PMT vs Crap time at work

I've always considered PMT to be much over-hyped. Sure, we girls are a slave to our hormones - one day I will be cooing over a small baby and then next I really can't see the attraction and yes, I'll admit that I can be a little 'snippy' at certain times... But I've been tracking my weirdness over the last few months and I'm mortified to notice that I SUFFER WITH PMT!!!

Every time I have been at the end of my tether with work, every time I have been ready to throw things across the room and everytime some cheesey song or programme turns me into a sobbing gibbering wreck there appears to have been a hormone-related reason for it.

That said, I'm pretty sure that my long-standing desire to display 2 fingers to my boss and tell him to shove his job somewhere fairly dark isn't all hormone related.

I don't earn a fantastic salary but I'm doing okay - okay enough to pay my bills, afford nice holidays and not have to resort to Tesco Value bread - but I will never be able to retire to a second home in the country. Right now, though, I'd be pleased to chuck it all in and do nothing. Clearly this would only be possible if, for some bizarre reason, Boyf would be happy to slog his guts out at a job (which is equally as infuriating as mine) in order for me to 'keep house' and cut out coupons from newspapers for the afore-mentioned Tesco Value bread... Let's face it, why would he want to do that? Damn sure I wouldn't. Anyway, isn't this the very thing that women have been fighting against for years???

Anyway, I digress. My job....even before this country descended into the current economic quagmire of crap, our business was not doing particularly well, and so new owners and managers were brought in. And why not. They overhauled the place: redundancies; revision of rosta; rethinking of budgets and so on. There were promises of new hope, matrices (???I still don't really understand what that is all about???), extra support from savvy businessmen and outsourcing of crap tasks. Well, in a nutshell, we now have to run this circus of a show on a shoestring whilst jumping through hoops that most of the Cirque du Soliel cast would struggle with. Our little division of the business is definitely the poor relation of the family - you know what i mean, the one whose birthday is forgotten, the one who never gets the call about the family get together and the one most likely to get locked in an attic if they get too old/doddery/much of liability. Worst case scenario is that one day the rest of the family will find a way to justify euthanasia.

I won't bore you with the details of why my job is so crap as, frankly, right now i should be grateful to have one - there are thousands of people who would clamber for my seat and probably do it at a knock-down discount rate too. Suffice to say, the people running this embarrassing auntie who lives in a caravan, do not have a clue what to do. They continue to talk about strategies in a very serious voices and then undermine every piece of knowledge that the pretty intelligent worker-ants have built up over the last few years. They promise artists with over-inflated egos the moon-on-a-stick and then wonder why we look at them and can't find the words to express the damage they have done. They assure artist management that everything will be fine and that we will look after their precious cash-cows in fine fashion and then wonder why our budgets have been smashed into smithereens and we don't cut a profit ... again.

To top it all, we have a finance/accounts system that fails to acknowledge that in order to cut costs and keep to our budgets we will need to economise and choose our suppliers carefully. Gone are the big chain hotels and 'in' are the small family run B&Bs. Gone are fancy restaurants and 'in' are transport-caffs (okay perhaps that's a little bit of an exaggeration!). My point is though, these guys don't 'do' invoicing and waiting 90 day to be paid £150... these guys want cash on the day. These guys don't care if we take our business elsewhere because they have got enough work as it is. We, however, have no alternative in most cases and so really we should be dancing to their tune. Our system thinks we should just look elsewhere if our terms 'don't suit'. The reality is not that simple. We, the poor down-trodden and abused worker-ants, are struggling to muster up the motivation to turn up let alone to do our jobs all over again. We're tired of making arrangements to have to unpick them, we're tired of promising payments and then grovelling when they're not made and we're tired of begging. Life is too short for this. Why should we be the whipping boys for someone else's decisions. Just for one day I'd like them to sit at the end of my phone and take the abuse.

Wow, sorry, that was a real waffle. What was the point of this rant anyway? Oh yes. Clearly today is one of those hormone-powered days. After having a particularly testing morning i wanted to do nothing but cry. Not because I was hurt, not because someone had upset me, I just wanted to cry. Just a little career-pointer though, tears in the workplace do not enhance career development... and and crying in Marks & Spencer's foodhall does not make you big and clever. It makes everyone around you think you are a crazy lady. I'm not ready to be one of those yet. I'd like to be at least 75 first.

So if I am PMT'd right up, does this mean that I am over-reacting to the crapness of my job? I don't think so. There really is only so much crap that can be taken before the 'why bother' gene kicks in but getting the really bad days over PMT time really is a kick in the doodies (if we had any... which if we did would probably alleviate all our hormonal problems anyway... or at least change them a little).

