Several redundancies were announced last week. The remaining Commerical Manager, one of the Property sales reps and the two Senior Designers. Of these latter two, one was gutted, the other quite stoic.
Oddly, despite the apparent popularity of one of them, virtually nothing has been said about what a sad loss he'll be. Absolutely nothing from Editorial (where one of his 'special' friends now works), and very little from Sales. Either he's really not as popular as he seems (to think he is) or everyone's too panicked by the current economic situation.
In more positive news, last weekend was the London Expo... which was an improvement on the last in some ways (queueing was far better handled) but not in others ('early entry' still started after 9am, and the queue didn't finish till about 10am, which is standard entry time and, by that time, the hall was already quite full of people). I managed to get a birthday present for a friend - an Indiana Jones Mr Potato Head - and a few cool bits for myself, including a trio of Gundam kits - Gundam Thrones Eine, Zwei and Drei - because their serial number starts with my initials. My reason for buying Eine got a laugh out of one of the guys manning the Gundam Nation stand, and he insisted that I'd want all three "because they combine into an enormous gun" - not strictly true: the gun is mounted on Eine, then Zwei and Drei plug into it via ports on Eine's back.
I've been quite fortunate on eBay, too... I recently nabbed BotCon 2008 attendee souvenir figures Megatron, Rodimus and Divebomb, then got the Micron Legend (aka Armada) X-Dimension Air Defence Team (Star Sabre molded with transparent and bright orange plastic, going nicely with the blue version I picked up at Memorabilia!), then BotCon 2008 Evil Jazz (the only part of the box set that interested me in the slightest. All came at fairly reasonable prices, considering their rarity. Pictures may follow later, if I can get my act together...
When it comes to reasonable prices, though, this year's Japanese Wonderfest Exclusive TransFormer - the G1 deco Movie Arcee - generally goes for about $200 on eBay... Just today, I've snagged one for a mere $100 and change - working out at just over £60, including the shipping from Japan.
Saturday 31 May 2008
Sunday 18 May 2008
Constant Change
Things at work are really going haywire.
I know. I say that a lot.
I recently attended a two-day residential course to improve my 'Personal Effectiveness' and, while I'd intended to write about that more fully, I'm going to cut the long story short and say it was better than I'd expected. It was informative and fun, with a fair few useful ideas and techniques crammed in. It also served to confirm that some of my instincts, when it comes to Managing, are pretty good. The tutor actually reckoned I was a "natural manager"... which actually goes completely against any kind of career/personality profiling I've ever done.
Still, it made me feel better about the way I do things.
When I got back to the office, full of ideas and renewed energy, it didn't take long for the company to drain the lot away. My counterpart seems to have fared better where this is concerned but part of that may be his willingness to stay versus my desire to get the hell out.
First and foremost, it seemed that my team had done next to no work while I was away. This hit us all the first Friday, when one magazine didn't go out as smoothly as it could have. Of course, upon closer inspection of the circumstances, my team had been working hard, just not necessarily on the right things at the right time. Again, one specific member of my team was accused of not pulling her weight, but this turned out to be a baseless accusation. Again.
On that same subject, our Senior Copy Controller was targetted with some baseless accusations about how much money his team is costing the company. This came from the MD, in a little meeting that was basically a witch-hunt. It also came after the Senior Copy Controller had been offered a good redundancy package, so it seemed entirely pointless, except as an exercise in getting our of paying him anything in redundancy, and showing the remaining Copy Controllers 'what happens when you cross the MD'.
Now he's being made redundant (with the original offer, assuming he keeps his nose clean... there were rumours that he was going to play silly-buggers), and we're also set to lose one of the remaining Copy Controllers... All because the company isn't performing as well as predicted. Considering the current financial climate, this is hardly surprising, let alone when you take the moronic, lazy sales 'force' into account.
In other news, my sister's friend with cancer died on the recent Bank Holiday Monday, the cancer having spread too far unchecked. Understandably, my sister is in a kind of emotional limbo - trying to grieve, but still angry that her friend not only did nothing to save herself, but actively lied about her situation and hid its severity.
My old mate Paul had a shock recently when one of his colleagues suffered a stroke. At 55, this guy is on his second stroke - the first was very minor, but this one has paralysed his left side. No nerve damage, so physiotherapy should fix him up to a certain extent.
The flat purchase is still progressing, albeit slowly. My folks have pledged to pay for the repair work that needs doing, as well as the ongoing solicitors expenses. The mortgage is in place, as well as the health insurance and contents insurance... All I have to do is sign on the dotted line and indicate when I want it all to start. I hope it starts to move a little quicker...
This weekend I've been painting a new model. I've taken the head from my Universe Ultra Magnus (aka boring white Armada Bendy Prime) and stuck it on TransFormers Movie Stockade to create a weird (but popular with customisers) hybrid of 'Movie Optimus Primal'. Stockade basically looks ape-like and is mostly black, so it just needed some red, some metallic colours and the new head. I'm pretty happy with it so far... it's been quick, and looks decent.
