Surviving the Office-Wide Meeting...

It's over !
I don't have to attend another "office-wide meeting" for 3 whole months !!

As well as my meticulous and paranoid preparations for said meeting (for blog post click here) I have also confided in 3 colleagues prior to the meeting, admitting to them that I feel extremely stressed about it. Life Coach Colleague, Private Colleague and Maternal Colleague are all aware that I have had a "difficult year" (organisational euphemism for being driven to the point of a Mental Health Episode) and respond protectively, offering to travel to the meeting with me and encouraging me to sit with them.

I feel so grateful that I want to cry.

Upon arrival at the atypical location (New Boss has decided to make office-wide meetings more "interesting" by moving them around the Borough) the first sight that greets my eyes is Remora - chief orchestrator of departmental schisms - standing in the doorway. I manage to say "hi", put my bag and coat down between Life Coach Colleague and Low Profile Colleague, and then do a runner to the Ladies where I try and settle myself. I make sure I have a hairbrush in my hand, so that if anyone comes in I can pretend I am attending to my locks...

2 minutes before the meeting is about to start, I return to my seat. New Boss gives a presentation about the departmental restructuring. I don't hear the early section, because I am reciting "calm, calm, calm" to myself, and with one hand secretly clutching a very small bear which happened to jump into my pocket before I left the house (naturally, this is a coping mechanism which I am unable to share with a single colleague, no matter how much I like them....)

But now the meeting is underway, and everyone is sitting down, I am feeling much safer - so eventually I start to focus. Hmmm. A signficant restructure is indeed underway. Thankfully, it doesn't appear to particularly impact upon me. But it certainly impacts upon some of my colleagues.

New Boss draws to a close, and then invites questions.

This is the point at which some colleagues start looking towards me. I can see the angle of their heads, even though I am looking at the papers on my lap as if totally engrossed in the Committee report in question. They look at me, because they know that whenever I have witnessed an injustice, or an anomaly, or a fault in procedures, I have always ALWAYS spoken up.

But not this time.
I will never put my head above the parapet, or fight anyone else's battles, again.
Never.

So we all sit there, in silence. The 3 people who are most impacted tentatively ask some questions - when is the restructure going to happen, how will it affect job descriptions, are these posts going to be re-evaluated? But no-one else opens their mouth.

New Boss is getting vexed. He is not a man skilled at hiding his feelings and is again wearing his Mr Grumpy expression.

"I invited Personnel to attend this meeting specially" he snaps. "She has come all the way over from the Town Hall. I thought you would all have a lot to say".

The silence continues.

"So that's it, then?" New Boss is incredulous. "No-one has anything else to say??"

Silence.
"Well that's that, then" says New Boss. "Looks like the meeting is over".

Less than 45 minutes have elapsed since I took my seat !
And now I am FREE !!!

I hang around for the minute or two etiquette demands; then join the growing throng which is making its way out of the building. Thanks to my nervous morning preparations, I am hideously behind with my work; but an unexpected wave of energy surges through me. I say heartfelt goodbyes to the colleagues who have supported me, then race back to my own office and work very hard and fast until 7.30pm, managing to tick off every single thing on today's To Do list.

Flexible working.
Sometimes I think it is the only thing which has kept me sane.