Peace Festival and Work Stuff

Pump Room Gardens, May 2019

It's been a little more eventful of late, which at least gives me more to write about.

The Peace Festival

This is the annual event held in Leamington featuring all manner of stalls and food and musicians, this year including Warwick Triratna Buddhists. This was my idea - now that I am completely suppressing all my Great Ideas at work, they are popping out everywhere else. After suggesting that the group take a stall at the Festival and the committee thinking this wasn't a bad idea I randomly invited some friends to stay over at my house at the same time. Luckily we did manage to rustle up enough helpers on the stall to allow me time off, and I could still help out on the stall and chill with the friends and it all worked out all right.

My particular task in the lead up to the event was to create some leaflets that we could hand out with some information about the group and the dates of the next introductory courses. I managed it with days to spare, unlike the person whose particular task was to create some sort of signage for our stall. For the whole of Saturday we were anonymous, which combined with the occasional downpours led to a largely unsuccessful sign-up rate. Thankfully the same person who didn't manage the sign did manage to borrow a large awning, without which we would have been drenched and would probably have given up and gone home.

We persevered, and on Sunday a small blackboard was procured for a sign to identify ourselves, the weather was much better, and people actually started showing an interest. We'll see how that converts to attendees at the intro courses. We'll be reviewing the whole affair at our next meeting when we'll decide whether it was worth it and what we would do differently if there is a next time.

Work Stuff 1

I made an epic mistake when I bought tickets to attend a festival in July - the same one that I went to last year - because somehow I put the wrong dates in my diary. Looking back, the dates were clear on the website and in the email to confirm the booking and everywhere else, so I can't quite understand how I got it wrong. But I did, and that meant that I had constructed my work schedule around the wrong dates, including a meeting, a course and clinics, not to mention the summer concert on the Saturday.

The realisation hit me with that sinking feeling in my stomach followed by disbelief and panic: I had full clinics on days I would not be at work and I'd cleared my diary on days when I would now be available. And there was no way the course could be moved, although the meeting could. My options were to come clean, in which case hospital policy is that clinics cannot be cancelled with less than six weeks' notice. The alternative was to try and make the necessary arrangements clandestinely and hope not to get caught out. I did the right thing, and a week later we have moved the clinics and officially switched my annual leave, although I'll have to head to the campsite after the course rather than have that day free to prepare. And no summer concert for me.

Work Stuff 2

I have made an application for 'flexible working', meaning that I have asked to reduce my 27-hour nearly-four-day working week to a nearly-two-day working week. The application went in back in January, at which point the Team Leader whose job it is to take my application forward had to have an emergency operation which took her away from work for a while. No problem, with six months to go there ought to have been plenty of time to work things out. But she never did - she was always saying "I don't have all the answers" and refusing to sit down with me and my team to work out how to take things forward. Then, about a month ago, she announced that the work in the nearly-two days I was giving up would be picked up by two different people, one of them being herself.

This was not an acceptable proposal and my team rightly protested, but again with the dragging her feet and not agreeing to a meeting. Eventually, when she happened to drop in to the department, I pretty much marched her round to one of my team so that they could highlight the problem.

There followed more procrastination, and then a suggestion of a meeting with her manager, and then with just six weeks to go the Team Leader announces to me that she's leaving altogether. All the delay and obfuscation was down to the fact that a) she wanted the extra hours for herself, while simultaneously b) she was applying for this other job. So we've got our aim of the whole job being done by just two people, but are left with much less time to prepare, and the manager above has now declined the meeting.

I could go on. It's really frustrating. There's lots more I could say, but it's not very interesting and leaves me feeling very negative. All I will say is that this is one of the reasons that I have determined to stop having ideas at work.

Quick LTRP update

Ilf has popped up a month earlier than he first suggested and has made a start on all the preparation for painting now that the plastering is done. There are holes and rough surfaces and plaster splatter all over the place - I got rid of a lot of it but not all. And more than a month after I told him about the blown LED light unit, Ulf has come and had a look, whistled through his teeth and gone away again. I discovered that the main cause for the delay was that his electrician has gone AWOL and nobody knows where he is. He has a new electrician, but I received a message this morning that it is slightly more complicated by the fact that the particular unit I have is no longer available, but we need something that will match the other lights. One thing I have learned through the whole span of the LTRP is that it always takes longer than you think, even when you are actually in no hurry.