Monday, January 13

 I didn't post anything yesterday.  That's not particularly unusual but the difference this time is that I don't feel guilty about it. Normally, if I fail to post something, I feel I have let the side down.  That's why some of my posts are absolute rubbish; I'm working on the basis that anything will do.  The important thing is to keep up the momentum, build up the numbers, keep the site ticking over.  But that's in the past.  From now on I'm going to aim for quality over quantity.

Or maybe not.  Do I have the strength to lift the energy level?  As my life is slowing down and my range of experiences is becoming narrower, how on earth can I hope to improve the quality?

The best I can do is to have an on-going aspiration to improve.  That's it; I'll make it my goal to improve.  I'll even make a sign to put on the front of my computer: 'Each day, in every way, my blog is getting better and better.'

That should fix it.

IS PROMOTION ALL THAT IT’S CRACKED UP TO BE?                          AUGUST 4, 2023 

There was a chart that Brian had drawn up when he was at school.  It was a sort of timeline setting out the milestones that Brian expected to achieve in his life, starting with ‘Leaving School’ at age 18, ‘Graduating from University’ at 22, ‘Marrying the Right Girl’ at 23, and so on.  There were also entries for his progress at work but they were a little less-defined, more of a statement of steps he would have to go through in his career: ‘Starting work’, ‘Getting promoted’, ‘Achieving financial stability’ and so on.

The important thing about this timeline was that it was flexible enough to be amended or added to as circumstances changed.  So, if Brian found himself, perhaps, with the opportunity of changing jobs to something more challenging, he could add a new element to his timeline.  Or, if his wife announced she was pregnant, he could build in his hopes and expectations for additions to the family.

One day his boss at the company where he worked took Brian aside and suggested they have a chat about his future.  He wanted to reassure Brian that he was a valued employee and that he was regarded as someone who could, one day, aspire to a senior role in management.  Brian pressed his boss to be a bit more specific.  Two years?  Three years?  How could he build this hope into his planning if he didn’t know when it might occur?

But the boss was not going to be pinned down.  ‘Keep your nose clean,’ Brian was told, ‘And we’ll look after you.”

It was frustrating for Brian who was very reliant on his timeline for reassurance but, as luck would have it, his immediate superior in the company, suffered a heart attack and had to take some time off.  To his delight, Brian was offered a promotion, starting immediately.  It never occurred to Brian that his promotion had come at the cost of a colleague’s good health and he neglected to even wish him well.

Brian spent some time bringing his timeline up to date and teasing out some potential future directions and knuckled down to his new job, assuming that it would be just a bit more of the same type of work that he had been doing for the past few years with just a slight increase in intensity.  He was shocked to find out, before too long, that he could not have been more wrong. 

After he had re-arranged his new office to better suit his needs, he was approached by one of the young women who helped with the secretarial work.  She had a complaint about another staff member whom she said was gossiping about her and making her life miserable.  Brian was taken aback.  How on earth did one deal with this sort of nonsense?  Writing himself a note in his diary, he put off having to sort it out to another day.

He had just settled down to his work when there was another knock on the door.  A male member of staff wanted to arrange a couple of days off to travel interstate to watch a football match.  A football match?  Where were his priorities?  Brian knew that company policy was that employees could ask for leave for anything which they regarded as important but, really, a football match!  Promising to get back to him, Brian scribbled a note to himself and settled back hoping to enjoy his new office at last.

But, it was not to be. 

There was another, rather tentative knock at the door.  It was Janet, one of the younger and newer employees.  She wondered whether it would be appropriate for her to bring in some of her home-baking to sell to her colleagues.  For goodness’s sake, Brian thought, and promised to give it some thought and get back to her.

Is this how it was going to be, he wondered?  Dealing with the trivia of everyone’s lives?  It wasn’t that he was concerned about making decisions but, surely, there was more to this promotion than that.

Another tentative knock at the door disturbed his thoughts.  Who would it be this time, he wondered – the janitor selling raffle tickets or someone wanting to set up a staff chess tournament.  It was, in fact, another of the male employees with a suggestion that it might be fun if one Friday each month was designated ‘Wear a Funny Hat to Work Day’.  He had the idea that this might help to boost staff morale.  Brian was at the stage of pulling out his hair.

There was another peremptory knock at the door and, without waiting for a response, someone walked in.  It was his boss.  “I’ve just popped in to see how you’re getting on,” he said, “And I was wondering whether you had any thoughts for changes to the work place.”

‘Only one suggestion,” said Brian.  “Find a new manager!  I quit.”