While I had three designers for most of the week, one left early on Thursday feeling unwell and was sent to hospital for an ECG on Friday. Turned out his heart is fine, but they had to be sure. It seems that stress has a very adverse effect on him... but it's not work stress. Looked as though he wanted to talk about it on Thursday, but not in public.
Another of my team is almost consistently late. This bugs me mainly because she had stopped calling to say she was going to be late, and why. I had a little chat with her and cleared that up, but this last week she was late and belligerent. When it was pointed out to her that she'd made a total hash of six pages of estate agent advertising, she tried to prove she hadn't. Because she had failed even to use the correct style sheet - very strange, considering how fiercely she fights to get others to use them properly, and how much she complains when they don't - she just made herself look stupid, lazy and belligerent. I suspect some influencing factor outside of work that I'm not aware of... but then, she also wanted to take time off before Christmas, despite our departmental rule that there's no holiday time in December, and the fact that she's already taken more than her annual holiday allowance.
My new designer is working out quite well, though. She's able to communicate with her editors well enough, and is gradually learning what they like. While I was worried about having a chatterbox on the team (that's self-avowed chatterbox), it's all working out quite well, because the work is getting done. The trays are never full, and generally only have three or four jobs in them at any time, unless the copy controllers are slacking off and doing things in bursts.
Our trainee has now been in hospital for about two weeks... but hopes to be back to work on Monday.
We have one new copy controller already - on trial right now, but she made the right impression (except outside the department, where all anyone can say is that she's gorgeous or "so fashionable"). We have another in the pipeline but three more interviews to go before we can safely make a decision.
The upshot is that my boss won't be my copy controller for much longer. Good for me, because everything should run smoother. Good for her, because she'll be able to deal with all the other shit instead.
During the week, I got my 2008 Exclusives from the TransFormers Collectors' Club - Nightbeat (from the Energon Hotshot mold) and the Seacons. While repaints of G1 figures aren't high on my priority list, this set are pretty cool (read: I hated them at first, but they slowly won me over and I had an almost complete set of the G1 version until I finally got Snaptrap on eBay this year, and I wanted to support the Club), and will make a neat contrast to the brightly coloured G1 version. I've been reading about quality control issues on the Club forum and my set is not without them. There are a couple of stress marks in the plastic of one figure, certain parts don't fit well - Targetmaster weapon modes are affected, rather than combined Piranacon mode - and some joints are a little on the loose side. Then again, this is a 20-odd year old mold that's been re-released at least once. The Club's colour scheme was due to be a Wal-Mart exclusive some years ago, and no-one quite knows how far through production they'd got - if at all - before the idea was canned.
Nightbeat is made from one of the most mediocre molds Energon had to offer, and yet manages to be a decent enough figure. Poseability is limited, only partly due to the Powerlinx gimmick and it's quite simplistic overall... but it has its charm.
I spent another night at the flat last night - still quite restless, but I'd been sleeping in my usual bed all week, so that's not necessarily surprising. I popped into the shop that's redoing my kitchen to finalise the worktop and came away with samples of my top two choices. Now all I need to do is finalise my choice of tiles (I have a good idea of what I want, but need to see it in person) and pick some vinyl flooring. Should be no problem...
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