Its been a while since I managed to create the time to blog, following my holiday sickness, caused by to much work it has been straight back to, to much work!
So a quick review of the highs, lows, and stressful activities over the last three weeks.
So holiday -3 days and it was a call to one of my new direct reports following the take over to tell him he was at risk, ahead of a call to 24 people to tell them they were all at risk. It was one of the worst things I have had to do, and was the start of an unpleasant process. Don’t get me wrong, I take the money so I have to do the bad as well as the good, and it is easier on my side of the table, but after the year I have had it was a bit close to home!
Carrcassone was a lovely citadel and the meal on Friday night was fantastic, but it was still a long drive back home.
Monday was the first of the 121’s with the at risk staff, 15 in a day and it was as you would expect. There was a mixture of anger, upset, failure to understand it was not personal and the rare understanding individual. The day ended with the 3 hour drive to Sale. Actually it was a 3 hour drive to see Drips, who kindly feed me and put me up. It was nice not to be in a hotel after the day. Tuesday saw the remaining meetings including a very aggressive individual, more about him later.
We then kicked into team meetings, 121’s (not @ risk) and the finance cycle.
There was a trip to see Fish in Buxton with PASH, great gig and an interesting car park incident!
One of the things I have been trying to do is make sure we do things, so Monday 1st Dec saw us head down to London after work to see Mr Izzard. The theatre held about 300 people, he did a 2 hour set and was fantastic. He is great, and shows that whilst Russell Howard was very funny he has a way to good, before he can compete with the Banana god!
This week also saw the 2nd set of 121’s for the at risk staff. Less people this time as I only needed to see the members of my team, but they were heavier meetings. The high was being able to retain 2 placement students, who would have had to re do the year if we had made them redundant. The low was two fold, firstly a lovely guy who just does not get, that it does not matter how good he is, he does not have the skills we need moving forward. The second was a very aggressive Muppet who accused me of lying! I know this is a hard process for people to go through, however I will not tolerate people questioning my integrity!
The end of the week saw use go to see another gig, this time Belle and I went to see Fat Freddies cat for the 2nd time. The guitar player is a colleague (he is now a direct report, but again more about that later). We had a meal with my boss and his wife and had a throughly good time.
Saturday saw the super foxes score 3, all by Fryatt who now has scored 22 so far this season, at that rate he could beat Ronaldo’s total of last season.
Sunday was out on the bikes, and although it was very cold, it was good to get out in the fresh air for the second day in a row.
So we are almost up top date.
This week has seen more finance, so major customer complaints including to field trips to pacify customers. It was a bit scary to tell the second customer that within our business there was no-one with more authority to draw resources to ensure their project succeeded than me, as I ran a £40m business with 120 staff (ooooooooooh). We succeed in turning the customers around and subject to delivering things will be ok. We also had two major issues with our two major clients, again problems solved but a bit of a time sink.
I had my 121, which after doing over 40 in 3 weeks, was nice. And I took a deep breath and said I had to much work and needed help! It felt horrid to have to ask, however the outcomes was perfect. I will have a bag man from the 5th Jan . Someone who’s only job is to do the things I give him. I feel les pressure already! I am also being bullied towards a PA, not sure I can cope with that, but you never know!
We also had a result where a member of staff we expected to sack next week resigned saving us significant time!
Finally I had a day working from home, it was great not to have to travel, and meant we were able to finish the day with a trip to Waitrose for some posh bits for Christmas.
So that’s me up to date, I apologise to anyone who I missed out in the last 4 weeks, and promise to be back to a more regular pattern moving forwards.
So a quick review of the highs, lows, and stressful activities over the last three weeks.
So holiday -3 days and it was a call to one of my new direct reports following the take over to tell him he was at risk, ahead of a call to 24 people to tell them they were all at risk. It was one of the worst things I have had to do, and was the start of an unpleasant process. Don’t get me wrong, I take the money so I have to do the bad as well as the good, and it is easier on my side of the table, but after the year I have had it was a bit close to home!
Carrcassone was a lovely citadel and the meal on Friday night was fantastic, but it was still a long drive back home.
Monday was the first of the 121’s with the at risk staff, 15 in a day and it was as you would expect. There was a mixture of anger, upset, failure to understand it was not personal and the rare understanding individual. The day ended with the 3 hour drive to Sale. Actually it was a 3 hour drive to see Drips, who kindly feed me and put me up. It was nice not to be in a hotel after the day. Tuesday saw the remaining meetings including a very aggressive individual, more about him later.
We then kicked into team meetings, 121’s (not @ risk) and the finance cycle.
There was a trip to see Fish in Buxton with PASH, great gig and an interesting car park incident!
One of the things I have been trying to do is make sure we do things, so Monday 1st Dec saw us head down to London after work to see Mr Izzard. The theatre held about 300 people, he did a 2 hour set and was fantastic. He is great, and shows that whilst Russell Howard was very funny he has a way to good, before he can compete with the Banana god!
This week also saw the 2nd set of 121’s for the at risk staff. Less people this time as I only needed to see the members of my team, but they were heavier meetings. The high was being able to retain 2 placement students, who would have had to re do the year if we had made them redundant. The low was two fold, firstly a lovely guy who just does not get, that it does not matter how good he is, he does not have the skills we need moving forward. The second was a very aggressive Muppet who accused me of lying! I know this is a hard process for people to go through, however I will not tolerate people questioning my integrity!
The end of the week saw use go to see another gig, this time Belle and I went to see Fat Freddies cat for the 2nd time. The guitar player is a colleague (he is now a direct report, but again more about that later). We had a meal with my boss and his wife and had a throughly good time.
Saturday saw the super foxes score 3, all by Fryatt who now has scored 22 so far this season, at that rate he could beat Ronaldo’s total of last season.
Sunday was out on the bikes, and although it was very cold, it was good to get out in the fresh air for the second day in a row.
So we are almost up top date.
This week has seen more finance, so major customer complaints including to field trips to pacify customers. It was a bit scary to tell the second customer that within our business there was no-one with more authority to draw resources to ensure their project succeeded than me, as I ran a £40m business with 120 staff (ooooooooooh). We succeed in turning the customers around and subject to delivering things will be ok. We also had two major issues with our two major clients, again problems solved but a bit of a time sink.
I had my 121, which after doing over 40 in 3 weeks, was nice. And I took a deep breath and said I had to much work and needed help! It felt horrid to have to ask, however the outcomes was perfect. I will have a bag man from the 5th Jan . Someone who’s only job is to do the things I give him. I feel les pressure already! I am also being bullied towards a PA, not sure I can cope with that, but you never know!
We also had a result where a member of staff we expected to sack next week resigned saving us significant time!
Finally I had a day working from home, it was great not to have to travel, and meant we were able to finish the day with a trip to Waitrose for some posh bits for Christmas.
So that’s me up to date, I apologise to anyone who I missed out in the last 4 weeks, and promise to be back to a more regular pattern moving forwards.
1 comment:
So familial badgering does work! Good to see you back and a very good review of your time since last you blogged
Now, these bikes you say you went out on...bikes? when did bikes happen? I knew nothing about bikes
I'm hoping for a football related post soon extolling the virtues of Jack 'heplayedquitewellactually' Hobbs.
It's good to see that you are making time to relax, just make sure that it doesn't mean you work harder and later to compensate x
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