The Ironic Icon

As always with the week before Xmas lunch in the canteen, it's a whole seven days of extremes and mixed emotions; like Tuesday for example.  I nipped downstairs to collect the usual carrier bag of drugs from Pharmacy - not for personal use I might add - and someone thrust a hymn book in my hand saying,
"Here, you look like you can sing ... have this!"  It was the size of the OED and I was starting to get scared because every carol ever written would take all night and into 2013. In case I've not mentioned it before, my favourite and oft ignored carol is On Christmas Night All Christians Sing - it's right in my singing range as I'm the child of heavy smokers.
"I'm not in Gareth Malone's league you know.  I never made it to the school choir."  A blatant lie because I didn't feel like singing Silent Night with Matron nearby on the descant part.
"Never mind  ... you'll soon get the hang of it."  Thus I was frogmarched off to take part in an impromptu carol service for the patients; and it was lovely.  And they gave me a mince pie.
Spirits lifted, it made light work of a long shift.  Not so the next day when I trotted in to be told I was needed urgently in a Feedback Session.  Confused, I wondered had I been flat during O Little Town of Bethlehem or, as everyone does, missed out an entire verse of Hark the Herald Angels?
Imagine my stark horror at being shoved into a boiling meeting room with a group of assorted P's and R's - pharmacy, physios, phlebotomists and radiographers.  Plus one Raven perched on the end of the nurses.
After three of the most tedious Powerpoint presentations I've had to endure [nothing tops the Data Protection Act ... nothing] and like Dr Who's iconic stone angels, I was praying for the lights to go out when we finally got to what's laughingly called 'The Staff Satisfaction Survey'.  Now there's nothing wrong with these if they're honest but I suspected some employees had been slightly economical with the truth, especially as our happy little band scored bottom in the category relating to team work.  Our group leader asked for feedback and bravely, I ventured the following,
"Could it be that some people don't care about the impact their thoughtless actions have on others?"
"Such as?" asked the management.
"Well, someone borrowed the monitor cable from my PC yesterday for five hours without considering the impact it might have on my workload."  i.e. I couldn't do any work without elbowing a colleague out of the way.  The assembled company were horrified at such an act of inconsideration and vowed it would never happen again except that when I got back upstairs, ironically the vital cable had once again disappeared.
Earlier, I mentioned probably the most overused word of 2012 - Iconic.  There ... I did it again.
And every day on the BBC or in the press, some idiot who can't use a dictionary misuses the word in relation to music.  Sometimes I feel like ringing Points of View but to save on the cost of a call, let's clear up the muddle here and now.  Please checkout any website you like for icons - in fact, there's a museum of them in Clinton, Illinois featuring not one reverential painting of Led Zeppelin in concert.  However, this picture is of a car park in Leicester and the one I was forced to visit on Saturday as there was no room at the inn ... also I'd had an odd compulsion to visit the 8ody5h0p and wish them all greetings of the season.

I'd just dropped off a slab of 70% chocolate to keep Sandra going for an hour or so and spying my previous employer's logo I felt a glowing tide of nostalgia.  How fortunate then that Caraway and her partner blocked my way with a welcoming hug and, after a brief catch up in the aisle, the moment had passed.  Sometime later, I returned to the car park with soaked feathers and laden like a pack animal, so imagine my irritation when the pay machine refused my cash. Use my switch card?  Oh dear me no!
Eventually, we were ushered to an alternative machine by a bully in a high-vis jacket - I wonder if he does crowd control at weddings?  To appease the grumbles, he quipped,
"This is an ICONIC car park ... it's historic."  I was at school when it was built and it's an eyesore, even if it has been featured on Top Gear.  Imagine my joy when the bloke in front of me made light of the situation.
"Mate.  This thing you call a car park is a pile of 1970s pre-stressed concrete and NCP would do us all a favour if they sold it to the Army for target practise."
I was sniggering up my sleeve until I realised we'd all been charged an extra pound for queuing.  Anyone got the Army's phone number?

Tip of the Blog:  LindyLou, one of the lovely ladies I work with in The Bunker marked the end of her shift on Friday by proclaiming,
"I've got to go to Asda now ..." and promptly burst into tears.  Grateful there's only a few of us on Tuesday, I dared to ask,
"God ... how many are you catering for?"
"Three!"  And she carried on through half a box of tissues.
From the bottom of my heart, may your turkey be golden and glossy, bacon crisp and all the trimmings taste delightful.  Give the pudding to the birds, they need it.


Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year.
the Ravens.

Groundrush ...

