Actually, the clothes I've been working in for the last two days are sealed in a bag awaiting the washing machine and some serious bio-hazard, muck removing liquid - but at least I was covered. On day one, Wonky decided to turn up in one of those long t-shirts masquerading as a dress. Give her some credit, she's got good legs and being determined to show them off isn't a bad thing ... until you're faced by a puritanical regional-sales-manager determined to reign on her parade. She was taken aside by different management and ordered to cover up because [and I'm not kidding] "there are men present." Were it in my power, I would award Wonky with a medal for not batting a false eyelash and instead tramping off to H&M to buy some much sexier trousers with a provocative zip up the back to cover her legs.
These two days of Hell also included a much-anticipated return of our own management monster and in her wake followed the 'almost but not quite top of the pile manager' who is made entirely of dark matter. You know the type if you've worked in retail for a while - two hundred quid jeans, a snow white never-gonna-get-dirty shirt, mahogany tan and hard-hat hair, the kind you couldn't shift with a bazooka. And they wonder why we were a bit quiet. Anyway, as I'd escaped day one on time, I'd missed the global instruction to fetch up early on day two so I arrived what I thought was fifteen minutes early and it turned out I was late. Doh! And the monster was waiting for me ... accosting me in the stock room, she said,
"Howareyoufeeling ...and would you mind telling me why you're so late?"
"I don't start until 9.30am. If that's changed, no-one's let me know."
"You were TOLD last night."
"Actually I wasn't here as I left with Absinthe, on time. But I'm here now, ten minutes early and ready to go." This is true and it phased her completely.
"Well, well um..." She blustered a bit. "We need all your energy to get this finished and if it takes until ten tonight, you'll have to stay."
It would only take that long if all the managers involved stopped telling everyone what to do and got stuck in with the rest of us ... but this is retail and they don't. It's criminal. Instead, she stropped off to do conduct Seraphine's punishment session, aka appraisal, and sent her back to us even more dejected and demotivated than before. Genius!
Also on day two, the IT/systems folk turned up looking all geeky and serious because they knew what lay in store for them. Trust me, I recognise that look because I had a similar one for ten years, especially when faced with the Herculean task of refitting PCs while other, non-technical people stood by and watched. Closely. When it finally came to the point they were up and working, the uber-management piped up,
"Thank god you've put them in right this time. In [insert a northern city name here] they look rubbish because you've fitted them the wrong way up." Well, you could have heard a pin drop - even the music turned itself off so we could hear the speccy dude's reply.
"The fault lies entirely with your own company madam. We discussed this issue at the point of installation and despite our wise counsel and years of experience, your people insisted they be installed incorrectly - so we did as we were asked. After all, the customer is always right."
Wonky disappeared into the facilities until she'd stopped howling and I mentally awarded the IT guys with Cadbury's Olympic gold medals for bravery in the face of abject stupidity. Actually, I'm proud to be a geek, even if Woman's Hour this morning confirms only 18% of all IT workers in the UK are women. And only 0.1% are Ravens.Tip of the Blog: It's Frangipani's birthday today and what with Wiggo's astounding victory yesterday it's time to crack that bottle of bubbly lurking in the back of the fridge. Sadly, I have to return to the asylum ...
Raven
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