Big Cheeses and Slagging of The Unlamented C

Tonight we on the night team were to meet with two of the “Big Cheeses” to discuss the business and the way forward after the recent traumatic staff losses. I for one wasn’t looking forward to this as usually these exercises are not only a complete waste of time the false friendliness and the air of “we’re all equals together” is cringingly embarrassing and nauseating in the extreme. Additionally I anticipated, given the recent evening, it would mean we would leave the meeting to return to discover an even bigger queue of customers trying to contact us.

Well it takes a big man to admit when they are wrong so it’s a lucky thing that I have an enormous Willie because I was. The meeting was interesting, informative and I I believe our feedback was actually listened too and may even end up being acted upon (time will tell). We were also reassured that, at least in the medium term, our jobs were safe. I certainly wasn’t wrong about the queues mind you and at one point we had 107 people trying to contact us. On the upside the time flew by and by midnight we’d cleared this backlog.

Don’t know what prompted it (hold on I do, it was the night security guy Godfrey) but later on the knives really came out for our late and much unlamented colleague Carol. OMG did the ladies on the team do a number on her but then saying that nothing they said was actually undeserved. She indeed was a 1^st class bitch and her absence has been the one ray of light in an otherwise, work wise, dismal new year.

Is I Sicks? Pissed!

What is the matter with me? Again this morning I could barely stay awake for the last hour/ 90 minutes of work and when I got home I also immediately fell asleep. Poured a cider and grabbed tinny to add. I awoke at 8.45 to see warm cider and still unopened tin on table next to sofa. Woke up a little and finally went up to bed at 10:00. Again can’t recall anything other than waking a couple of times to use the loo. No idea what podcasts I played because I didn’t remain awake long enough for anything to register.

This is not my normal behaviour; all my life I’ve found it difficult to fall asleep but for the last month or more I seem to spend most of my time at home asleep on the sofa. Best arrange appointment with GP just to be on the safe side. After all, it could be something serious but hopefully not. May be they will prescribe crystal meth or something similar so that I’ll have a high old time (yes I will leave the room and shoot myself for that) Innit!

@WebVixn Indeed; Stupid Welshmen  ...  it’s Twitter's secret recipe for success.

Oh well just left Twitter, FaceBook and Yahoo for tonight; had enough of inquisition for now. Seems you can’t do right for doing wrong and I’m really not in the mood to be guilt tripped every time I do something. In a really really really bad mood now for some strange reason and work is stressful enough without adding to it.

Easter Monday: Nail a Fanatic to a Tree Day +4

Left work this morning noting that there were a whole 12 people (approx) in work ready to take calls at seven, compared to 60+ at the same time week days last week, so it would seem that again people have chosen to take the day as a bank holiday because they weren’t given 28 days notice that they were required to work. This didn’t bode well for the evening and I resolved to get a good day’s sleep.

Weather was yucky and I was so so glad I’m still not cycling, because of shoulder injury (shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore but getting constant pins and needles all along my arm now) and I was so glad that was the case because it was one of those horrible cold drizzling rains that chill you and soak you to your very marrow. Once again Nat avoided having to do his paper round on his bike. Given the cost of petrol I wonder whether, as a family, we’d be better off financially if he didn’t have a paper round.

Once I was home I stayed up for a little while but headed for bed around 10:00 and went to sleep virtually immediately. Slept through the day and woke about 5.00. was not looking forward to work and so when I arrived at 7:15 I was pleasantly surprised that we’d only taken 2,300 calls all day and there were no calls in queue.

Sadly things didn’t stay like that; at 8:00 everywhere (everywhere TF) closed and all of a sudden we had 40 calls in queue and a handful of people answering them. This situation continued passed midnight and eventually dies off.

