Wednesday - PG Rating

The main topics of conversation for the team today were The England - Hungary game - apparently we've as good as won the World Cup - and Big Brother. I returned from a quick break to grab lunch to find Dan and Gareth trying to emulate Peter Crouch's robot dance celebration, whereas Jo - who had recovered from her illness would grab anyone who passed and then ask them if they thought she was like Nikki.

I took Jo into the interview room to conduct her 'return to work interview'. I asked her the usual questions, adopting the suitable - concerned but not-too-sympathetic tone of voice. Was she ok? Was there anything that we needed to be aware of? She'd had five days off already this year, was it a reoccurring problem? Was there anything that I could do to help?

Jo's responses were - yes, no, it was just a chest infection and - no, see the previous answer.

"Of course if you have another day sick then we'll have to progress you to next level absence monitoring," I explained.

"But I can't help getting ill," Jo said.

"We're not penalising you for being ill. But if you're not at work you're not as effective as you would be if you were," I said, quoting directly from the absence management training I'd undertaken two years ago. "But if it is something that you can just take an aspirin to help with the symptoms and then come in it would help the 'team'" I said.

"So would I go onto next level absence monitoring if I'd been involved in an accident and lost my legs?" Jo asked.

"No. That would be an exceptional circumstance," I said.

"But what if I contracted bird flu?"

"Again. Probably exceptional," I replied.

"What if I got pneumonia?"

"Jo. I can't discuss which diseases are acceptable and which are not. I have to assess each case on its own individual merit," I told her cutting the meeting dead.

Later, Dan made a suggestion that we get a swear box. Ted had complained that there was too much swearing in the team and he felt it made the team seem uncouth. Dan's imagination was fired.

"We'll have to have different fines for different levels of swearwords," Dan told us.

I asked him the question. I wished I hadn't.

"Well. B- is worse than F-. So B- should be 10 pence and F- maybe 50p?"

Dan was even more motivated now and spent his whole lunchhour with Jo defining every possible swearword that he could think of and the appropriate fine. Ted astonished us with his repetoire by adding some words that we'd never heard of.

When the list was complete Gareth took a look over it.

"I'm not joining in with this. I won't pay." He said.

I told him he would as the rest of the team were taking part.

His reply cost him £4.75.

Tuesday - The studmeister

"I don't feel too cough cough cough well," said Jo when she called up this morning. She had improved. Her Mum no longer phoned on her behalf and she'd stopped texting in her sick notes. This was however her fifth day off sick since January. One more day and I would have to activate the whirring cogs of the HR Abscence Management Process. The final stages of which meant attendance at a review meeting where I would discuss disciplinary action - not because she was sick - that didn't comply with employment regulations - but as a review of her work performance given as a result of her minimal attendance. It's all in the semantics. Say it often enough and you almost believe it yourself.

In Jo's absence, Dave strutted around like a rooster in the hen house.

"Alright Company man," He greeted me.

"'Ows it goin' monkeyboy," He said to Dan. "That Kate's alright int she." He continued as she walked past. "A bit on the big side but I reckon she's really dirty. If you know what I mean,"

"Did you just walk out of a monty python sketch?" I asked him. This was enough to send him scurrying back to his den.

"This is going in my blog!" said Dan to no-one in particular.

Thursday - Me, me, me

"You need to carry out a massive PR exercise on yourself," Ted began on his last lesson. "Take credit for all the good that you do. Make sure everyone knows about it. Blow your own trumpet. Send emails to the right people."

"And the bad stuff?" I asked.

"Find someone else to blame. Or better still find some mistakes someone else has made and bring it to the attention of the powers that be so that your faults don't seem so bad. Everything you say and do has one sole aim - to promote you and your career. To move you up the ladder. Forget working for the company. Work for youself."

"But doesn't that go against all of the company values."

"Yes but do you really think that the people that dreamed them up believe in them? They're just the equivalent of Marxist propaganda. The reality is that everyone you see above you has applied the same guidelines to their careers."

Ted finished his lesson leaving me feeling despondent. There were two levels to this - one that I don't think I'd like to be the sort of person that I'd have to become and two, that was there really that little team work in the higher echelons. And if that was the case, how could anyone ever trust anyone else. I'd be forever feeling my back for the hilt of knives. I was living in the world that the society in the novel 'Brave New World' wanted to prevent.

Back in the team Gareth and Dan were working hard at avoiding work, pretending to be drafting responses to complaint letters that they'd already dealt with in the hope that I wouldn't give them any more work. Jo was telling a disinterested Ted all about the characters in Big Brother 7 to which Dan butted in to tell Jo that she was just like Nikki. A number of hurled insults later and I felt a bit better. I wouldn't become the career man that I knew I would despise.

