The Ronseal People

We have lunch in the Grand Hotel. It is fantastically good value and we emerge barely able to walk, but having spent only £20. Not each; that's for all of us !

The waitress is a woman in her 50's who radiates warmth and good humour. When she checks in with our table for the fourth time and asks "is there anything else you'd like, love?", I say "yes please - would you adopt me?"

But quietly, after she has gone, you understand...

The people up here are fabulous. They are direct, funny and real. They are Ronseal People - you get exactly what it says on the tin.

New Boss is from these parts, and I am starting to understand why I see that expression of frustration upon his face when he is trying to communicate with me. I am sure that to him I represent all that is worst about Southerners. Let us not forget that I am (according to him) "quite posh"; that apart from our initial talk in my office I have stopped telling him what I really think and feel; and that his attempts to provoke some kind of spontaneous response from me ("you just need to deal with your demons") are proving totally fruitless. So I am sure that to him Stepford Employee represents less a compliant model of femininity, and more an uptight, snooty, frosty-knickered bint.

Well, tough.

I have thought for some time that if I met New Boss in any other circumstances we would get on famously. But he plays a specific role in my life - a managerial role which dictates a particular type of relationship.

Former Boss was a blunt and direct Yorkshireman too. I thought that meant he would protect my interests, maintain confidentiality, and put a stop to the appalling behaviour of The Others. Hell - I trusted him.

A week before he retired, Former Boss approached me in the main office and said "are you coming to my leaving party?" I replied non-committally; to which he responded "I can completely understand if you don't want to". In front of other people, which was quite something.

In the end I went to his party (figuring a decade under his command ought to be acknowledged), only to have him seek me out and say "I'm sorry for everything that has happened to you", and telling me that he had never intended to deliberately cause me harm.

"Too little, too late" seems to have become this year's motto !!!

But I could have done without all the apologies.
I'd have preferred things not to have happened in the first place.

New Boss knows none of this. And never will.

Insanity = doing the same thing and expecting a different result. So sadly I will never connect with New Boss in the way I connect with all his other countrymen and women.

Because once bitten, twice shy.