Who would have thought such a simple thing could make me so happy? Just something relatively inexpensive and at no time cost to myself...
I did it. I hired a cleaner. It makes me feel so decadent and I love it!
Boyf and I work long hours (especially Boyf) and the last thing we want is to spend half the weekend making the flat look presentable and dirt-free. "The cleaning" has caused rows, tears (mainly his!) and much resentment and it's so ridiculous as it's just not worth it. So I bit the bullet, did my research and now a lovely Spanish lady called Sandra is coming for 2 hours a week for the price of pub bottle of wine. Bargain.
She was due yesterday whilst we were at work , so at 8pm I opened the front door in eager anticipation to see what awaited me... Oh! The beautiful clean smell hit me immediately! As i turned on the kitchen light, the hob sparkled and the taps gleamed. She'd even cleaned my grubby bin to a sparkling metallic piece of artwork. I sat on the sofa and realised she'd used the leather wipes hidden in the cupboard to buff that up too... something I'd forgotten to do in about 6 months.
But the best was yet to come. My bathroom looked like a hotel bathroom with the loo roll folded neatly into a little point, all the lotions and potions lined up neatly on the window sill and the towels folded into a bale and hung oh so elegantly.
It's official. I love her. I can say that her existence in the flat makes my life so much better. Yes, there is a credit crunch, yes we should be tightening our belts but for the price of a takeaway for 2 once a week, then I'm prepared to cut back elsewhere. If it eliminates the tension and resentment over who's turn it is to clean the loo then it's money well spent. Sandra, you are my saviour and I love you.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Do you ever wonder why you bother? I've been with my current employer for almost 10 years, survived 3 rounds of redundancies and am now one of only 2 members of my department (down from 10 when i started here). I've got a fair amount of responsibility but I'm by no means the boss.
The problem is that my boss is a Director and I am a Manager and we have no admin support whatsoever. He books his own travel and I've spent the morning setting up new vendors for accounts purposes and packaging up cds for an artist (all 150 of them and it's a pain in the backside!). Surely we have better things to do? I must be best paid photocopying clerk in the world!
Effectively I am meant to be an events planner (in quite a specialised industry but the end result is similar). I'm used to doing the nitty gritty as well as the meaty and the kicking ass stuff! I'm meant to be negotiating, guiding, researching, planning, reassuring and badgering my boss - not ordering stock and sending it out, not chasing the accounts department (again) because they're too bloody stupid to follow instructions, not returning invoices to suppliers because they're not capable of reading their terms and conditions/PO instructions etc and certainly not hand-holding certain suppliers who seem incapable to checking travel timetables or maps...
Since we went down to such a skeleton staff life is pretty much impossible for every department so please don't think i'm doing the 'boo hoo poor little me' routine. Our parent company have, in the last few weeks
1) taken away all office plants as they are too expensive to 'rent'
2) taken away our courier company (some poor bugger in the postroom now has to research which company is best to use on an individual basis now... like he doesn't have enough to do with over 300 people in this building...)
3) increased the prices in the subsidised restaurant but not given everyone their payrise (that has been promised for over 4 months)
4) removed our departments' President (possible not a bad thing i have to say) but also removed his emails and contacts from his PA's computer by accident leaving some poor guy in Delhi (cos that's where our computer helpdesk is....) telling her not to worry and to just get on with something else for now... hahahha!
Oh yes and they're moving our accounts department to somewhere in Eastern Europe to save money. I kid you not.
This all looks pretty tame actually and you're probably wondering what I'm whinging about but this is just the latest stream of crap. Our problem is that such a huge cut in staff has resulted in appalling customer service and nothing being finished in a way that I'm particularly proud of but needs must. It either gets finished badly and on time or we miss deadlines. There are only so many hours in the day and I didn't sign up for a 15 hour day at my own expense!
I know there is a credit crunch/recession/generally crap economic crisis happening but this started waaaaaaaaay before all the banks started crumbling.
God I'm a grump. must cheer up!
The problem is that my boss is a Director and I am a Manager and we have no admin support whatsoever. He books his own travel and I've spent the morning setting up new vendors for accounts purposes and packaging up cds for an artist (all 150 of them and it's a pain in the backside!). Surely we have better things to do? I must be best paid photocopying clerk in the world!
Effectively I am meant to be an events planner (in quite a specialised industry but the end result is similar). I'm used to doing the nitty gritty as well as the meaty and the kicking ass stuff! I'm meant to be negotiating, guiding, researching, planning, reassuring and badgering my boss - not ordering stock and sending it out, not chasing the accounts department (again) because they're too bloody stupid to follow instructions, not returning invoices to suppliers because they're not capable of reading their terms and conditions/PO instructions etc and certainly not hand-holding certain suppliers who seem incapable to checking travel timetables or maps...
Since we went down to such a skeleton staff life is pretty much impossible for every department so please don't think i'm doing the 'boo hoo poor little me' routine. Our parent company have, in the last few weeks
1) taken away all office plants as they are too expensive to 'rent'
2) taken away our courier company (some poor bugger in the postroom now has to research which company is best to use on an individual basis now... like he doesn't have enough to do with over 300 people in this building...)
3) increased the prices in the subsidised restaurant but not given everyone their payrise (that has been promised for over 4 months)
4) removed our departments' President (possible not a bad thing i have to say) but also removed his emails and contacts from his PA's computer by accident leaving some poor guy in Delhi (cos that's where our computer helpdesk is....) telling her not to worry and to just get on with something else for now... hahahha!
Oh yes and they're moving our accounts department to somewhere in Eastern Europe to save money. I kid you not.
This all looks pretty tame actually and you're probably wondering what I'm whinging about but this is just the latest stream of crap. Our problem is that such a huge cut in staff has resulted in appalling customer service and nothing being finished in a way that I'm particularly proud of but needs must. It either gets finished badly and on time or we miss deadlines. There are only so many hours in the day and I didn't sign up for a 15 hour day at my own expense!
I know there is a credit crunch/recession/generally crap economic crisis happening but this started waaaaaaaaay before all the banks started crumbling.
God I'm a grump. must cheer up!
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