Wednesday - Wax on, Wax off part two

Ted taught me all about prioritisation today. According to Ted I should prioritise tasks not in order of importance or urgency but by the seniority of the person requesting the work. For example; anything Anne requests, no matter how trivial or unimportant, goes right to the top of the to-do list. The next in line is Jez and then Gary.

"But surely Gary is senior to Jez?" I asked Ted.

"He is but Gary won't go running to Anne when something he's asked for hasn't been done," said Ted. "Seniority is important but don't forget the HWSL factor."

"HSWL?"

"He who shouts loudest," Ted explained. "Who's going to make your life more uncomfortable? You need to appease them. Just pretend that you're feeding a hungry lion to stop it from eating you,"

Tuesday - Wax on, wax off

I used to be sold on the corporate idea and that if you worked hard then you did well.

It worked for a while. For a time I was committed. I could espouse the core company values of Dynamism, Intuition, Servicability and Team work (Teamwork got dropped as a company value when the company closed four offices and laid off 870 staff) and after a year I was promoted. But things have changed. I wanted to be the best boss ever. I learnt how not to be the best from watching Anne. But now in the company's eyes I'm trailing in the slipstream of Jez's ascendancy.

Ted used to be a high flyer in the City. He wants none of it now, but he's become Qui Gonn Jinn to my Obi Wan Kenobi.

The first lesson is presentation. Forget, doing a good job. Make sure that you're wearing the right suit, the right shoes and keep that chin up.

"Jacket on or off," I ask Ted.

"On. always. And make sure that everyone calls you on your mobile and that you use plenty of five syllable words in every sentence,"

"I don't know that many words with five syllables," I protested.

Ted looked at me pointedly. "And no negative terms. Particularly when referring to yourself,"

"Sorry. What I meant was - I would certainly be able to articulate to those targets within the alloted timescales,"

Ted smiled. "That's more like it,"

Monday - Short Bloke

Yet another urgent meeting was called. I had to cancel all the work I was doing to clear our backlogs in order to attend a meeting that Anne called to discuss methods of clearing our backlogs. As well as the usual suspects, Short Bloke - one of the sales managers attended.

Anne went through her usual rigmarole of asking how we could get the teams to work harder - that was the problem after all. Jez very helpfully pointed out that his team cleared 500 items last week whereas mine only cleared 350. Of course he failed to mention that he has 10 members in his team and I only have four (Three and half if I really include Dan).

At the end of the day, Gareth's suspicions could be well-founded. Reference was made to the timesheets, followed up by a comment that we need to manage out poor performers. The timesheets are Anne's Weapons of Mass Redundancy.

There followed an uncomfortable grilling by Anne, Gary and Short Bloke.

"How many MD complaints can you clear by end of play Friday?"

"Well if we are happy to prioritise them over .. " I began.

"Wrong Answer," said Short Bloke smugly. I expected him to make a noise like the display on Family Fortunes when the contestant guessed incorrectly.

Several 'Wrong Answers' later and I looked at the enthused faces of Anne, Short Bloke and to a lesser extent, Gary, and suddenly realised that the dim kids who went to Kindergarten and got excited by shiny paper have done well for themselves. I couldn't get excited by shiny paper because I'd seen it, cut it and pasted it. That was the difference between them and me. Only they could feel that working in middle management in a financial services company was as fulfilling as feeding the starving millions in Africa. I couldn't. That's why they were there and I was opposite them and the words 'Wrong Answer!' was shouted at me the instant I opened my mouth.

Something has to change. I'm worried that it might be me.

Friday - Follow the procedure

I'm back! The engineer has been and fixed the line and (fingers crossed) it will hold.

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The theme for today has been making sure our processes are up to date and fully documented. A visit from audit is imminent and Annes aim is that every time someone takes a pen from the stationery cupboard, everything is logged and processed as according to auditable procedures.

If anyone has requested help with a task, Anne's head has bobbed up from her hole and she's shouted "Look in the process manual! If it's not there you can't do it,"

All week the process manual has become our bible. Everything has to be followed step-by-step to the most minute detail.

I offered to get the team drinks from the machine later and Gareth and Dan asked if I needed the process to do it.

"We're not joking," Dan said handing me an official looking procedure document that they'd drafted. "Perhaps you could do a dry run to make sure it works,"

I took the procedure and followed the instructions to the letter.