Today, I met up with my boss to discuss how the department can run with only two Copy Controllers per team... There are ways of making it work, so it's looking possible... but both of us want to ask the very pertinent question "Why must Production lose staff while so many Salespeople are underperforming because they're spending their time down the pub?"
We went to a sushi restaurant in Ealing and, after a very pleasant meal, headed off to Ealing Common to attempt to fly my kite. Sadly, the wind was rather gusty, so it didn't stay up long... but it is quite a therapeutic experience.
Depending on how she got on writing up the action plan/business case for shedding Copy Controllers (and, to my personal delight, the Senior Designers, both of whom are crap in their own special ways), she may or may not be in work tomorrow... but I don't forsee too many problems. Last week was weird because my copy controller was missing and the two who were filling in for him were a bit vague (covering for someone else is always a little perilous). I'm not sure having two people copy control one magazine was such a good idea, particularly as both presented me with job bags for the same job on quite a few occasions... but that should sort itself out soon enough.
I know. I say that a lot.
I recently attended a two-day residential course to improve my 'Personal Effectiveness' and, while I'd intended to write about that more fully, I'm going to cut the long story short and say it was better than I'd expected. It was informative and fun, with a fair few useful ideas and techniques crammed in. It also served to confirm that some of my instincts, when it comes to Managing, are pretty good. The tutor actually reckoned I was a "natural manager"... which actually goes completely against any kind of career/personality profiling I've ever done.
Still, it made me feel better about the way I do things.
When I got back to the office, full of ideas and renewed energy, it didn't take long for the company to drain the lot away. My counterpart seems to have fared better where this is concerned but part of that may be his willingness to stay versus my desire to get the hell out.
First and foremost, it seemed that my team had done next to no work while I was away. This hit us all the first Friday, when one magazine didn't go out as smoothly as it could have. Of course, upon closer inspection of the circumstances, my team had been working hard, just not necessarily on the right things at the right time. Again, one specific member of my team was accused of not pulling her weight, but this turned out to be a baseless accusation. Again.
On that same subject, our Senior Copy Controller was targetted with some baseless accusations about how much money his team is costing the company. This came from the MD, in a little meeting that was basically a witch-hunt. It also came after the Senior Copy Controller had been offered a good redundancy package, so it seemed entirely pointless, except as an exercise in getting our of paying him anything in redundancy, and showing the remaining Copy Controllers 'what happens when you cross the MD'.
Now he's being made redundant (with the original offer, assuming he keeps his nose clean... there were rumours that he was going to play silly-buggers), and we're also set to lose one of the remaining Copy Controllers... All because the company isn't performing as well as predicted. Considering the current financial climate, this is hardly surprising, let alone when you take the moronic, lazy sales 'force' into account.
In other news, my sister's friend with cancer died on the recent Bank Holiday Monday, the cancer having spread too far unchecked. Understandably, my sister is in a kind of emotional limbo - trying to grieve, but still angry that her friend not only did nothing to save herself, but actively lied about her situation and hid its severity.
My old mate Paul had a shock recently when one of his colleagues suffered a stroke. At 55, this guy is on his second stroke - the first was very minor, but this one has paralysed his left side. No nerve damage, so physiotherapy should fix him up to a certain extent.
The flat purchase is still progressing, albeit slowly. My folks have pledged to pay for the repair work that needs doing, as well as the ongoing solicitors expenses. The mortgage is in place, as well as the health insurance and contents insurance... All I have to do is sign on the dotted line and indicate when I want it all to start. I hope it starts to move a little quicker...
This weekend I've been painting a new model. I've taken the head from my Universe Ultra Magnus (aka boring white Armada Bendy Prime) and stuck it on TransFormers Movie Stockade to create a weird (but popular with customisers) hybrid of 'Movie Optimus Primal'. Stockade basically looks ape-like and is mostly black, so it just needed some red, some metallic colours and the new head. I'm pretty happy with it so far... it's been quick, and looks decent.
Today, I met up with my boss to discuss how the department can run with only two Copy Controllers per team... There are ways of making it work, so it's looking possible... but both of us want to ask the very pertinent question "Why must Production lose staff while so many Salespeople are underperforming because they're spending their time down the pub?"
We went to a sushi restaurant in Ealing and, after a very pleasant meal, headed off to Ealing Common to attempt to fly my kite. Sadly, the wind was rather gusty, so it didn't stay up long... but it is quite a therapeutic experience.
Depending on how she got on writing up the action plan/business case for shedding Copy Controllers (and, to my personal delight, the Senior Designers, both of whom are crap in their own special ways), she may or may not be in work tomorrow... but I don't forsee too many problems. Last week was weird because my copy controller was missing and the two who were filling in for him were a bit vague (covering for someone else is always a little perilous). I'm not sure having two people copy control one magazine was such a good idea, particularly as both presented me with job bags for the same job on quite a few occasions... but that should sort itself out soon enough.
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