Are we there yet?  Instinct tells me when the big day is within easy reach because there's not enough hours in the day to put the tree up and motor through an entire bag of pick'un'mix washed down with Prosecco.  Best of all, I get treated to my favourite movie of all time.  I spotted a raven in it this year making 'The Muppet Christmas Carol' surely the finest version of the works of Charles Dickens ever made; better even than Patrick Stewart's offering.  I particularly empathise with Miss Piggy as she lays into Michael Caine for being a scrooge; a defining moment for anyone who is overworked and underpaid.  I'm both [still] but this year I'll be home early, my beak in a box of Thornton's finest, instead of being kept prisoner in the Retail Cathedral, piling up mountains of body butter ready for Boxing Day.  I'm almost giddy with excitement.
In Job 2.1, I'm also giddy from the mad rush of patients desperate to get 'done' before the holidays begin.  And so, to make the journey from check-in to bed appear slick, professional and seamless, I've taken on the mantle of a tour guide asking an assortment of fascinating questions while we all wait for the lift.
"Been here before? Good journey? Oh the traffic's awful and the car park's bursting isn't it."  General chit chat is the best I can do really whereas patients reply with,
"I got here early just in case."  Pity, because your surgeon's still operating on the other side of town. "Will it take long?  Am I first on the list? Is my gall bladder supposed to be poking through my shirt?"  I counter this with a short explanation as to my totally non-medical nature and please could they ask a nurse or doctor shortly.  Once we've arrived in the patient's room, I adopt my 'airstewardess' stance from the 1980s and point out the view - sheep, fields, etc - the wardrobe, the television with remote, two over-wing exits and a bathroom at the rear.  And run for it.
Yesterday, I ran a bit too fast and skidded to a halt in front of a gorgeous chap waiting by my desk with his overcoat and scarf on.  In a boiling hospital, he had to be a weirdo.
"Can I help you?" I chirped, an octave higher than normal.  Honest, he's in George Clooney's ER league.
"Not really, unless you can tell me if my next patient's shaved and ready."  Luckily, one of the student nurses heard his question, stopped hoovering up the remains of a jumbo sausage roll and blustered,
"It's okay Professor, he's on the bed and ready to go."  Professor?  When did this bloke start practising medicine - puberty?  I spent the rest of my shift feeling about as groomed and fragrant as Hagrid after a long afternoon mucking out dragons.
There's loads of those in this neck of the woods too, let me tell you. My boss had asked me to help with the minutes of the MedSecs meeting - lunch is a tactical ploy and usually included to negate the impact of bad news - so I sat at the back with my notepad and a serious look as they all piled in, picked up plates and rugby tackled each other for first place in front of the buffet.  Not everyone, but there was a definite amount of fire breathing going on due to over-seasoned the spring rolls.  Worse, I managed to inhale a pineapple chunk and no amount of cheese could stop me coughing through a grim powerpoint presentation.  Why do managers do it?  More slides only make dragons eat more?  One lady, tapped me on the shoulder, hissing
"Don't I know you?"  I'd moved on to the chocolate truffle cake by now and wasn't going to be distracted by her blatant ploy to get a double helping.
"No, sorry, I'm new here."
"Then why are you taking the minutes and not one of us?" Barking ... all of them.

Tip of the Blog:  The Asda advert has been making headlines lately as has the John Lewis weepy with the melting snowman.  But like the Muppets, the best is Morrison's offering and a brilliant pi55-take of all the others, especially the scene with the mother perched on a pile of sprouts covering the kitchen table - genius.  Here, we eat sprouts all year round to keep our tolerance levels up, despite Alphonse moaning that he doesn't need folic acid as he's not having chicks any time soon.  Tough!

 Raven

A New Chapter

When I started writing Raven, my initial idea was to tell tales of the grinding boredom which shop work inflicts on the human psyche.  A veteran of three years in September 2011, I was looking down the barrel of Christmas, out-of-my-tree with worry over my ever-decreasing finances and distinctly disturbed about working for the monstrous management.  And so, with those 12 months behind me, I feel more at peace having received my P45 from them, but leaving was never going to be easy, was it? My big mistake was asking for my £30 bonus payment [in cosmetics of course] for the incredible contribution I made to September’s sales figures.  Imagine my inner joy when I received a swift refusal from the under-management, thus;

“You can’t have it.”  Unphased by her response, I turned down the volume on my attitude problem.

“Okay.  Thanks for checking.  Thought I’d ask … so bye.”  As I turned to go, she called me back because she’d gone to the trouble of printing out the official documentation regarding bonuses and was determined to make me read it.  Waving it in front of me, she said, 

“You have to take it within a month of leaving, so you’re too late.  It’s an HR rule.”  That makes it alright then?  I felt it was fair and right to air my views.

“I resigned on the fifth of October and as the fifth of November hadn’t happened yet, you could do it but … y’know what?  Don’t bother.”  She was still waving the bits of paper, no doubt trying to shoo me away from the til area where the queue was getting ugly.

“You don’t qualify.”

“I do but I’m so happy to be gone that I don’t care … I can’t eat it, wear it or clean the car with it, so what’s the big deal about a bit of crappy makeup or mascara that peels off in the rain?”  I left with a strange sense that Dame Anita wouldn’t have given a flying fluff about my bonuses either, or would the woman she sold her empire to … one of the richest women in the world apparently, and owner of 1’0r34l.  Ethical - my tail feathers.

Still, I’m free and quite enjoying Job2.1 a bit more and rapidly coming to know a whole new set of characters who qualify as ‘the management’.  Currently I’m standing guard over the daycare ward of a private hospital and gathering more paper cuts than Edward Scissorhands.  ‘Nuff said.  One of my co-workers is lazier than a sloth and known to all as Stephanotis, she thinks that manipulating others to do the parts of her job she can’t be ar5ed to carry out is great fun.  On Friday, I got a hail from the nurses’ station to get a barrow load of files from downstairs.  When I got into The Bunker, she was incredibly busy, shopping on Asos.com. So I enquired,

“Have you got two broken arms perhaps?”  This is a hospital, remember.

“No?” she chirped coupled with the big, innocent, stupid look which she must use on her mother to get out of doing everything.

“Well bring them up yourself next time because this is your job ... or we’ll be chatting to matron.”  It’s fun to sharpen my claws this way.

But I don’t like sharing a computer.  Ten years of my own super-fast, virus-free work laptops have obviously marked my card and I hadn’t realised quite how territorial I’d become.  When it comes to letting others root around on your desktop … well, to a geek like me, it’s like letting a stranger rifle your knicker drawer.   It’s not as bad as my mate Dulux though … he’s a blond Raven, having hit forty and gone straight through fair feathers to a really cool icy grey.  Anyway, about a decade ago now, he went to work for Rolls Royce at Derby as an IT project manager and had been perching there for a few months when he enquired about the date his laptop would arrive, so he could do some actual work, saying “… y’know, information technology stuff, a bit of managing a project or two.  I filled out the forms … in triplicate.”  His boss slapped him on the shoulder and said “Don’t worry sunshine, it usually takes about six months but you’re doing fine.”  So fine that he’d left and got a better job before the dreaded laptop arrived.

