One thing I'm really starting to hate about the World Cup - though admittedly it's more to do with living on a fairly busy road - is the noise after the games, particularly those on a Friday. Late night drinking isn't any later or louder, but its results sure stick around longer. It was something like 2am today before it got quiet enough for me to get any sensible sleep.
Not that it was particularly good sleep. I had a very vivid dream about my teeth - first one of them in a long while but, hey, at least it wasn't a zombie dream... Then again, why would I dream zombies when I'd been hearing them shuffling around outside for about three hours?
To cut a long story short, my recent toothache - caused by an abscess - had returned, and I ended up yanking out the tooth myself, with the idea that removing the tooth would allow the abscess to drain, and then I could re-seat the tooth myself.
But, of course, I didn't.
For some very odd reason, I bunched up a black hairband and placed it in my mouth to protect the bleeding, gaping hole in my gum... and kept it there for ages. Long enough to go to sleep and, upon waking, find that it had twisted its way around my remaining teeth. And when I pulled it out, most of the rest of my teeth came with it. Some flew up to the windowsill (it became apparent at this point that I was at my parents' house), while others just fell into the basin, along with lots and lots of blood.
I called out to my parents, and tried to gather up my bloody, slippery teeth, hoping that someone would tell me they could all be put back... but my mother just looked horrified. She spoke of some trick that was supposed to keep teeth safe by keeping them soaked in something before they could be replaced. I said I was sure they should be kept in a glass of milk, but my mother expressed some doubt.
The thing that got to me about it was that I was convinced it was real, right up until I woke up and checked my teeth... it didn't feel like a dream at all, it felt like a memory... I'd really felt the teeth getting uprooted and popping out... I'd tasted the blood before I started spitting it out... which really wasn't nice.
In other news, at work, there's nothing officially official, as it were, because the next meeting isn't till sometime next week... but one office is still hammering away at the facts that the redundancy/recentralisation proposal is either based on flawed numbers (those that we've seen), and that we haven't seen the 'real' numbers. The company is basically saying "tough shit, we've made our decision based on the real figures, so there's no point showing them to you now".
However, the timeline for the coming events has changed quite dramatically. Offices were due to start migrating to Head Office under the new system in July. This has now shifted back to September, with the possibility that my office may close in January, not December. The next meeting will supposedly include details of the final timetable, and any further slippage on that will become the company's problem.
Much of this came from our local HR Rep who, when asked if the slippage was a sign that the new system wasn't testing well, declined to offer an opinion in a way that suggested that the system was, indeed, not testing well.
What came out of the conversation is that my counterpart and I, as Production Managers, may have shifted onto three month notice periods, despite never having signed a contract to this effect. The good news, if this is the case, is that I would supposedly get another two months pay (in addition to the 11 weeks redundancy payout) if I stay till the bitter end.
Also, somewhat amusingly, it is becoming obvious that the guy who came up with this proposal hadn't realised how few people would be interested in moving to Head Office to take up lower-paid jobs in battery farm conditions when he made his ill-judged comment about replacing us with graduates from their local Design College. Certainly no-one from London will go (a pay cut of £7k minimum..? Easy pass), so that's six Designers from one location with anywhere between 2 and 6 years' experience with the clients.
But there's the thing: our employers believe they're replacing a bunch of Designers... when they're actually replacing a bunch of Designers and, collectively, about 19 years experience working with their London clients... And many more years' experience in the Design field generally. And that is just the Designers. Add my counterpart and I into the calculation and it goes up to more than 40 years' experience. Add our boss, and it's an awful lot more
Either they're completely fucking stupid, or they believe that a £1M pa saving balances this out.
Which is to say either they're completely fucking stupid, or they're completely fucking stupid.
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