I'll just finish this...

Okay so I started writing yesterday about managers. I want to be one. I want to be a good one. I want to have mutual respect with my colleagues and staff. I want to be in charge. I told my brother yesterday that I wanted to fire someone. I don’t really want to but if I had to I’d like to think I’d do it tactfully professionally and thoughtfully. The only experience I’ve had that nears that is ringing up the temp agency my old company used and said, yeah we don’t want them to come back on Monday. It sucked but sometimes you gotta get rid of the dead weight.

Managers/bosses/leaders can be utter twats. They can also be awesome. My last boss was great, I was totally teachers pet but that did mean that I got shouted at the most although my work mates thought I was getting special treatment. I wasn’t. I almost got a formal warning from using the word bate  out of context in an email. In the urban dictionary the word bate means obvious. My work mates and I used it to mean fool or plum or generally someone who was being a bit of a dickhead. It was PC enough to use at work or so we thought. But anyway that’s another boring tale for another boring day. So my last boss was great, the boss before her was a bitch who thought too much because she worked as a production manager on a feature film that went nowhere and was a pile of poo. The boss before her was a group of slightly over middle aged women who liked me well enough but I was working in the Health visitor department of a health centre. It deals specifically with babies and I just don’t care. Hmm, before that, oh yes the boss lady who was ugly. That sounds harsh but I swear she was so funny looking and seeing her was like looking into a future of smoking 40 a day and drinking and living in a shitty right to buy council house and spawning beautician children and being a grandmother at the age of 40. Am I snob? Yeah I am a bit but I grew up in a council house on an estate surrounded by people like that so I have a bit of insight.

Right the point is, this manager of mine was a backstabbing unfeeling woman that frightened people below her in hierarchy of the office and while I worked there I suffered from a massive bout of depression. It wasn’t all the jobs fault but that was defo part of it. I’ve worked in various temp jobs for the past 6 years and the last job I had went from temp to perm until the company closed and I was out of a job. In all my experience and my varying shitty job roles, I have encountered different ways of managing people to get the best out of them. I suppose the scary way can be good and if you’re too soft you’ll end up like David Brent and Steve Carrell in the American office. Where to find the balance? Well I think my last boss new where to find the balance and it must have been tough as we had a massively high turnover of staff and temps due to the closure of the company. Some people would turn and say that she wasn’t a good manager but I disagree. I think there were certain things she should have known but that’s just my opinion. Like I say, having seen the different types of managerial skills, I feel I‘m in the know. Now I don’t know what it’s like to work in every sector be it public or private, that’d be ridiculous but come on now aren’t there some simple things managers should know and do?

1. Know how to do the jobs of all the people that you are a manager of, that way you can answer their questions and help them when they have problem
2. Set a good example (bit obvious but true nonetheless)
3. Don’t make people feel like shit
4. Praise and reward (if possible) people who have done a good job or gone out of their way to do something extra
5. Talk to your staff about how they are finding the job and welcome suggestions about service improvements etc
6. Don’t be a dickhead
7. Don’t be too obvious when talking about other members of staff when speaking with team leaders or whoever
8. Be approachable so staff can come to you with both their work and serious personal problems. (I was a having a tough depression bout half way through my last job and my boss was incredibly supportive. This helped me to focus on my job and I took little time off to deal with it and managed to continue working to the high standard I set myself when I started the job. Bam!)
9. If you see that people work well together don’t split them up
10. If staff sit and chat all day and don’t get work done, separate them and monitor the work do when not chatting all day. If it improves keep them separated, if it doesn’t get rid!
11. If someone is consistently rubbish, stop giving them the benefit of the doubt, it makes the other workers feel like their contribution is useless if rubbish people are kept on too long.
12. Fair enough give em a chance and see if they excel in other areas but keep a strong eye and ask someone impartial to cast an eye over them/their work. Once you’ve had a conflab see where you stand.
13. Don’t treat temps like shit! They need the job or they wouldn’t be there. Fair enough some are bone idle but you’ll generally be able to tell that from day 1/week 1
14. Temps are people too and some of them work real hard. Stop telling them what they’re not entitled to
15. Don’t hide weakness. If you’ve made a mistake own up to it. Everyone makes mistakes and if you deny it and try to pass the blame onto someone else cos you’re convinced of your own superiority, people will hate you!
16. Don’t let cultural differences be used an excuse. For anything. I’ve worked with people from an array of different cultural and social backgrounds and I have a small understanding of them coming from London. Fuck that shit, be excellent to each other no matter who/what/how you are.
17. Have a sense of humour. Don’t try to be everyone’s friend as some people just don’t get on, but don’t take it all to heart. You have to toughen up and bitching about people and experiences is what your friends/the internet is for.

