finished within 10 minutes.

“Now *that’s* how to present papers!”

Went to speak to E tonight, after everyone else had gone. E is LELI’s boss’ boss. I told him that I believed there were vacancies coming up in his team in the future, and if there were any suitable I would like to be considered.

There then ensued a 20 minute informal interview (not helped with the Dr Who theme tune going off in my pocket 4 times - damn O2 and there voice mail ring back when you don’t answer the phone first time), culminating in him requesting my CV, and a lot of discussion about a job which sounds like a perfect fit for me!

Was working late anyway - partly my fault, partly Z’s fault, and partly ONB’s fault. ONB has to write a paper for a meeting tomorrow. I asked him last week how it was going, asking him what I could do to help him. He told me he was on top of it.

Then it transpired today that he has been on top of getting the numbers together. He didn’t actually begin writing the damn thing until this morning. Partly due to Z telling him the priority was for him to concentrate on another paper also due tomorrow. The paper that Z this afternoon, at 4.30, said was no longer going to be presented.

I got a copy of the paper from ONB at 6 o’clock this afternoon.

He is not a writer. “Furthermore the analysis has subsequently been used to demonstrate fully that >90% segmentation is not optimum for this type of treatment level…….”

I feel very bad, but I have basically had to rewrite the whole thing. Put it into English. But as I am the one having to present this thing tomorrow, I have to be happy with it.

Another annoying habit he has is to save things on his own space, rather than in our shared drive. I asked him before he left where I could find it, and he told me on the shared drive. Only it wasn’t there. So basically I haven’t had to rewrite it - I had to write it from scratch! Only I couldn’t actually put any figures in it (I am damned if I am going to type in tables of figures) so I just emailed him the words, and he will have to cut and paste them into his own paper tomorrow morning.

Didn’t leave work until 9 o’clock. Still, think of the overtime Ann………