Despite my good intentions, blogging more this year just hasn’t happened.
Things have been a bit manic so far this year. The Finance reorganisation was finally announced on 13th Jan. As we had been waiting on tenterhooks since the previous Monday we were all desperate to know what was going on. However, in the true spirit of toying with employees emotions for fun we were told Wednesday night the announcement would be made on Thursday. When I got in on Thursday morning I was booked into a meeting at 4.30pm so I had to sweat my way through the day. It was strange as I hadn’t been invited with the rest of my team – I was invited with a bunch of people that I hardly knew. I realised that this meant something different was probably going to happen to me, although my old manager seemed to believe that my omission from her group was just an oversight. I never brought into that theory as the announcement had been too long coming for us to be told in just random groups. ‘So what was the outcome?’ I hear you cry (or not) The good news is that I still have a job, but my reporting lines have changed. Customer Services finance used to sit within Sales Finance. The new structure has separated it out as a new team comprising a manger who reports into the Head of Functional Controlling and 2 analysts. The bad news was that I was put into one of the analyst roles even after having carried out the manager role in everything but name and pay for the last year. I have to carry on as the acting manager until the new manager is appointed. The Head of Functional Controlling reports into the Finance director so the manager’s job was a senior management role. I talked to the Head of Functional Controlling and he said he didn’t think I was ready for that role yet. I said fair enough, but in that case I want to move roles as there is nowhere for me to go now in CS Finance and he said that was OK.
Things were much worse for the rest of my team. Their jobs no longer exist in their current form and they have been put onto 30 day consultation and redeployment. This included my old manager and heavily pregnant friend Busty Lustley. However, there are 35 vacancies in the new organisation (and that doesn’t include vacancies in other parts of Finance) and only 19 people on redeployment so they should be OK. The new vacancies were advertised last Friday and I am interested in a couple of them. I have a meeting later today with one of my previous managers (who some of you may remember for having near enough the same name as me) as she has 4 vacancies reporting to her. The redeployment people get priority of application, but everyone will be treated equally when it comes to interview.
As this wasn’t enough, I also have lots going on with my Mum who hasn’t been well recently. However, this has helped keep all of the work stuff in perspective.
Outside of work and my family, things have been uneventful. I have seen friends Bonnie Sin, Kinky Malibu and Mary Ellen Thong regularly, I’ve been going to the gym 3 times a week and trying to loose weight again (which is not happening so far) I’ve also been to see the new Bridget Jones film at the cinema (which I’m not going to talk about) and Closer (which I am)
I actually saw Closer when it was on in the West End. Friend Tiffani Holiday and I booked tickets to go when we were at university. The only reason we went was because the actor Neil Pearson was in it. So, I can actually sound cultured and discuss the film in relation to the play, although the first point that needs to be made was that Neil Pearson should have been cast in the film (luckily I was able to see him at the cinema in Bridget Jones instead) Now that sounding cultured has gone straight out of the window, I will say that the film was really well done and retained all of the emotional intensity of the play. The ending is slightly different, but still works well and retains the same twist. It’s not a feel good feel film and you have to stay focused watching it as the timescales change without warning or explanation. Unlike most films there is not much background music. It is this that makes it so intense (however, it’s not so good if you have noisy eaters in the cinema with you as there is nothing to drown them out) However, one of the few bits of the film which has music in the background is when the doctor is in the strip club talking to the stripper. The reason I’m even talking about this is because I feel that they got the music so right for this scene – How Soon Is Now by The Smiths. Those that know me, will know that this is not my usual type of music. However, I love this song in a weird way as it is the song I play when I’m unhappy. It doesn’t soothe me but somehow it seems to echo what I feel. For this reason the anguish in the song fitted perfectly with what was going on in the scene in the film.
Listen to me with my film analysis – anyone would think I’m the next Barry Norman or Jonathan Ross…
