Disappearances

Shortly after I arrived at work today, I learned that yet another of the old guard on the Sales side had been... disposed of. My boss said it reminded her of part of the leaving speech delivered by one of our Copy Controllers a couple of years ago - that working there was like being in Cuba, the way people would suddenly vanish.

Strangely, I don't remember it ever being quite like this but I had to point out the most significant difference between the kind of 'disappearance' one might experience in Cuba, and those we've experienced in our office: I'm pretty sure someone in Cuba would give a damn about those who disappeared.

I don't mean to be rude, but - with one notable exception - the new management have displayed impeccable judgment in who they dispose of. This latest one - a 'Commercial Director', or some other such WTF job title - had most likely burned out years ago. Back in the day, he refused a promotion because he considered it more important to spend time with his family than it was to ascend the greasy pole in the office. I respected him for that decision.

Sadly, it didn't last... He took up a position as one of the Commercial Managers, wangling himself a sideways transfer only a short time before the remaining Commercial Managers were made redundant. From thence, he took up a position so vague in its requirements that he barely did anything to earn his inflated paycheque. He certainly didn't sell anything significant.

I wish I could say I'm sorry he's gone, but he made so little impact on me - for good or for ill - in all the time I worked with him, and did nothing to stave off, let alone reverse the decline of the magazines he worked on. The company truly is - or at least should be - better off without him

All that really bugs me is that I had a bet on with my boss and another colleague, on who would be next out of the door, and I picked someone else.

The rest of today was a bit on the crap side. The magazine that should have gone out yesterday has been postponed to tomorrow, but the latest news is that it will now stay open - as in not go to press - until this month's targets have been met. The new boss put out one of her fabulous 'motivational' emails, requiring everyone to cross-sell into this month's last two magazines, with no discernable result. So few salespeople were in today, and so many were obsessed with the impending closure of the South office, and welcoming its staff to our hallowed halls, that barely any new sales were made. That's basically half the problem with out staff.

I have about 8 pages worth of empty space that ain't getting filled very quickly and, while we now have more than two weeks before the first magazine of the next month's cycle, I can still see things going quite pear-shaped for the end of this month.

On the upside, I met with a representative of another Employment Agency specialising in my kind of work. It didn't get off to the greatest start - we were both hanging around, not quite staring at each other, before she decided to phone me. I might have guessed who she was based on her appearance - I was expecting someone well-dressed, with a medium-sized handbag, which she most definitely was - were it not for the bag of shopping she carried. Then again, as I told her at the end of the interview, the last time I spoke to someone from an Agency, I was her last interview before she went on holiday... and she had her luggage with her.

The meeting showed me how much of my line of work I've never been involved with, and how many more layers of detail some other publications might have in their procedures. Still, I'm pretty bloody good at what I do, and she reckoned things will pick up in the next month or so, so I'm pretty hopeful that something interesting will turn up. Then it'll be me disappearing...