Another of those days…

I knew that yesterday was going to be a problem day because it got off to a bad start.  When I arrived at the petrol station on the way to work  two of the lanes (4 pumps) were closed and there was a small queue.  I wasn’t too worried because the queue normally moves quickly, but not on this occasion.  I sat and waited for 15 minutes, I was completely boxed in so I couldn’t even leave to try again later.  By this time the queue was baked up along the road.  This made me late for a work on a day full of meetings.

I just had time to do a few bits and pieces before my first meeting of the day.  This was actually a briefing of staff to update them on current issues relevant to them.  On this occasion it was in an interactive way, completely different from previous briefings.  The chairs were colour coded and we were split into four groups according to the colours.  We then had to answer 4 questions about the forthcoming restructuring, move to new premises and how we felt in general.  This was done by brainstorming and involved lots of post it notes.  The information was then collated and the key points were highlighted and questions answered by the head of our business unit.  It was an excellent way of getting staff involved with the process and a start to improved communication.

Following the briefing I had just enough time for lunch before my next meeting which was the a Trade Union pre meeting in advance of a Trade Union and management meeting that was taking place later to discuss and address issues on the document detailing our restructuring.  Both of the meetings went well.

Then came a further problem.  I had agreed to give a colleague a lift after the meeting which was scheduled to finish at 5pm.  I had to be at Weight Watchers around that time to help out with members attending the meeting so I told him I had to leave dead on 5 at the very latest.  I had to stress that meant leaving the bldg at 5 and not going up to the 3rd floor to pick up coats etc.  It was hard work getting through and he didn’t bring his belongings into the room where we were having the meeting but left them in the Trade Union office meaning he had to collect them afterwards.  It is a good job the meeting finished 10 minutes early because there was a lot of dithering about which included the meeting starting 10 minutes late because he was fetching his coat from upstairs!!!

On the plus side I lost 0.5lb this week despite still not being quite back on track after my few days away.

Now on to the meetings. The first one was before lunch and it was the local Whitley meeting. For those of you that don’t know, this is where management and the Trade Unions meet to discuss matters of the moment including any current concerns and issues. The meeting ran smoothly as usual and finished within an hour; all meetings should be like this. The second meeting was in the afternoon and it was where staff got together to discuss their problems and concerns. This one was not at all like the morning session and at times there were several discussions going on at once. I am glad that I wasn’t writing the minutes! After a while the head of our business unit joined us so that we could ask him questions direct. Unfortunately I had to leave early to attend a pre-arranged appointment and  felt a little bit rude in doing so.

The appointment I left for was a visit to the crematorium with my mum and brother. We had arranged for my dad’s ashes to be scattered in the Garden of Remembrance and we wanted to be present when they did this. We were a little taken aback when asked if we had walked round the garden and chosen a spot.  We were expecting them to tell us where!   After being given a little tour of the garden so we could decide, we chose to have the remains scattered in the willow meadow in the shade of a tree and overlooking the pond. There is even a bench nearby and you all know how I love to sit and ponder on a bench in a garden. The weather even had one of its special sunny moments for us.

Then to save the hassle of cooking an evening meal we walked from my mum’s house to a local Italian restaurant and had an enjoyable meal. There is a bit of a back story about the restaurant too, but I shall save that for another day.

PS: I forgot to mention that the meal was accompanied by church bells.  The local church has just had it’s bells restored after many years and the bell ringers were practising.  It brought back so many memories of listening to those very bells in years gone by

For some reason I got rather confused and caught the train an hour earlier than I needed to. I am not sure if I was in my other meeting mode which starts an hour earlier or if I was in my breakfast before meeting mode (we do that sometimes) or if I was just being ditsy.

It was rather odd to see Birmingham when it was quiet and not completely open for business. However some of it was open and instead of stopping for that cup of tea I had promised myself, I got sidetracked by the shops and dresses and shoes… I blame my colleagues for not travelling with me because they were at a different meeting elsewhere, they would have whisked my straight past the shops. Or perhaps because we would have arranged to meet on the train I would have been on the right train in the first place with no time for browsing around.

In other news; around two weeks ago the CSCS case was taken back to court because PCS and the new government couldn’t reach an agreement on the way forward. Today the high court judge has delivered his ruling:

Mr Justice Sales confirmed today, PCS was right to challenge the way the terms of the civil service compensation scheme, which governs redundancy payments, were slashed.

The decision quashes an amendment to the scheme that the previous government had claimed was effective from 1 April, and requires the new government to enter negotiations with PCS if it wants to change the scheme in future.

While the judge quashed the detrimental changes to the scheme, he retained elements – relating to protection against age discrimination – that provide improvements. The union says this shows it was not opposed to change on principle, but that any alterations had to be fair and agreed.

One of my PCS colleagues sent me an email about a forthcoming meeting and asked me to let other members of the PCS Shropshire group know when it was taking place. The email also said that on no account should I forward the original email out to the group. I complied with those wishes and as the original email had an attachment I left that out too.

Apparently that was wrong but instead of phoning me to explain what was required he phoned a colleague who sits round the corner from me at work.  This second colleague then proceeded to phone me up and dictate a letter over the phone to me, which took some time.  I was in the middle of processing over 20 Priority operational buys through our section so I got rather irritated about the total waste of everyone’s time.  I began to feel like telling someone where they could stick their email…  Maybe that is why I did not get phoned by  the first colleague

I have also been trying to arrange a branch committee meeting and the first date I sent out was a disaster, only two people were able to attend.  So I suggested we change the date to a more suitable one. I suggested this to colleague A who told me to phone colleague B to get a list of dates when he (colleague A) was available to attend the meeting.  Didn’t he know  himself when he was available???  The other problem was that it is always very difficult to get hold of colleague B and he doesn’t work in the same place as me.  I did however manage to sort that one out although I still have to type up my dictated letter and send the email in my own time!

Now what were those girls up to today?  Well today it was comparing bra sizes (there had been a fitting yesterday). I tried very hard with my selective deafness, but when someone starts shrieking your name at the top of their voice it becomes just a little difficult.  Then there was the trying to see if the works pass with it’s cord would reach round the upper ribs,  I am not sure what that was all about.  To keep the peace I tried and was the only one who could manage this, it even overlapped.  Suddenly I was no longer required for the conversation

Fast forward to this morning when I had to make numerous phone calls to get meetings and contacts etc.  During one of my phone conversations I found out that the meeting had been cancelled because another more urgent meeting was taking place, which I should have been notified about!!!  So at least those arrangements have been sorted properly now.

Even my visit to the hairdressers was not stress free (I normally find it quite relaxing).  The phone kept ringing every few minutes, which meant my hairdresser had to stop what she was doing to answer the phone.  Then when I was having my head cooked to set my perm I experienced a loud crackling noise and felt a funny sensation on the top of my head…

When I had surfaced from being engrossed from my book I reasoned that one of bands on the perm rods had split and I wasn’t being frazzled alive by a faulty hairdryer.

And if all that wasn’t bad enough, the project manger has surfaced again with some last minutes tasks before the conference!