Tip of the Blog:  My final patient last night was a pleasant surprise – gorgeous and smiley – and as we skipped upstairs to the ward, I decided to polish up my chat-up lines.

“Been here before?” I enquired.

“No.”  He quipped with a wink.  “This is my first vasectomy.

Instead of saying something smart or funny like ‘it’s a snip!’ 

All I could manage was “Good for you.” in a strangled croak.

Raven

Where was I?

More like, who am I and what am I doing neglecting you all for so long?  There's loads to tell and what a sorry tale it is but it'll have to wait for another day.  I'm working full time for the first time in five years and I just can't fathom how I used to fit in 37.5 hours and a life as well.  Not so much Superwoman ... more Raven slumped in a heap in front of the tele, beak down and talons in the air. Still, I'm keeping pace with The Killing III and a bit of yoga should sort me out for the weekend.

Gird your loins, I'll be back.

Raven

Tipping Point

The metaphor, The Tipping Point, was first coined in 1957 by sociologist Martin Grodzins from the University of Chicago in an article about social housing in the Scientific American. [Thanks to www.tippingprojects.org for that little nugget.]

There wasn’t one real tipping point which projected me out of the Retail Cathedral and into bed with Job2.2 - just a pile of stuff to try the patience of saints and sinners alike.  With a few days to myself this week, I’ve been thinking through the many tipping points that have happened in real life and if you’ve been casting a beady eye over Raven these last few months, you’ll have realised by now there’s loads of the wretched things.

My life-long favourite TP occurred in Tenerife in my trolley-dolly days …on a night-stop, where else.  I wore brown feathers in those days and looked like a chocolate button.  We were out to dinner on a balmy winter’s evening consuming vast amounts of alcohol as per the requirements of the ‘Cabin Crew Mandate’.  Our crew included a cavalier First Officer from New South Wales called Robin and, for him, the extra beers he’d had at dinner tipped him from airline pilot to idiot.  He could barely walk but the sight of a swimming pool obviously reminded him of The Great Barrier Reef back home and without disrobing he dived in, swimming straight to the bottom.  Luckily there were three of us around to watch in horror - me, Annie Firth and an elderly, Spanish pool attendant who was berating us in several languages.  Yes, we got him out and he went on to fly jumbos for Cathay Pacific but I’ll never forget the screams of the cleaner who found him next day.  Face down on the bed where we’d left him, butt naked.

Water’s been playing a large part in my life these recent, damp weeks.  It’s only a small tipping point but I’d refrain from putting your new handbag near one of those auto-wash sink contraptions in a Retail Cathedral.  I turned round to fix my lippy and hadn’t noticed my lovely bag had slipped into the sink and activated the taps … slowly filling with water and drowning the demonic Samsung Ace2.  It dried unlike my favourite slippers which would never recover from one night last week.

In Germany, apparently, it’s bad manners to flush a loo between the hours of 11.00 pm and daybreak.  No, no idea? But I’d got no such scruples about keeping the noise down when I wandered in from a bit of a party.  I completed my ablutions in the dark and accidentally tipped a loo roll into the pan thus blocking the torrent of flushing water, which resulted in wet fluffy-duck slippers and a trip to M&S.  Lucky me, I had a gift card handy and in my haste, bought a pair of sparkly boots which were too small so had to be returned to an out-of-town branch.  Don’t you love their Customer Service Representatives who move with the speed of a tectonic plate?  During my stint there in the 1990’s I got told off for being too efficient.

I was owed £4-50 and when the young woman handed me my refund, it came as a credit note attached to a grimace.

“Hang on.” I chirped. “I paid part card, part cash; so what’s with the voucher?”

“You can’t have cash.  You paid with a gift card.”  She barked, hands on hips.  “And you have to have a credit note or nothing.”  Actually, I had four beagle burgers and a bottle of water, and left with a sense of real disappointment.

I’d also returned a dress which was to wear for Job2.2, and as I don’t have that contract now, it had to be disposed of.  Besides, Alphonse looked at its leopard print fabric and obvious lack of style with complete distain and remarked “that’s vile!”  Coming from a man who can’t find the chino rack without a map, I knew it to be true and skulked off. I do have my eye on a gorgeous fake-fur coat in TKMaxx though but it might just be the tipping point that finally bursts my wardrobe.

Tip of the Blog:  What with Disney’s announcement that they’ve bought Lucasfilm and are planning three more Star Wars movies, can I send them a plea from the heart.  Get a better scriptwriter and ditch the Ewoks, please!  I’ve watched SWIII at least four times now and, politics and The Emperor aside, I still don’t know what tipped Anakin Skywalker over to the dark side of the force.  Three weeks as a medical secretary did it for me … if only light sabres were real weapons.

Raven

Careful where you stick that ...

Once upon a time, I worked for a bloke from Belfast whose voice could melt glass, especially after a curry.  Anyway, in a mere 18 months, he taught me about planning computer systems and the terrible things that might happen at interfaces when two worlds collide in a global food business.  He had also developed an obsessive relationship with the work-life balance, and expressed a pathological disinterest in any work-related nostalgia; actively discouraging it in the workplace as a “useless waste of time”.  Maybe it is, unless you’re in long-term occupational therapy.

So why, after a mere three weeks in Job2 do I find myself looking over my shoulder at the Retail Cathedral with a gentle tear in my eye and overwhelmed by a whole bucket of nostalgia?  Despite its many failings and false starts, I believe it had comfort and familiarity, not to mention holiday/sick pay and bonuses of a kind.  Now those perks are gone and I’m feeling quite isolated in what appears on the surface to be a girls’ school where no-one’s moved on for the last 20 years.  Sorry, I should know, I went to an all-girls school and the whiff of hormones could choke you at times.

