Stuff in my head – Or goodbye chief

The only constant in the universe is change.

When I started this blog, nearly seven years ago now, I worked as part of a two man team with my manager who I have always referred to here as Gisele. The workload was hard and the deadline pressures constant and we lobbied for help as often as we would be listened to.

Now I am aware that I have not always been kind to Gisele when I have mentioned her on here, some of it is fair, but I can’t say all of it is.  But that’s not the point.

Things changed, we got a new person to work alongside me, lets call him Mr Coffee for the ridiculous amounts of caffeine that man took in. I won’t air out someone’s personal issues in public, but in three weeks, he put in 4 days work and I was glad it was only 4. He left shortly afterwards and the new partner’s sister was looking to get out of her industry and was given a week’s trial. I think it was more seeing if the job was right for her and not her right for the job, nepotism eh? Enter Disney Princess.

In Disney Princess’ defence she is a hard worker and whilst she took a while to teach, she got it and is a great member of the team to this day. Still workload increased, client base increased and the pressure started getting to us all. It was near this time when I had my relapse and had to take some time off. After raising the needs of the department again we lobbied for another member of staff and in came Mrs Filthy. A parent like myself and someone who shared both a history of mental health problems and a wholly inappropriate sense of humour we got on like a house on fire. It’s been rare that I can get along with someone at work so quickly. (I am somewhat of an acquired taste) So we had a four man team and I had someone I could have a laugh with at work. The problem  was that Mrs Filthy and Gisele didn’t gel in the same manner. Gisele’s often curt manner causing a lot of friction and in less than 5 months Mrs Filthy left to go manage an optician’s. I wish her well and we keep in touch, mostly through dirty jokes and inappropriate memes and she is happier.

She was succeeded by Big G. He came in to replace Mrs Filthy, but asked for more money so a more supervisory position was created to help Gisele’s part of the job and we were back to a four man group. Then after the bank holiday at the end of May, Gisele gave in her resignation. I was stunned, I had worked with that woman for years and years, ups and downs, arguments and tension and finally over the last few years we were getting along and working as a team, even sharing some confidences and having long conversations. I wasn’t shocked that she wanted to go, far from it, she’d been unhappy for many years there and she wanted out, but it seemed so sudden. Still work needed doing and we got on with it. Thing is as she was training Big G in all of the things that she hadn’t got to yet and with a deadline looming, me and Disney Princess were left with the bulk of the job, which while no one’s fault, was very hard and has left the last couple of weeks being the worst in recent memory.

After a brief and awkward hug on Friday 2nd Gisele left for the last time and I am emotional about the whole thing. Whilst we have been each other’s worst enemies for much of our time together, I grew to understand her and as she saw me suffer, she became more understanding. Now at the time when we are closer to being work friends than manager and subordinate, she has left.

I am a northern englishman over 40, so as you can imagine I don’t handle change very well and the loss of this constant is a massive shake up in my life. But that’s not what I want to be thinking about here. Not how it effects me, I am sure that there’ll be more on that story later. The part of this story is, she has made a decision to make herself happy. She’s going to do a different job at the business her husband’s family own and run. She genuinely feels that it’s the best move to make and is sad to go, rather than anxious to start a new job. I am happy for her, sad for me, but mostly happy for her.

On 1st July, we left work at the same time and she told me that I should be writing again, that she enjoyed what I wrote. I then had to wonder, what I had said about her on here. I still haven’t dared to look. But she is right, I should be doing this. I should be sharing what’s in my head. So Chief, thank you. I am sorry to see you go, but you know what, I’m glad that you are going to go somewhere better for you. Take care of yourself.

 As for me, with a new person to work alongside Big G, I am expected another rough few weeks, but I jump off that bridge when I get to it. I just wanted all this out of my head to I could enjoy my weekend.

Take care of yourselves internet people, thank you for sticking with my rambling and I will see you soon.

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