Okay most of these are about ways to treat people or deal with staff and having worked in the public sector I know some people can try to take the piss and do take the piss all the fucking time and it must be tough when you’re the manager and they are constantly making excuses. One way my old boss dealt with someone like this was to put them in a different department, you remember that bit in the wire when McNulty gets asked where he least wants to go? And they put him there, do that but subtle like. If they still piss and moan you’ll have the back up of another sections manager/team leader etc for you to be able to make a decision about their future in the company. Maybe that’s just me but hey I’m trying here.

I’m sure there are many other ways to manage people and the places you work in but from talking to people and working in different places all the time, I can say that in my experience, if your manager is fair, firm and knows how to be a decent human being, then your work life is greatly improved and I think you’ll get the most out of your time there. An office is not supposed to be a day at the park with uncle bobo but if you can make it somewhere people don’t dread going to on a Monday morning then you have won.

Ahhh to make the dream reality….

Took that picture a while ago when I first got “re-started” by the job centre. It was taking ages to upload and then I forgot about it. Anyway it’s up now and I’ve even managed to get a temp job. It’s alright but a bit boring and cos there aren’t a great deal of staff available it’s taking them ages to get me trained up. I wrote a big rant about managers that I’m about to post, so fun for all 3 of my followers. I’ve discovered some pics on my phone that need going up too so I may spend a bit of time posting today. They’re not that funny but I’ll be glad they’re up, oh and I’ll tell you a story about a wedding I went to. I’m worried now as I’m going to re-post the link to this blog on FB and if the bride reads it she may not like it. Fuck it, I’ll just delete her first and then never have to worry that she may find it hilarious that someone gave her gollywog bride and groom dolls as a gift, but I wasn’t too impressed. More to come on that…

I’m sorry recruitment person for government job but if you had read my cover letter you will have seen that I covered all your points on the person spec and I got a certificate for doing amazing work in my last job.

And no I don’t think it’s reasonable for you to request that my cover letter is 2-3 pages long for an assistant PA job that pays just over £19,000 a year. That’s just too fucking ridiculous! 

Now you may be thinking I should do it anyway so that I can get a job and no doubt I’ll swallow my pride and outrage and do the 2-3 pages but part of me just wants to make the font size massive so it takes up 10 pages.

And by the way FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK YOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU!

I had a great weekend. My best mate from Bath came down on Friday and we went to the pub for my friend Beni’s birthday. Had a good time, came home, my best friend was on her way home from work and stopped in for a cup of tea. All three of us lay in my bed chatting about stuff until about half 4 then we went to sleep. 

Saturday went to see the adventures of Alice in wonderland ballet at the Royal Opera House. It was absolutely stunning, everyone should go and see it. Was super tired so had a nap when I got home. Ordered pizza, ate it and then felt all bloated and crap. Went out to Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes to see the Nextmen. I was doing my best to bust some super amazing moves but I just couldn’t shake my ass and swing my hips like I’m used to. Losing your swagger when there’s bangin’ tunes going down sucks. I’ll never let it happen again, and I’ll limber up so my annoying ‘bad’ knee stops cramping up. A piece of advice; Do not crash your bike into a large metal cable box at the age of thirteen and shatter your knee cap. Eventually the bone will heal and apparently get stronger but regardless you will get arthritis in the winter and sometimes your knee will seize up. It’s bate.