At 3:15 we received a call from someone, supposedly with autism, and 1.5 hours later we were still dealing with it. Turned out, it appears, it was, or may have been, a hoax call. Be interesting to see what it’s like this morning and tonight. If it’s the same then a few “reorganisers” need to be shown the door via a fucking great boot up their collective arses. Like the Catholic God Botherer shown below:

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Easter Sunday today (where we celebrate a mad Jew coming back from the dead after being nailed to a tree by making ourselves sick on chocolate) and the kids did the usual morning garden egg hunt. Unfortunately I was asleep on the sofa and wasn’t woken so didn’t get to see or photograph the event. Shame because whether Nat will want to take part next year is moot so this may have been the last time. (insert egg photos). Incredibly tired so went to bed shortly afterward so that was the day for me. Got up about 5.15 for dinner before going to work and was lucky enough to be inundated with WhatsApp photos from Di in Florida. She and family going for Easter lunch with some rich Disney high flyers. Nice pictures and of course I’m too mature and sensible to be in any way jealous.

First night back tonight and after speaking to Nicky I’m so so glad I didn’t put down to do overtime on Good Friday. Apparently the new contracts require the Company to give staff 28 days notice if they are needed to work on a bank Holiday. Now given that the contracts haven’t been in force that long obviously this obligation was not met and it seems that a large number of people decide to take the day off. It would seem that there were as few as twenty staff available and when she came in at 4pm there were hundreds of calls in queue and most were complaints because none of the Stockp**t jobs had been issued. It seems that call centre now starts at 8.00 am so there was no one there to input the manual jobs raised over night. Why oh why do the words “piss-up and brewery” keep pooping into my mind I wonder?
Things were quiet initially but soon as everywhere else closed they got busier and soon there were queues. Lord knows what winter will be like!!!

Overtime and Queuing Calls

Home this morning; advised Deb about overtime request (after reorganisation there are no CSA’a in the evening and there are tons of calls in queue so Sara asked if we will do overtime during 2 of our 4 days off to help cover shortfall) and problem with finishing at midnight if I can’t cycle. She said don’t worry will pick you up. She no longer gives a shit about HSBC now and getting up rested. She got redundancy confirmation letter yesterday … finished 31/12 and get £27K redundancy payment. Once that’s done I think she’ll be putting in claim for unfair dismissal which means she’s going to have to appeal the redundancy, in next three weeks, via the internal procedure or otherwise she’ll not have a leg to stand on in any later legal action.

The process itself seems incredibly flawed. They are giving jobs to those facing redundancy first in August. These are the people who scored the lowest on their assessments so the top people will stay until December and then if there are no alternative jobs will be gone. Why not offer the jobs to them, the high scorers, and keep the others, the low scorers, working in the team until December?

Whatever one feels about the redundancies at my job at least they were carried out properly even if it looks as though a few people were shafted by their managers (JFM/Liz).

Exhausted again this morning and so went to bed about 10.00 AM, maybe earlier, and was asleep shortly after my feet hit the pillow. Apart from a few wee’s slept through until 5.30 and awoke totally knackered, seeing a pattern here anyone one?

Nat was out at Jacob’s and had been for most of the day apparently. Deb drove me to work where, colour me shocked … not, over a 100 calls in queue!!! Looks like the reorganisation has gone swimmingly cos we don’t normally have that many in December unless the weather is particularly bad!!! It was non-stop until Midnight and you could hear the annoyance in people’s voices at having to wait so long to be answered. All the company needs to do now is transfer the call centre overseas and they’ll finally have no customers at all. What a debacle!!!

Oh well it’s my last night tonight and I’m looking forward to the next four days rest.

Bye Bye John and Krishna Part 2

John left this morning, on the dot at seven o’clock. he literally shook hands and ran from the building. I think (know) this was to stop people seeing just how upset he was with what was happening. After 18 years unceremonious finish no one from senior management even bothered to say goodbye and as for his immediate manager he hasn’t met with her since 9 January. In fact I don’t think any of us of seen hide or hair of her for months. Nice one L you is the world’s best … not. As far as I’m concerned it was your failure to distinguish between noise and competence that lead to his redundancy in the first place. We’ll just have to see how well your silly USA style of management works out in the long term won’t we. I suspect it will be as applicable to the UK worker as introducing a Japanese company anthem and morning calisthenics wouldn’t be. We don’t Razzle and we don’t Cheer (we just wanna drink your beer … oops poetry fit there I suspect) because we are far too laid back for that sort of bollocks. Instead we just get on with doing the job. Oh well time will tell and we’ll see how the new guy works out when he returns from his 3 week holiday in the USA trhat began at the end of last week … more superb timing innit!