In conclusion, ladies and jellyspoons, PMT is a real thing. I don't like it, I don't want to admit it but it is.

I think my new cleaner is trying to kill me...

yep really.

My wooden floor is like an ice rink and that's 10 days after it was cleaned. I have 'mopped it' twice since then in the hope I can avoid slipping and breaking my neck any time soon.

We have a new cleaner. Since the perfect Sandra left we have had 2 others who re-invented the job description of 'cleaner' to be 'not really any cleaner than before we arrived' ... so I changed agencies. Now we have a lovely girl called Mihaela. Or so I thought... She came for the first time last week and once again as I opened the front door the lovely clean smell hit me. Then as I kicked off my shoes I had to scramble to catch hold of the bookshelf before I fell arse over tit onto the floor.

'Blimey', I thought, 'she's done a good job' and was very impressed until I worked out that she'd cleaned both halls, lounge and kitchen floor with PLEDGE!! Don't misunderstand me, it smelled beautiful but it was bloody deathtrap.

Boyf was out (in the pub) for the evening so I thought i should warn him about the hall (even though my inner child was chuckling at the thought of him coming in slightly inebriated and falling flat on his backside). At exactly 20 past midnight I heard a very loud 'WOOOOAAAHHHHH' and a scramble and a shoe hitting the floor. Yes, despite my text warning and him taking extra care, he too succumbed to the slippy floor dance.

At first it was quite fun and we skated round in our socks however it never seemed to get any less slippery and after almost breaking my neck again as i left the bedroom for a 4am loo trip I decided that we had to give it a good clean.

I've tried and it's not really worked. This, combined with the fact our new cleaner was sick this week, leads me to believe she is trying to kill us. Maybe she thinks we have a secret stash of cash somewhere? Well, she'll be very disappointed.


Watch this space to see if I die before she comes back next week...

Forgive me Blogspot for I have sinned....

...it's been, erm, over 3 months since my last blog.

What does this mean? That I am so dull that I have nothing to talk about? That I am so vacant that I have had no thoughts for 3 months? That I am such a busy person that I couldn't possibly have time to waste time on such fanciful things as blogging?

Nope. None of the above. I think, if I'm honest, it's that I've had so much on my mind I just haven't had the time to compose them into something meaningful and also something that i feel comfortable blogging. Not that anyone generally reads this but one can never be too careful.

How do you decide what you blog about? What makes a good blog? And what makes a blog interesting? Just how personal should you get? And if your thoughts will perhaps upset someone close to you, should you still share them with all and sundry? This I have thought a lot about and I'm still not sure if I've come to a good conclusion yet but what I do know is that as long as you're being honest and so long as you're happy to share those thoughts with the person you're blogging about too then i guess it's okay.

I think I need to stop over analysing things and just be honest. That is something I have learned over the last few months. The more you just keep it all in and dwell on your troubles then the worse these things will get. They just grow inside you out of all proportion until you start inventing problems and scenarios in your head that will probably never happen. I should know -I am the queen of reading too much into things. People that know me tend to think that I'm pretty up-front and will always stand up for myself and most of the time I will...except when it's really important! I've managed to successfully stay trapped in crap relationships because I'm too scared to speak up and equally I've managed to screw up some pretty good ones by not voicing certain concerns.

My unofficial New Years resolution was to sort myself out and I'm halfway there. Had a good 'cards on the table' chat with The Boyfriend in January. Well, I say 'good' ... it almost ended the relationship but in the end it didn't and we managed to be honest with each other. It has meant compromise and a certain amount of tolerance but we're getting there. All I need to do now is have a good talk to myself about my job and then I'll be golden!

Okay, it's late and I'm still slightly emotional about watching Notting Hill for the umpteenth time (see fairy tales can come true... well, if you are fairly wealthy and live in a pretty posh part of London with middle class friends anyway...) so I'll sign off for now with another [very late] New Years resolution to pay more attention to my terribly neglected blog.

Putting it into persepective.

I have just discovered that my ex's wife has died.

At 35 I have had a few ex's but this is The Ex. The one i spent three years with, lived with and then spent another three years getting over. We didn't part on bad terms but there was a fair amount of resentment (on my part), hurt and prolonged drinking and smoking binges. I had always blamed it on the age difference - he is younger than me - and hated him for being very immature about certain things.

