Due to my failure to achieve proper work/life balance, I have ended up with five days holiday to use up before the end of August or I will lose them So I have booked a random series of days off which I intend to devote to exhibitions, social engagements, and - once I have exhausted all other ideas - possibly going so far as to undertake some superficial housewifery.
I've already ticked off "Impressionism" at the Royal Academy, and arranged to spend a day with my mother, so am well on target !
My days off, combined with my already infrequent Town Hall appearances, mean that when I walk through the door of my department today, several colleagues furrow their brows as if struggling to recall my name.
I undertake a rapid strategic assessment of the situation:
- Enemy sighting at eleven o'clock
- Allies gathered in the dugouts
- Reinforcements massing over the horizon
(or to put it another way: Spiteful Manager is sitting at his desk, the Decent People are huddled quietly at one end of the office, and lovely Deputy Boss is in the outer office within safe hailing distance...)
The hotdesks are located far too close to Spiteful Manager for comfort. But Life Coach Colleague, sensing my hesitation, immediately comes to my rescue and tells me that Ex-Army Man is out at a meeting so I can use his desk.
Which is fine, except that it is covered with strange sticky blotches.
Eww.
Whatever happened to "bulling boots" and polishing buttons ??
Army standards must be slipping.
Unlike The Jackals, who draw loud and relentless attention to the slightest colleague deficiency, I merely scrub all the stickiness off with some discreet Wet Wipe action, and then get on with laying out my papers. I am conscious that I haven't done a huge amount of work over the past week, so am industriously settling down to a Major Session when my phone starts pinging with text messages.
Oh.
There is a crisis brewing, and it has nothing to do with work.
I try to find a quiet corner to make some phone calls, and am eventually forced to leave the building and walk around the car park. During a hiatus, I am sitting on a low wall, phone in hand and staring into the middle distance, when a passing woman stops and says hello to me.
It takes me a few seconds to place her. Then I realise that she is the Investigating Officer who was appointed to look into my complaint against Line Manager. For bullying.
She is smiling at me in a very friendly manner, and asking me how I am. I have just been told that a young friend of mine has been found unconscious on a bus, drunk as a skunk, wearing no shoes and covered in bruises, so unfortunately I am the teensiest bit distracted.
"Fine, thank you" I say (probably not sounding fine at all). "How are you?"
She looks as if she wants to stop and chat for a few minutes, but I am struggling to come up with appropriate Stepford responses so don't do too well at keeping the conversation going. Which means that within a few more seconds, she says goodbye and walks away, but not before treating me to another very warm smile.
I try hard to avoid thinking about the hideousness of the grievance process (far too depressing), but seeing her has brought it all up again. And it is only after she has disappeared that I remember how courteous and professional she was throughout the whole investigation, and that it was thanks to her final report that the matter went to a disciplinary hearing, and that despite the offence being downgraded to a status so minor it barely registered on the scale, Line Manager received a formal reprimand.
Our conversations all during the proceedings were conducted according to the strictest protocols, so the few moments we have just spent together are the first time we have ever talked, woman to woman.
She really was very nice to me today.
I wish I had been alert enough to respond in kind.
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