So with nostalgia in mind, I’m looking over my shoulder with fondness for the beauty industry and have decided to share the great truths I’ve learned before moving swiftly on:

• In uniform, you are invisible to the customer.  At the start of the Boxing Day sale, you will be trampled underfoot if you stand between the customer and a perceived bargain.
• “I’m looking for moisture cream” is a euphemism for “I am the grumpy mystery shopper and unless you stick to the script, I will mark your store as a zero!”
• No cream on earth will remove eye bags, freckles, or make your hair grow quicker.
• I feel this has to be said – you are who you are and NOTHING you take, rub on or inject will make you white if you’re not already Caucasian by birth.  Don’t believe me?  Ask Sir Alec Jeffries, he who invented DNA profiling at Leicester University.
• Do not buy face stuff off the Internet unless someone you know is already using it with magnificent results.  You have no idea what goes into that little pot of crushed diamonds and sheep placenta [yes really, and that one costs £120.]
• Blue contact lenses over brown eyes will make you look creepy, and not in a good way.  People will stare because they’re wrong on so many levels.

So, believing in the power of natural beauty, how did I end up at one of those Cosmetic Surgery evenings with a chum who must remain nameless ‘on pain of death’?  Well that’s what she told me anyway.  What an eye-opener?  Or not if you’ve had a couple of jabs of Botox, then you can’t quite open your eyes because the muscles are pole-axed and your forehead’s not going to work for months.  Another friend had it done recently and ended up with a 'Roger Moore eyebrow'.

I was sorely tempted by a jab of filler for a line I’ve acquired by doing Elvis impersonations.  I can sizzle sometimes but I’ve never smoked and the dreaded line is fast turning into a groove, despite massaging it with Estee Lauder’s Advance Night Repair serum.  Soon, it will need a magician to remove it.  But you wouldn’t believe where they stick the hypodermic and if you’re having filler …well, you do know it’s got to go somewhere when it breaks down, don’t you?

Adding to the debate for aesthetic surgery, my eye fell on a leaflet detailing the full work-up on laser hair removal.  Read carefully Ravens for the total-body package includes your lady garden and transcends the whole “smooth as a baby’s bum” feeling, permanently.  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so I carefully replaced the price leaflet in the rack and selected some alternative reading material whilst my anonymous friend was poked about by a hypo-happy doctor.  Did you know there’s a fantastic new treatment for haemorrhoids?

Tip of the Blog:  Just in time for Halloween, a Raven turned up on Merlin last night looking very spruce and all demonic in tatty feathers. Who knows what the episode was about but I watch it religiously, utterly fascinated by Colin Morgan’s ability to disguise his gorgeous Northern Irish accent with a weird-kind-of-anal-English voice.  Pity, because Merlin was Welsh.

Raven

Nostalgia's for wimps ...

Apologies dear Raven chums for not keeping you posted on my transition from the living nightmare that remained Job1 to the bosom of Job2.  There are no real excuses save a massive attack of nostalgia for the smells and sounds of the Retail Cathedral in all it's pre-festive glory,  and so I dropped by yesterday to wave and gloat, as anyone would on a free Saturday.

Did the management look happy?  No.  Or any of my Raven chums - were they filled with glee?  No.  And the customers?  Well the place was rammed as usual but I didn't stick around, it was too stressful after a very long week.  Superficially - and this may sound like I'm deranged - but set against the terror of discovering my new job is a crock of poo;  Job1 seems quite a doddle when viewed with 20/20 hindsight.  But this is only a temporary abhorration caused by exhaustion and being a bit weepy because I now can't afford to have my roots done before Christmas. But at least I can fly and with a strong wind under my wings, looking like a badger in a posh frock won't be so bad. 

So, I'm perched on a spire overlooking the new world I inhabit and will be filling you in on the dramas unfolding beneath.  Is it me or has it been a bumpy ride to Halloween for everyone this year ???

Tip of the Blog:  I thought I had spots in front of my eyes but my PC screen seems to have an infestation.  I'll be back once I've dealt with it.

Raven

The Phantom Menace

In the final death throes of my ultimate shift, I was praying that one piece of administration had been overlooked.  The buttock-clenching ‘exit interview’ and as the seconds ticked by and I pulled on my jacket after exchanging hugs all round, the management piped up with false shock and horror,

“I’ve forgotten to do your exit interview!!!”

“Okay … bye.”

“No, you have to do it.”  If I'd let rip, it would've come out like this.

“It’s over so you can do it for me …”

"NO!  You have to do it.  You can do it now if you like … and it’ll only take ten minutes.”  As if.

Anyone who knows anything about the conflict between computers and human kind will understand there are ten real minutes in which to make a cup of tea and relax, or a computer ten minutes in which you could start a war on several fronts.  I declined her offer because I needed a staff purchase involving another hour of unpaid mucking about at the management’s behest.  Apply this simplified equation equalling the average days worked since I started in the RC:

4 shifts a week x 52 weeks x 4 = 832

For each shift, add an additional 30 minutes required for pratting about, bag checks, purse searches … all unpaid.  In that time, even though I’d signed out, I would serve customers and I swear she used to slow down if we were waiting to leave.  She once signed me in six minutes late on a freezing cold morning because my eye shadow wouldn’t dry and I had to go into the back and reapply it – a real ‘head in the microwave moment’.  And let’s not forget all the buses she’s made me miss.  Roughly, I’m owed £1,456.00 in unpaid hours.  Anyway, I heard myself say it …

“I’ll be in town early tomorrow – I’ll do it then.”  And instantly regretted it.

I needed a cattle prod to wake me the following morning and after a valiant effort made it back to the Retail Cathedral and sat expectantly in front of the computer selecting my 1 – 5 choices for the endless questions: Did I get adequate training? Were my needs met? What did I think of Human Remains?  After the required ten minutes I’d had enough and was ticking boxes at random.  The final question was brilliant “would you tell us your new employer’s name – we promise we won’t contact them?”  Too right you won’t.

And as I completed my final staff purchase, I asked when I would know about my September bonus products – I’d been there, I was entitled and it’s all about the principle.  Y’know what she said?

