It's been such a long time since I last wrote in here that I had to read some previous posts to remind myself where I'd got to.
Getting the obvious stuff out of the way first, the funeral for my Grandmother was held at the church near her home in Hanwell on the 18th of February. Quite a modest affair, with close family and a few friends in attendance. It was the first time I've seen cousin Stuart in more years than I can count, and the first time I've seen cousin Richard since my sister's wedding. Both are now married, and Stuart has a baby.
I almost didn't recognise him, to be honest. He looks so different from the boy I remember from all the family photos. He tends to look fairly bored... though, considering the new baby, that may actually be tired. He also looked kind of like a young politician at the funeral. Richard looks just the same as I remember him, and seems to be enjoying married life.
The only downsides to the funeral were that the vicar made a real hash of reading out my Grandmother's potted history - he mispronounced Abertillery, and referred to her grandchildren as her children - and, while we were waiting outside the crematorium, a couple of local yobs vaulted the fence and started checking out the cars.
Speaking to my uncle, I soon noticed many similarities to my father in his mannerisms and attitudes. It was really quite strange. When he asked what I'm doing now, he became quite scornful (not malicious, but clearly not approving) of 'lifestyle magazines'. While my father has never said anything bad about the end results of my work, he's also never said anything good about them.
Also, it's a good thing never to speak of the French in front of either of them.
The wake, at my uncle's house, was quite a sedate affair. Tea, coffee, cake... fig rolls (being a particular favourite of my Grandmother)... Catching up with branches of the family we haven't seen in years (or ever, in some cases)... Watching the peacocks prancing around in the garden. People gradually filtered out, and we eventually left well into the evening.
Since then, I've been completely off my game. I'm not concentrating at work, I've lost the will to do anything creative and, even if I hadn't, I can't seem to sit down and do anything. I have odd flashes of ideas like "perhaps I should go Travelling", but I don't want to go anywhere in particular.
Work has been going from bad to worse in so many ways. While my Senior Designer has been working two days in the office, he's been telling people left right and centre how hard he's working and that, while he's at home, he's working late into the evening to get everything done in time. What he's not telling them is that he's not working during the day, when he's supposed to. Despite a very generous offer from the company, he's manipulating the situation to sound like he's being hard done by.
For this, and many other reasons, I'm stepping up my campaign to get the hell out of there. I've sent my CV to a whole bunch of agencies, and will be making follow-up calls on Monday.
One way or another, I strongly suspect the company will self-destruct soon. The MD has completely lost the plot (rumour has it that he's looking for another job as well!), the Salespeople are completely without discipline and mostly unreliable, the editors are getting lazier, and the Production department is so thoroughly poisoned that no matter who we might try to get rid of, it's already spread to several other people. We'd need to sack everyone and start again to fix it... Coincidentally, this is the pretty much the position we were in about three years ago.
Part of me wonders if I'm part of the poison... I'm one of the last of the old guard - other than me, the last remaining person from the pre-takeover days will leave at the end of the month - and I'm still somewhat troubled by doubts seeded back in the bad old days. Mostly, I think my problem is that I'm part of the furniture... People see me in a certain way based on where I was when they started with the company. There's also a sense that almost everyone trusts what they hear about someone more than their own experience of them.
Which is just plain dumb.
I have a strange sense that the company will really start to unravel after I leave. Partly because this has happened before. When I left my last job, they found that the guy they'd brought in to work with me - and I'd told them time and time again that he was useless - wasn't able to do the job, and they were never able to properly fill my shoes. I learned last year that they'd been bought out, so the company I worked for no longer exists.
The other reason is that - modesty aside - I am such a big part of what happens there. Sure, I'm 'just' a Production Manager, and I only run 6 of the 13 magazines... but the other Production Manager has got where he is partly because I've helped him get there. No-one there could do my job half as well as I do. I have an intuition - borne of 14 years experience and many hard lessons - that no-one else has, and which cannot be trained into anyone. I also get on well with my Editors and Sales Managers... even if I don't particularly like them.
Even if they were able to find a person to take my place - and, according to at least one of the agencies, Production Managers are a rare breed these days - they'd have lost a huge chunk of the skill and experience that makes the Production Department work.
Since my boss is also planning to jump ship, who are they going to get to run the place? My counterpart isn't quite ready for that (not to mention he's looking for another job). The senior Copy Controller, so recently in the running for Classified Manager, is no longer flavour of the minute with the MD. The guy who'd probably be the popular choice - honestly, I can see all of the Copy Controllers and Editors recommending my Senior Designer - is working a two day week while his mother is ill, and is a complete fucking moron.
One of the copy controllers recently described him as "the most responsible person I know" which, quite apart from the fact that she's autistic, suggests that she may well be insane.
Part of me would really like him to get the job, just to see him screw it up... but I really wouldn't want to be even a fly on the wall while that particular disaster happened.
Worse still, one of the few reliable editors is leaving, to be replaced by the return of the most hateful editor I've ever had the misfortune of working with. I do not understand why she was given her old magazine back. She only had to have 'a job' when she returned from her extended maternity leave... it really didn't have to be the same job.
In other news, my home-hunting is basically on hold. I was forced to pull out of my flat purchase when I started having severe doubts about it after I learned - from the mortgage lender's surveyor - that the vendor had moved a tenant in. In many ways, the fact that I work with Salespeople served me very well in dealing with the Estate Agents. When I asked why the vendor would risk the sale by moving in a tennant, I was neither surprised nor convinced when the Agent used that very argument later in the conversation, to show that everything was fine. They couldn't tell me when the guy was moving out, but constantly repeated the vague assertion that "he'll be gone before the deal completes" and, while they had no idea why there was suddenly a tennant, suggested that it was "probably a friend of the vendor". Great. That's nice to know.
There are things to look forward to, though. Memorabilia is at the end of the month. That means a weekend away, and plenty of fun.
I've got into a new Anime - Ergo Proxy - which, despite being full of stereotypes, manages to be far more entertaining that the likes of Gilgamesh. I recently picked up volume five of Le Chevalier D'Eon... only to discover that I had not first bought volume four. Oops.
Returning, briefly, to the subject of creative endeavours, my boss has asked me to write a story for her birthday (this coming Tuesday). It is to centre on one particular character, but it is to be completely original. So far I have some ideas... but part of my doesn't want to give this character the tragic beginning these ideas will bring. I guess I really have been reading too much Stephen Donaldson. I believe the intention was to help break the creative deadlock... but right now I'm not sure I'll have anything done in time. I even suggested doing a sketch ("every picture tells a story," said I)... but while I've made more progress with that than with this inchoate story, it is - like the story - not right.
And I'm really running out of time.
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