1) Take piece of paper - not A4, but A4 cut in half will do
2) Ask each team member for their preferred beverage. Record their choice on piece of paper.
3) Find pen to write down choice of drink.
4) If more than 2 people require drinks. Obtain company drink holder from cupboard by forms cabinet.
5) Go to rest room.
6) Press button for drink.
7) Place drink on tray.
8) For each drink on list repeat steps 6 - 7
9) Return to team.
10) If any team members have same drink but one with sugar and one without. Guess which is which and offer drinks to both while saying; "I think this one has sugar(no sugar) in it. If it has(hasn't) give it to -------(insert name)
11. Distribute drinks to rest of team making sure that any team members on a phone call are aware that a piping hot drink has been placed very close to their arm and will make a keyboard very sticky if they move too soon.
12) Return to drinks machine to get own drink.

Monday - Sniper Fire

First off - I'd like to mention that I'm continuing to have connection problems. The likely culprit is now the BT phone line, which BT are coming out to fix this week. Hopefully I'll be able to update the blog on more regular basis.

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First off - there is gossip in the team. Jo is going out with Dave, despite the fact that he is a git, Jo has fallen for whatever unseen charms elude the rest of us. In her words - 'He's really sweet underneath it all. You just don't see the real Dave.'

Dan need I say it, is gutted.

I however, haven't been paying much attention to the office gossip as I have been too busy ducking from the sniper fire, aimed by Jez in my direction. He's a devious one that Jez. A few well places comments made to certain people when I'm not looking and I'm pinned down in my corner with no defence and no where to run to.

Most of it untrue or is just half the story but it's enough to do damage and as its not said to my face, I have no means to challenge it.

I could play the same game. I could let slip to Anne about the long lunches, Jez takes on a Friday or the complaints that he's buried or the embellished expense claims but despite what he does, I just cannot bring myself to do it because I don't feel that its fair. Some people might say I'm too soft and I'm doing myself no favours but that's just not my way.

The team's picked up on it as well. Jez and his team now swagger about the place telling anyone who'll listen that Jez will soon be the new manager.

"Anne hates us," said Gareth. "They're going to be laying off people and we're going to be first ones to go," he continued in typical paranoid, conspiracy theory style.

"Don't be ridiculous," I told the team trying to make them feel a bit more positive. "We're in the same position as everyone else. No-one's being made redundant. There's no favouritism," I said.

It would have worked too, but for Anne, who choose that point to wander over to Jez and exclaim very loudly.

"So how is my star team then!"

Wednesday - Delegation, Delegation, Delegation

I'm deterined not to let the impossible priorities set by Anne defeat me. I've been working longer hours and I've delegated MD complaints to Ted, Timesheet reviews to Gareth and Jo and Dan's been collating data for the MD reports. I've kept back QC'ing for myself - I'm such a lucky bloke!

Of course even though priorities had been agreed in yesterday's meeting, Anne still found the need to dump more urgent tasks on me. In her words 'This happens. Other things will come in and be moved up the order of priorities.' But she still needs everything else done as well. Then the inevitable happens and a customer is inconsiderate enough to call the customer service department to get some service, as if we're there to attend to the needs of our customers rather than Anne's! The team is busy and I don't want to disrupt the flow of meeting with our objectives. The QC's can wait so I end up taking the call. Suddenly everything appears to have been turned upside down and I'm doing the team's work and they mine. Still. What else can you do?

Dave made a nuisance of himself again in the pod. He was showing off to Jo - again, and I shooed him away.

"Nah. Nah. I was only torking abawt work," He said in his defence. "By the way, I woz wundern'. I like a good roast dinner. Don't you? I bet you like your meat and two veg?" He said to me.

"You're not going to have a meat and two veg if you stay around here any longer," was enough to persuade him to exit the department with his tail between his legs.

Dan seemed to be a bit distant unlike his normal effervescent self. I think he doesn't like being called monkey boy.

"That Dave," I said. "Who does he think he is?"

"Well he thinks he looks like Robbie Williams," said Dan.

"What. With that amount of acne?" I said.

"And those teeth?" said Ted.

"He hasn't got any mirrors in his house then, has he?" said Gareth.

Jo leapt to Dave's defence. "He's all right. He's funny. I like him," She said.

"You like anyone who pays you a little attention," said Dan.

"That's not entirely true," Jo replied. "I didn't like you!"

Tuesday - I want it done and I want it done now!

Anne called another of her impromptu meetings to discuss the departments failings when the time could have been better spent dealing with them.