“I won’t know how to process it because you’ve left.”

“Well I don’t care about the mechanics – you wrote Absinthe’s off when she left.”

And the final blow?  She delivered it just as expected.

“By the way, you’ve had all your holidays, yes?"

“Oh yeah.”

“Well you’ll have it taken out of your final salary.”  I wanted to yell.

“I don’t care … I just want to leave.”  And I did, head held high just as the tannoy broke the serenity of an uneventful Saturday morning.

"THIS IS A CUSTOMER ANNOUNCEMENT"

Startled by the volume, the only thing on my mind was "Oh God … someone in Topshop’s broken a nail."

Tip of the Blog:  I got home in time to watch possibly the most tedious of the Star Wars movies, The Phantom Menace.  It has spectacular highs - Liam Neeson grabbing the tongue of JarJar Binks - and equally crushing lows - when little Annie Skywalker bodily droops as he's told he's not going to be a Jedi. But my favourite bit, which is worthy of a Carry On script, happens when the rebel alliance storm the palace on Naboo.  Some wag shouts "Where can we find the Viceroy?" to which Natalie Portman replies "He's in the throne room"  Yes, of course he is ...

Raven

The CEO's Dilemma ...

My final two shifts remain a bit blurred, like car headlights in the rain.  Job 2 required I be at their premises, paying attention from 7.00am and had any of my neighbours been watching they would have seen me leaving the nest in a smart grey suit and returning much later in black lycra and feathers; drooping at the beak.  I spent most of the day dodging the upper-most regional management who was heavily engaged in the critical primping of each bay i.e. she'd stare at it hard with her laser vision, check for dust and detritus, pull a sour face, poke stuff around and issue orders.  And with eighteen bays that's a lot of bitter lemons to suck.  And for what?

Day One - or Ground Zero as I preferred to call it - had also been set aside for The Visit.  I may have mentioned it before but in retail terms, the ultimate-top-of-the-pile CEOs are treated like Gods in Ancient Greece.  Feted and feared in equal measure, they are the final word and once their anger is incurred, it's bad for everyone as it cascades down from the top.  Frankly, I find this fear response quite ridiculous because during my time with Miss Selfridge, I had the chance to work with a future general manager of the London store who loved Deep Purple and Tubular Bells, and went pub crawling with his mates in an old hearse.  Great bloke ... you should have seen his air-guitar version of Smoke on the Water.

However, as we awaited the arrival of the CEO of ]'0r34[ France, I was expecting a Brad Pitt look-alike.  Imagine the strength of our group disappointment when he looked and talked more like Mr Bean than the continental version of the sun-god Apollo.  Our poor customers ... to create the buckets of energy required for this visit, the management had consumed triple espressos and were sporting mad glints in their eyes as they ran around moving stuff they'd moved the day before.  Finally, when the party landed outside, they all crossed their legs and curtseyed.  Not me ... I was chained to the till, taking money and generally being pleasant to no-one because anyone with any sense had felt the darkness descend and nipped to Boots instead.

Sadly, he didn't say 'Bonjour' to me, let alone 'Bon Chance'.  Well he wouldn't, would he?  I was well under his radar and considering he stayed only ten long minutes, I don't think the management got a word in edgeways either.  Next, he was escorted over to our sister branch, stayed for five minutes and then left saying he had a train to catch i.e. "ze premiere avion chez moi ce soir matey!"  Speaks volumes eh?

Oh come on!  What a dilemma?  Ensconced in a gloriously appointed office sur le Continent surrounded by glamour and croissants, or stuck in a provincial city touring the shops with a bunch of retail managers.  Which would you choose?

Tip of the Blog:  So you think I've left?  This is Hotel California and although I've checked out ... I don't seem to be able to leave.  More tomorrow ...

Raven

Are there rabbits in the alcohol?

As Day Four came to a quiet close, I found the time to reflect on my final late shift.  I'd been running around like a headless chicken as directed by the under-management in a vain attempt to find any glaring stock errors before the outsourcing contractors appeared on their magic carpets the following morning at 6.00 am.  I'd got our Henry Hoover dragging his heels behind me and was sucking up enough wood-wool basket filling to pad out a crib for the Baby Jesus.  The UM herself was mulling over the makeup stand, rotating the company's exacting plan by 360 degrees because she couldn't work out which side to start from.  After much exasperation, we decided to put the lipsticks exactly where they should have been after July's refit ... on the other end of the wall.

And in a moment of weakness, she asked if I would miss my job in the Retail Cathedral.  I had to admit that I wouldn't although I will miss her personally, her hysterical sense of the ridiculous and the fact she could sell reindeer poo to the Eskimos; she is also a very genuine person and almost an honorary Raven because of one beautiful incident on Day Three. 

The UM has taken on the onerous task of training my replacement who is definitely not short in the brain department but when tired and with only three days to go, she's had a lot to take in; not only in the noble art of cosmetics sales but also in the composition of our world-renowned products.  Except we'd had one of those infamous Missives From Head Office regarding the alcohol content of our products brought about by the current sensitivity around certain religious requirements.  I usually get around the situation with tact and diplomacy.  When asked "Does it contain alcohol?"
I respond by placing my hands together and trying to look like a chemistry teacher.
"Yes, it does.  But it's not the kind you can drink."  I omit to say "And if you do, it will severely damage your life expectancy."

On further inspection of the memo, it assured us that our alcohol is ethically sourced and therefore giving a 'softer' feeling for our customers' enjoyment.  Shaking my head at the rank stupidity of that remark, the UM instructed me and my replacement that every purchaser should be given the benefit of this information.  My initial reaction was,
"You're kidding me right?"  One look at her face told me she was entirely serious but I had to know.
"Did you do chemistry at school?  Any science ... at all?"
"Not really.  Well ... a bit but I didn't really pay much attention to be honest."

