LIFE, VAGUENESS AND THE UNION REPRESENTATIVE

I think I have found my modern day hero or should I say heroine - let me explain.

Life at work is much the same, kids asking questions, teachers asking questions, good things and not so good things. One of the not so good things at the moment is impending support staff restructuring or harmonisation as they keep calling it. Harmony is the furthest thing this restructuring is creating - it has caused anxiety, suspicion and extremely low morale amongst us who are considered the lowest of the low in the education world.

Today I attended a 'consultation' meeting, the third one in a long line of talking about nothing - how can there be any consultation, when no details have been given of the changes mentioned in documents. Apart from the support staff, who will be affected by these changes, there were also the Head, representatives from Unison and GMB Unions and several other managers in attendance. The meeting began as usual with waffle - people talking, people listening and nothing much of any use being said. Suddenly a very smart around thirtyish woman(The GMB representative) began to speak and I was enraptured. She spoke with such eloquence, dignity and unshakeable confidence that she was a delight to hear. She dissected each part of the 'consultation' document pointing out deficiencies, stupidity and even a couple of items which could be deemed illegal. The mood of the meeting lifted and all of a sudden people who were too timid or afraid of losing their jobs began to ask the Head questions, which they really wanted to ask.

The Head began to squirm, he tried to keep his cool, he tried to backtrack and in the end he had to admit that perhaps the wording of the documents had been misleading and that he would make himself available to speak to anyone personally and specifically regarding any change to their contract of employment.

I love this woman - not in any sexual way you understand - but in a hero worship way. I am off to join the union now - I should have done this ages ago, but apathy has slowly been taking me over and listening to this woman has made me realise that if you really want something you have to get off your backside and do it.

So here I go.....

Jo xx

LIFE UPDATE

I don’t know why I haven’t written for ages, specifically I couldn’t tell you. A general feeling of malaise has descended upon me and my creative juices have evaporated.

Ok, so today I felt a little inspired to put fingers to keyboard and write something, but now I have started, where should I go?

I don’t really browse the blogs as much as I used to, but still stop in now and again to see what my family has been up to. LondonCabby, So this is Paradise and Agnostic Joe, have all tapered off with their postings - now and again a little gem appears to entertain me. Paradise Driver is always dependable and incredibly prolific with his postings and beautiful photographs of Maui – I would like to meet him some day – Lord knows how he finds the inspiration every day!

I have had a quick look at New York Cabby’s blog and it seems, since she has been involved with her book she has become somewhat obsessed with it and has forgotten that which made her popular in the first place. The quirky eccentricities of the native New Yorkers made for great reading, it kept people from around the world amused and gave us all a little insight into another type of life – good or bad – didn’t come in to it. All Melissa Plaut’s postings since she received the book offer have been pale imitations of her once meaty stories. Just looking at the number of comments she now receives to the hundreds she received in her heyday an indication of her waning popularity ’15 minutes of fame’, well and truly gone.

I have been trying to read more lately and have managed in the past two months to read a variety of decent and half-decent books.

Antibodies by David J. Skal

Heavy Time by C.J.Cherryh

Wideacre by Philippa Gregory

The Almond Picker by Simonetta Agnello Hornby

Here There Be Dragons by James A. Owen

Angel Blood by John Singleton

Stranger in a Strange Land (re-read) by Robert Heinlein

Lord of the Rings (re-reading) by J.R.R.Tolkien


Work has been incredibly stressful, with one colleague who has been taking advantage of my good nature – coming in late, off sick all the time and has managed to upset most of the other girls she works with at one point or another – she has a rather abrasive manner and constantly bosses people around, including me!!

Another one of my staff has been asked to resign – she had only worked with us for 3 weeks. She is very young, very sweet, but unfortunately a little crazy! She has tried to commit suicide twice, during her three weeks with us, so has in fact only worked two weeks, with the rest of the time off in hospital or at home getting counselling. The sad thing is that she was a good little worker and the kids really liked her, so I feel a bit bad that she was semi-forced to resign by the human resources people – I hope she will be OK.

I finally finished work yesterday for the holidays – I will be back at work on the 4th January 2008.

Family events are coming up, so it’s bound to be a busy time for all the Mums out there, cooking, cleaning, buying/wrapping presents and sneaking into bedrooms in the dead of night to leave an overstuffed Christmas stocking by the bed. I still give both of my sons a Christmas stocking – they are 25 and 20 respectively, but I don’t leave them by the bed, I hang them on their bedroom door handles – even so I still seem to be going to bed at around two in the morning. I have tried to stop this tradition, but they both begged me to keep it up – big babies!

Just in case I don’t get back to blog world before Christmas and New Year, I wish you all a happy time with whatever you are going to be doing - the photo above is my greetings card to you all.

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo.

Jo xx