So the day began on a high note and to be honest little happened to raise the level of general merriment. Got home about 7.30 and while Deb took Nat out to do his new Sunday paper round (he will be cycling, eventually, once route is properly sussed out) I continued to convert some books on calibre while waiting for out decrepit TV to display a picture. It’s a record breaker!!! TV turned on at 7:45 picture appears shortly after 11:10. Yeah, we gotta widescreen radio; I wonder if I could sell it on eBay as a novelty item? PC was it’s usual helpful self and kept freezing but eventually got my scuience and atheism books converting and transferred these to the Kindle later.

Checked my N8 in order to download pics from last night only to discover that Hasmukh’s had vanished/never appeared. I searched gallery and all files repeatedly but they were no where to be found. It occurred to me later that they might have stored on the pen drive I was using to watch Dexter but I’m sure that wasn’t attached at the time of the trf. I’ll have to check that at work tonight.

Went to bed about 1:30 and after a short interlude fell asleep listening to Bill Bryson audio book “Sorry I’m a Stranger Here Myself” which collects his late 1990’s news paper column chronicling his misadventures when he returned to live in the USA after a twenty year absence. Nat played rugby at Coalville this morning. They had been told that Coalville RFC were raising money for charity and that they all had to wear something pink to the match. Deb pointed out the date to Nat, 1 April, and suggested that perhaps this wasn’t strictly true and that it might be an April Fools trick. Nat didn’t wear pink but had a pink T-Shirt of mine in his bag in case it wasn’t a wind up. It was a wind up but had unfortunate consequences. The team were short three players and at least one, Jacob (I’m a lazy little fucker and any excuse will do) didn’t come because he didn’t have anything pink to wear. Vipers were only able to field 12 players and had to borrow 3 off the other team. They were given the three of Coalville’s most rubbish players and these guys then proceeded to play as if they were still on Coalville’s side. Very bad form because when the role is reversed our guys are told to play at their best for the other side. Vipers narrowly lost allow Nat scored 2 tries and heard their coach telling his guys that if he came through again to hit him and complained to the ref that Nat had punched one of the Coalville team. Luckily Duncan was referring and knows that Nat wouldn’t do that except in retaliation. In any event if he had hit the guy it was claimed he hit it would be unlikely that he would be sufficiently conscious to complain about it. I heard all this when I woke because yet again I’d had to miss the match because I was working.

Got up at Six and had dinner before work. Deb had bought one of Marks and Spencer’s (£10.00 romantic) Meals for 2 deals for Sunday dinner and had stretched it with additional vegetables. The fried peppers were delicious and there was certainly more than enough chicken for four.

Left home at seven having uploaded most the books I was converting earlier to my kindle. Atmosphere at work wasn’t happy everyone very down about John and Krishna. Busy as buggery don’t know why except Cardiff centre kept trying to off load national grid calls onto us until we explained we weren’t part of the pilot scheme they were running and so to stop fucking calling us.

 Eventually, we things quietened down  we dug out last night’s remaining cakes and savouries and induldged ourselves. After a slice of Hannah’s cake (even nicer after a day to mature in the tin) I tried a slice of Sandy’s chocolate tort: OMG I think I’ve died and gone to chocolate heaven!!! Sandy made a rich dark chocolate tort for last night which remained untouched, too much food twas the same with Hannah’s cakes, and was kept for tonight. The others complained that it was too rich for them but with strong black coffee it was delicious and as I write these lines I’m still recovering from the endorphin rush … so this is what chocolate does to women ah? This was immediately followed by Mr’s h’s curry which it to be said has left me with a peculiar taste in my mouth. Not unpleasant just peculiar. Add black coffee and an early Grey tea made by Abdul and I’m assured of a reputation as a well cosmopolitan eater innit!!!