Happily I did but to save time I've nicked the correct chemical formula for alcohol fermentation from the internet.  It is: C6H12O6 --> 2 C2H5OH +2 CO2 + 2 ATP + heat, which demonstrates how sugar, in the form of glucose, ferments into the end product which makes perfume, deodorant, everything evaporate except alcohol-free perfume oil etc.  So, ploughing gently on, I asked the next question with care.
"Erm ... how do you think alcohol can be made 'softer'?  Fluffy even?" Shrugging, she replied. 
"They grow the sugar cane in nicer soil ... maybe?"
"How about adding a bit of rabbit fur to the equation?"
"Maybe ..."  I made her swear an oath over a tub of body cream to remain silent on this secret addition to the formula.
"You won't ever mention this to a chemistry teacher will you? Please?"

Tip of the Blog:  Day Two started well with a trip to the bank for a change run and a good half hour reprieve in the open air.  Bitter experience tells us that calling ahead to Barclay's cuts no ice in the speed department so with time to kill, I watched the tele.  Forget the pristine floor - my beady eyes rested on the sofas in the waiting area and when I got up, my feathers looked like I'd been rolled in rabbit fluff and dandruff.  We've got a Henry if you want to borrow it ...

 Raven

The Final Countdown

Devoted fans of ITV4’s daytime offerings such as The Professionals and The Sweeney might be of the generation who, like me, grew up in front of a tiny television stuck in the corner of the front room.  Every Thursday night, I abandoned food, drink and homework for the thrilling theme music of Thunderbirds and adding to the drama, we were treated to snippets of puppet action, the hypnotic eyes of The Hood and the voice of Jeff Tracy dramatically counting down from “Five!”  A bit like my last week in the Retail Cathedral … Shift No5 found me looking like Lady Penelope and smelling like Parker, locked in the boiling stockroom for three hours counting shower gels conscious of the looming presence of our annual stock-take.  I counted boxes of individual products with miniscule numbers etched on their wee bottoms until my eyes felt like raw meatballs.

I was having so much fun I nearly missed my bus and certainly wasn’t going to run in heels.  Not clutching an enormous bouquet of South African exotic blooms, a large Gregg’s bloomer, my uniform and a handbag big enough to unbalance the Woolwich Ferry.  In the precious quiet of the back seat, I was listening to Edna O’Brien talking about her autobiography, The Country Girl, and something she said really stuck a chord with my inner blogger “You have to learn to love the things you write about.”  So …after a year of writing from my Raven’s perspective and with only four more shifts to complete I’m finally learning to love the job that’s almost driven round the bend.

No need to engage ‘panic mode’ – I’ve not changed my mind or written a begging letter to the management.  We certainly won’t be waving a tearful farewell to each other as I escape into the fresh air.  Oddly, I’m beginning to miss the management and the dying orchid plants already.  However, I won’t miss the monstrous kids …

On Friday I’d been to see The [new] Sweeney with Grimy and loved it.  Don’t tell anyone but I felt liberated by it’s swearing, heavy drinking, fast driving, gratuitous violence and odd sex scenes that were a feature of the classic John Thaw/Dennis Waterman dynamic in the seventies.  And what a fabulous antidote it is to the frustrations of modern life where we spend so much time repressing our real feelings, resulting in chronic face ache.  And when a Somalian youth started dragging a makeup chair across the newly tiled floor, I abandoned my customer-facing face on Saturday and spoke as Jack Regan would, thus.

“Oi! You! Stop that.”

It startled the hell out of everyone nearby and won’t get me 100% score on a ‘mystery shop’ but in a sneaky kind of way, I loved the passion expressed in that one moment when ‘authentic Raven’ came roaring up to the surface.  Thankfully … freedom is a few short days away.

Tip of the Blog:  I hesitate to mention The Sweeney as I’m still having flashbacks of Ray Winstone lying on a settee in his underpants.  I may need therapy sometime in the future– in the meantime, bring on The Sweeney II.

Raven

Mongolia Maybe??

Taken to task about yesterday’s blog I feel the need to explain my fascination for the great Asiatic plains.  In fact, they wouldn’t have entered my Raven’s brain at all without the BBC2 programme ‘China on Four Wheels’ and Justin Rowlatt’s fascinating report on the incredible city of Kangbashe; built for millions and occupied by no-one. Reminiscent of the Retail Cathedral on a Tuesday - take a look at this if you dare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLnR2JIW3pA&feature=fvwrel

I’m also a devotee of the splendid British explorer, Benedict Allen and his book ‘Edge of Blue Heaven’ charting a 1000 mile lone crossing of the Gobi Desert – with camels.  And on this epic journey across Mongolia, he was welcomed at various yurts and fed as if he was royalty.  One of his hosts produced a spectacular feast which leaned heavily on stuffed entrails, resembling warm Klingon Gak! [pron. Ghaaakh.]

I’ll give him his due - Mr Allen manned up and ate like a champion.  Afterwards he uttered some immortal words which chimed with my inner predator [not verbatim though, my memory's not that good].

“For any vegetarian wishing to undertake this journey, be aware you’ll only have about forty two days left to live unless you adapt.  Because that’s how long it takes to starve to death.”

And remembering his immortal words made me laugh out loud as I rounded up all the bags of unidentified meat from the freezer hoping to eke out a vegetarian tagine.  Nigella labels all her leftovers, I don't and was delighted to find seven Lidl meatballs, two gluten free sausages [sorry Hemlock], a chunk of scraggy lamb and some unidentified poultry – it was really tasty served on a bed of rice with some crusty bread.

My ‘roadkill casserole’ would fit in well with the cuisine of the eastern Asiatic republics – if only that was the venue for our combined ‘leaving do and staff incentive meal’ this coming Saturday night.  Instead, I’ll be treading carefully over an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet washed down with lots of Tsingtao and keeping my beak buttoned as all the available management will be turning out for this one.  Please help me … someone???