We have had no contact in 6 years but his sister and I do speak from time to time. She got in touch recently to say she was getting married and we had a quick catch up. Now the deed is done I scanned her photos on Facebook to see what The Ex looks like now getting ready with the catty comments about hairline, waistline etc etc (incidentally, very little change at all except waistline and people in glasshouses...!) when i realised she had emailed me bringing me up to date with things.

I had asked her if The Ex had got married as I knew he'd been engaged for a while... i wasn't prepared for the response at all and it hit me like a punch in the gut. He had married only a month before his sister but his wife had died of cancer only 10 days later. Obviously they knew she was seriously ill but clearly had not counted on having only a short time of married life together.

I didn't know the girl, nor have i seen The Ex in 6 years but all of a sudden the tears started and wouldn't stop. I couldn't wish that kind of tragedy on my worst enemy least of all on someone I loved and cared about for a long time. In the space of 6 weeks he had his own wedding, the funeral of his wife and then had to stand and be happy for his little sister's big day.

I have a newfound respect for him and also it has put things into perspective for me. I don't know if I could have the strength to do that knowing what could be around the corner. Boyfriend isn't here right now, but all I want to do it hug him and make sure he's okay and forget about the trivial spats about untidiness and flooding the bathroom.

It's made me realise that the crap I went through in The Breakup and the things and time I lost in that period really don't matter. They're not important. You can earn more money, you can get another flat but you can't bring someone back when they are gone for good.

I'd like to call him to say how sorry I am for his loss but it's not appropriate and I know he has people around him that love him and who will look after him. So, for my contribution, this is where it stops. After today there will be no catty comments when I'm reminiscing with the girls over past loves. As far as I'm concerned we're back on a level playing field. He and I both made mistakes and said things we shouldn't have but he's done the thing I wanted him to do which was to grow up and take some responsibility. I think he's more than done that and I really wish that he hadn't had to have done it this way.

Lest we forget...

It's the 11th November and for almost 3 days now I've been vegging on the sofa feeling sorry for myself as I've got a touch of flu - aching bones, stiff neck, sore throat and zero energy. I will admit that feeling ill does tend to make me a little teary and emotional at the best of times but watching the BBC coverage of the service at the Cenotaph really sets me off: the sight of the three servicemen from the Great War struggling to lay wreaths - the oldest being 112 and the youngest 108 - and the reading of letters sent from husbands and sons to their loved ones sometimes written only hours before their far-too-early deaths.

More than making me upset, it makes me angry. Angry that I've sat here and watched the Jeremy Kyle show (please don't judge me...) with families arguing about poor parenting/bad choice of partners/revenge attacks on each other... i could go on and on. I've watch The Wright Stuff with the panel discussing whether bullied kids should walk away from confrontation or stand up for themselves, possibly putting themselves in harms way. These are things that are in the forefront of our 'culture' (and I use that term very loosely) right now and it makes me angry. Families have always bickered and kids have always got bullied no matter how far back in time you look but surely not to this extent? Why are we so intent in destroying everything nowadays? Destroying family units by saying such hurtful things to each other. Destroying our peers' self-confidence and state of mind just because they are short/fat/skinny/black/disabled/poor/rich etc etc.

We're commemorating the fallen men and women of The Great War, the 2nd World War and all the servicemen who have fought during my lifetime and are still fighting in the middle east every day and yet all around us there are people (young and old) who are blissfully ignorant to why people are even wearing poppies right now. There are young men (and unfortunately women) who are all too eager to resolve a trivial spat by whipping out a knife or using their fists.

Even those of us who do care are all guilty of moaning about what we don't have/can't have - I'm guilty myself. I've moaned about postponing our holiday next year because we need to see how the finances go what with the 'credit crunch' and all... we need to wake up and realise that people in recent times (ie: less than 100 years ago) had their food rationed, had husbands, sons, fathers going off to war and never seeing them again. Women brought up babies who had never seen their fathers on very limited resources. If there was even the opportunity of a holiday it would have probably been with a relative who lived by the see, not a fly-drive down the West-coast of America or 2 weeks in the Maldives!

We might not think so but we really need to wake up and realise how lucky we are. The world would have been a very different place without those people. Who knows what we would all be doing now, what we would be allowed to do now?

I've never been one for preaching or banging the 'love thy neighbour' drum, but I will say , whilst you don't have to like everyone you meet or agree with everyone else's opinion is it really too difficult to be a little more tolerant? To accept people for who they are, live and let live? Let's just worry about the big things and let the little things work themselves out.

I'm in heaven!

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.

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!