We were summoned to meeting room 2 and sat around the table while she berated the teams and told us that 'she certainly wasn't going to take the fall,'. It reminded me of that scene from the Untouchables but instead of a baseball bat, our Anne Capone, wielded a flip chart marker.

"Your priority for this week," said Anne. "Is too clear the backlogs that are mounting up. No one should be working on anything else but the backlog,"

"Well," I ventured, "We have the end of month reports. They have to be in by end of play Thursday,"

"Ok," said Anne. "Your priority for this week is the backlog and the end of month reports. There are no excuses. I don't expect to see anyone working on anything else other than those tasks,"

"You asked me to complete the timesheet database by Friday," Gary added.

Anne nodded. "Yes I did. All right. Everyone's priority for this week is the backlog, the end of month reports and the time sheet database. No one should be working on anything else,"

"We do have some MD complaints that have to be responded to in 24 hours," Tracey said.

Anne sighed. "MD complaints have to be a priority. Your priorities for this week are the backlog, end of month reports, time sheet database and MD complaints,"

Jex now piped up. "Do you want us to put QCing aside for this week?"

"No. We need to QC weekly to meet with audit requirements. Priorities for this week are the backlog, end of month reports, time sheet databases, MD complaints. QC's are a standard daily task so should be done weekly no matter what. But they're not a priority."

"So we have to do them even though they're not a priority?"

"They're part of your daily job,"

Now simple maths tells me that there is more work here than can be completed in a week by the available resource. This is assuming that no customers calls the department with queries and the team don't need any assistance. I've been on a time management course. I know that the correct response when faced with this situation is to advise the person expecting the work to be done that something has to be dropped. It's their call.

But Anne hasn't been on the same time management course. I explain the position on behalf of the rest of my team leaders who do not feel the strength to push back. The response has Tracey reaching for her Kalms.

"You have to do them all. Not doing them is not an option. You'll just have to juggle," was Anne's dismissive reply.

I can't help but feel that I've now just marked my own card as a troublemaker.

Monday - Bean counters

It's the end of month - alright I'm a few days out but I've had router problems! -

At the end of every month we have to report on how the team has performed in relation to our customer service targets.

This, with the new time sheets, now takes quite a few days to collate all of the information and report on it, because Anne systematically will reject any reports produced by Tracey and I and we'll have to rewrite them.

For the past few days I have not been able to deal with any customer queries, correspondence or complaints because I'm too busy creating reports on how many customer queries, correspondence and complaints we had to deal with in the last month as well as report on how well we dealt with customer queries, correspondence and complaints. Ironically enough, our performance on dealing with customer queries, correspondence and complaints was much better before Anne introduced monthly reporting. Not surprisingly as it now takes quite a few days out of available resource.

And why do we have to do this? Because in Anne's words - we need to be able to prove that we are providing the level of service that our customers deserve. I kid you not!

Wednesday - You are 122nd in the queue. Thank you for your patience

What a week. I've not been online this week as the broadband connection has given up the ghost. Those very helpful customer service people in India for the ISP blamed the router. The router helpline - again in Bangalore - blamed the ISP. In the end I just trailed losts of wires across the house, much to the gf's dismay, reinstalled everything and here I am, back again! But a bit behind...

Team Leaders now have to complete time sheets as well. The hidden agenda is that we now have to justify every second of our time to 'those whose names we dare not speak' because theres a big, leaky hole in the company and our profits are falling through it.

After all, who's most likely to be ripping off the company? The put-upon wage slaves, chained to their desks, given little freedom and earning just above the minimum wage or the gluttonous managers with quadruple the salary, company cars and mobiles, expense accounts, the freedom to work from home whenever they feel like it - sorry whenever necessary - and an even bigger percentage bonus of an even bigger raise. I know who my money is on, but I'm staying stumm. Squeeze those minions!

After our entertaining meeting, I caught Dave loitering with intent at Jo's desk.

"Alright monkeyboy," Dave said to Dan. "Whas tha matter. You bin flinging faeces around again?"

"Dave. Go back to your team and stop bothering the staff," I said, whilst making a shooeing motion as if he was a big and unwanted fly.

"Thas nice innit. I'm only having a bit of a joke with 'im. Iss only a bit of a larf,"

"Go. Now."

Dave skulked off muttering something about me being a jobsworth under his breath. He returned later under the premise of wanting to ask a work-related question.

"I jus' wanted to know," said Dave casually. "If you prefer pencils?"

Dave is 26, although the eruption of acne across his face seemed more in tune with his mental age.

"Dave." I said very deliberately. "You are not Tim. Jo is not Dawn. This is not a set from a BBC sitcom and I am most definitely not Gareth."