Tip of the Blog:  Can anyone explain why Carluccio’s scrambled eggs taste wonderful, and surprisingly like eggs should taste.  Mine just taste like scrambled stuff … free range of course.

 Raven

Send me where you like ...

At last, the Raven appeared as an inky black brushstroke soaring against a wild sky.  She had only stirred her graceful wings once the rain storms abated, giving way to the searing winds that scoured vegetation from exposed outcrops of rock.  Brutish gusts blew soil into whipping tornadoes which stripped the skin from anyone foolish enough to be exposed to its lash.  She gave a rough cry on sighting the Buddhist prayer mound occupying a deserted hillock, and turned to descend at speed.  Her ebony wings came out of a steep dive and flew low scuffing at the long grass of the Steppe; the endless and ever renewing Mongolian grassland.  She was a long, long way from home and sensing danger, rose once more into the air spying the place marked on the map with a large X.

Circling above the settlement, Raven tested the thermals and picked up a casual cylinder of warmth elevated  from the merest breath of a dung fire.  A skilful twist of her wing-tip feathers brought her in to land on a gnarled fence post.  Famished, she considered the sparse remains of a goat, mummified and inedible.  A terrible scream split the earth and the Alabaster Sorceress loomed up as if crafted from pure chalk; her aspirin white skin enhanced with woad and wax.  Raven had kept the dark witch waiting and the hour was upon them.  Flicking blood red hair from her face, the Sorceress spoke, her voice muted and lisping, lips held close together by a steely ring.

“What brings you here Raven?”

“There’s magic afoot and I have been summoned.”  The impassive face turned sour as bitter cherries.

“Well sign in then and put some goddam makeup on.”  Raven shrugged and knew then it would be another one of those interminable days.

Y’know I’ve loved working with Wonky for the past year, in a sadomasochistic kind of way.  You can’t tell when she’s having a good day because she’s so controlled and when it’s bad, don’t we all know about it?  Well no, actually – it seems it’s just me who is the temporary repository of her misery.  Have I been sent to Coventry … oh that’s far too close for comfort and it has an Ikea.  I’m in the retail equivalent of Outer Mongolia, as far removed from the Shires as from the Moon.  It all started when I made the mistake of asking after her holiday.  Frankly, I was alarmed at the ferocity of her reply.

“I’m better now I’m not acting up.” Now as she’s not part robot, cyborg or toaster her problem had to be something less mechanical.

“Sorry?  Acting up?  What as?” I quipped.  Hands on hips, she hissed.

“I have been Acting Assistant Manager in case you haven’t noticed.”  Obviously, I hadn’t and while I’m on the subject, she’s not much of an actor either.  My cousin is brilliant but he’s been to RADA and Guildford.

Something told me I should shut up and clean a glass shelf or twenty but sometimes you can’t help yourself, can you?  It wasn’t long before she explained in less than friendly terms.

“Listen [you] – while the management has been on secondment, the under-management dared to go on holiday and the temporary management has been interviewing for your replacement, I’ve been Acting Up.”  The demon in me responded with less than my usual caution.

“Did they pay you for it?”

“No!!! But it’s a big responsibility and I’ve taken it very seriously.”

I wish I’d said “Then you’ve just been yourself with a bigger chip on your shoulder.”  Happily a customer needing counselling wandered into my orbit thus saving my bacon but since that moment, I have noticed a certain chill in the atmosphere … something akin to the presence of a super-massive black hole.

At the dawn of the 21^st century, are we still practising the noble art of snubbing our co-workers?  I hope not because it’s bullying and I’ve been there before … as a temporary secretary in the 1980’s dreading the first Monday morning of each new assignment.  Could I hack the job?  Would they talk to me?  Mainly, it all turned out well and I'm nurturing the feeling that my next job will be a vast improvement on this one.  So, with only six shifts remaining in the Retail Cathedral, I may be in silence, out of pocket and facing an uncertain future but I’m happy.  That’s 99% of the battle, isn’t it?

Tip of the Blog:  Has anyone else noticed the amazing similarity in looks between Neil Oliver, who last night tucked into the sort of pickled entrails that only a true devotee of my ‘roadkill casserole’ would want to try, and the new face in New Tricks, Dennis Lawson?  There’s only a good haircut and a few years between them …

Raven

Bubbles of Happiness

So, it's true.  My retail nightmare is finally crawling towards a conclusion of sorts and I have to admit to a small level of 'disturbance in the Force' as Master Yoda would put it.  You see when you resign from a job that's had you in a holding pattern for four years - like a jumbo waiting to land at Heathrow - strange things start to happen and feelings arise akin to euphoria, like little bubbles of happiness escaping to the top of a champagne glass only to be balanced out by a bucket full of panic ever-present in the background.  Every time I try to celebrate my new role with Job2, I'm gripped by a cold shower of anxiety regarding Job1.  Could I be suffering from Survivor Guilt, I wonder?

According to Raven Sandra, who's back in the Retail Cathedral after a period of self-imposed exile, this period of awkwardness will pass in about a month's time along with the desire to incinerate the disgusting tea-towels and disinfect makeup brushes with bleach.  Although she lacks formal medical qualifications, Sandra's confident in her assessment of my mental conflict especially as I've agreed to stay a week longer than is strictly necessary due to a pleading request from the temporary management who said,
"We've got no staff until I've recruited four new ravens, it's stocktake and audit all in the same week and we failed last time, and it will be horrible if you don't stay and help us out of this mess, and we can all go out together before the under-management goes on maternity leave, please ..."
"Oh go on then." I muttered grudgingly.  Personally, I'm pleased for the Government who will have a few less bodies to count into the unemployment statistics.