This post was pretty long and not very informative. I want to get my swagger back so I’m gonna do some knee exercises and then I’m going to get crazy with the cheese wizz in Amsterdam next weekend. 

I wanted to share all that information with the internet but I think mostly I just wanted to remember it.

Also, I rocked heels with socks on Friday and it looked awesome. I’m like the honey badger.

This is my friend Dom having a sit down on the way to Antwerp using the power of legs alone. Cycling times!

How you know a TV show isn’t as great as it used to be, the opening sequence is always played in full. Shame.

I just watched the Australian Open and Djokovic beat Nadal. It was close and Rafa should’ve won but what can you do?

I realised while watching the final that I have a massive girly “when we get married and have babies” crush on Rafa Nadal. I don’t know why. Sometimes he looks like a little hamster and that isn’t attractive but there’s just something about him. 

Initial fantasy as standard; Rafa splits from hot Spanish wife/girlfriend because she is a bitch or something. I meet Rafa in Vegas when I go in October and we hit it off. We have great sex and he talks to me in Spanish and I like it. I become the famous writer that’s married to tennis legend Rafa Nadal and I get shown on the TV when he plays and it’s just awesome. 

Secondary fantasy (oh yeah I’m going there); Someone else famous like Donald Glover or Kyle off Neighbours and I get together. It’s going well and then the talk of fantasies comes up one day. I then make him dress up in tennis whites and talk Spanish to me with a bandana wrapped around his head…

I’m worried about how much I love Rafa, and whether or not slash fiction is on the cards. Ah, Rafa :-)

Hey there avid followers of this amazing, interesting, groundbreaking, blog. I haven’t been having a sit down in any interesting places of late and too many people were staring at me in the job centre so I decided not to take a picture, that and the fact that I was late. I always give 10 minutes to get there, and yet I always know it takes 20 minutes. I may have some sort of time keeping related disability and I’ll ask my friend who is a psychologist to explain what my fucking problem is.

Okay so sad times are afoot in the Ladywell area of London’s greatest borough, Lewisham. On Monday night, I was reading my book in bed and all of a sudden I heard a really loud crash. I panicked and tentatively got out of bed and crept to my door. I didn’t want to open my door as it sounded like there were people in the house banging about and taking stuff. I rang my housemate who had her phone on silent so it wasn’t the greatest of plans. 

I waited for a train to go past to mask the sound of me turning the door knob then saw that all the lights were still off. The noises were louder and I could hear banging and screaming. I saw that my front door was still closed and I saw some shadows of people outside it. I walked downstairs clutching my mobile, desperately trying to work out if I should call police or not. I then heard a ladies voice scream out help. I unlocked the door to see what was going on and saw that my next door neighbours had been attacked. The man, Chas, said “call the police and an ambulance”. So I did. I could see that their front window had been smashed and that some of the bricks of their wall had been kicked down. I looked into the house and saw the lady, Gill, sitting upright on the floor in their hallway with blood all over their radiator and smeared over the back of her head.

It turns out some people had smashed their window, barged their way through the door, attacked a woman in her late 60’s who has heart problems and difficulty walking and beaten up Chas. After answering a lot of questions on the phone to the police, I got a blanket for Gill. Other neighbours had come out of their houses having heard the ruckus and were explaining that they had seen people running in either direction on the street.

It was horrific and terrifying.

Eventually the police and ambulance turned up and Gill and Chas were taken to hospital. I gave my statement to the police and one of the neighbours brought out some Brandy’s for us.

Man alive, why do people think it’s okay to do things like that?

It’s quiet on the street now and I’m nowhere as shaky as I was on Tuesday.

Upsetting times.

Okay so inspired by “what I did in the year …” blogs and that I’ve decided that my very own take would be about having a sit down. I like having a sit down. I will post pictures of me having a sit down on a daily/weekly basis depending on how interesting the places I’ve been and sat down.