Putting a poster in the window advertising vacancies draws its own set of weirdos into the store and in 8 out of 10 cases, they've made a beeline for me with a whole heap of questions,
"What's the hours?"
"The Retail Cathedral is open from nine am to nine pm at Christmas and beyond, so it's anything inbetween."
"Would I have to work late?"
"Oh yeah ... but there's more than one role on offer so it will vary." Day to day, week by week, until you go insane.
"Can I leave a CV?"
"No, you'll need to apply on line."  This puts a lot of good people off because it takes ages.
"Why?"
"WHY?  Because your CV may not reflect your real abilities."  Also the law dictates we have to keep them for six months, then the stock room would need to be knocked through into the next county.  That's why!
"Is it permanent?"
"Does it say 'permanent' in the window?"
"Dunno ... didn't read it"  Understandable. I've not read it either.
"Perhaps it isn't then but if you get through the trial period, it may lead to something more permanent.  Oh, and we'd like you to be fully available if possible."
"I'm a student - does that count?"
"Not in the 'fully available' category but you should apply anyway."
"Will I have to wear make up and stuff?" [surely my favourite question so far ...]
"Yes because we are high-end purveyors of makeup and skincare products and your face is our fortune." Please don't look at my ravaged beak today.  I went blackberrying again and am scarred for life ...

And yesterday, one final Princess Pushy marched up to me and asked all of the above followed by,
"Do you know what the pay rate is for these jobs?"
"No sorry, I don't."
"Do you mean you don't know what you earn?"
"Indeed I do." Not nearly enough for all this aggro.  "But I'm not at liberty to discuss it."  This really got her back up.
"Why not?"
"My salary is my business and irrelevant to customers."
"I'm not a customer - I want a job."
"Well why don't you apply for it and see what happens."
"I'm not going to apply until I know what I'll be earning."  And so it went round and round until I was so happy, I went in the staff room and ate a whole bag of bubbly Maltesers. Yum.

Tip of the Blog:  I've added a whole new dimension to fairy cake making thanks to Lorraine Pascale.  Last Monday night, she made an amazing chocolate breeze block and decorated it with a jumbo sharing bag of Maltesers - you know, the one that needs two people to lift it onto a seat of its own in the cinema.  Anyway, I made a batch of Nutella buns and gripped by culinary creativity, blobbed buttercream on the top and carefully placed a chocolate ball in the centre of each. Alphonse in his delight described them later as a plate of 8oobs!  I'd like to post a picture for you but I've just eaten the last one ...

Raven

 

Lost in So Many Ways

You'd think that, as a Raven, I've been gifted with exceptional navigational skills when it comes to finding my way around the UK without a satnav and under normal conditions, all I need is a thermal current under my wings and my beak pointing in the right direction. I'm even chilled about circumnavigating the M25 in the rush hour ... but I've never been to Bedford before, until last Friday, when I left Grunilda's nest after a delicious teatime treat, bound for the theatre.  

I can be forgiven for leaving the driving to Grimy and dismissing the need for a paper map saying,
"How many theatres can there be?"  But I can't be let off the hook for ignoring an email from the play's writer and director, Stephen Loveless, actually telling me the correct venue especially as he's responsible for teaching me some of the noble arts of Creative Writing.  Maybe Map Reading would've been more appropriate. Damn!

Anyway, getting to Bedford was a doddle and after driving past the catchily titled "Indiya" curry house at least three times, we found a free car park near the Corn Exchange.  I bet you've had a moment after a long car journey where all the vehicle's occupants pointed to the nearest large building and shouted in unison "That's it!" before being overcome by a sense of great relief that public facilities are nearby.  And as we dashed to the front door, hopeful of finding a friendly face and a poster for our play we were disappointed. Instead of "Asena" an Out of the Box production, we found Tin Lizzy ... that fine tribute band dedicated to the works of Phil Lynott.  Oops.

Grimy made a break for the Gents while Grunilda nursed her aching feet and I was surrounded by bouncers trying to explain where I thought we were supposed to be.  "Never 'eard of it!" they said. Eleven iPhones and still clueless! As we were early at this juncture it didn't matter being misdirected by the locals and so set off in the vague direction of where there might be another theatre and honestly, if we'd carried on walking we would have found one in Norwich by now.  Anyway, the local branch of Ladbrokes were very helpful and sent us back towards the Corn Exchange, and some friendly students speculated it might be the school theatre and when they all pointed in different directions I finally appreciated just how lost we were.

Grunhilda's feet were giving her terrible gyp by the time we got back to the Corn Exchange and I was about to give up and buy tickets for Tin Lizzy when a nice chap said "Follow me, I'll take you around to the school myself because it's a 8ugger to find."  Praise be ... and so, on a beautiful Summer evening we finally made it to the theatre just a little bit late to see "Asena" which is a moving, mesmerising performance by the actress Genevieve Cleghorn and should not be missed.  I can only share these words from the flyer ...

"ASENA is a one-woman play exposing the horrors of sex trafficking through the personal story of a young Albanian woman whose life became irrevocably changed after being trafficked into the UK."  And please take a look at the reviews at:
http://www.bedfordshire-news.co.uk/Lifestyle-and-leisure/Theatre/Powerful-drama-tackles-disturbing-issue-of-today-31082012.htm

The reviews don't really do justice to Genevieve and Stephen's work but do go some way to telling a horrifying story of one young woman's experiences.  I urge those of you in the region of the Corpus Christi Playroom in Cambridge to get down there between the 4th and 8th of December and show your support.  Or contact outofthebox2010ltd@gmail.com for more information.  Better still, if you run a small theatre and are looking for exceptional plays, please book this one.

Tip of the Blog:  After a lovely week with my feet up in the garden, I've returned to the Retail Cathedral and as I walked in the door my Raven heart sank through the floor.  The stock room I'd religiously tidied before I left was a tip, the staff room was full of detritus and my Keep Calm and Carry On mug had been left lip-down in the awful sink where someone empties the mop bucket.  Worse, my early start this Saturday to accommodate Alphonse's birthday curry had been replaced by a late shift.  I finally realised I've lost the battle with nearly weeping with frustration, I've decided to leave them to their misery and quit.

 Raven