Work Wife Balance

by Jo Edwards

Monday morning:

  As I was working my way through emails (93 unread in the inbox) I noticed my teams had gone very quiet. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Cruella had entered the department, and seemed to be headed in my direction. I quickly picked up my headset and plonked it on my head, hoping to fool her into thinking I was on a conference call. It worked! She walked on past and through the doors. Big sigh of relief - small victories! I couldn’t cope with her today.

  An email dropped into my inbox from the Communications Team. They’d sent it to every member of staff and it had a newsletter attached to it. I opened it up and there was a picture of a woman in an anorak planting a smacker of a kiss on the cheek of The Big Cheese. He was pulling a goofy face. The headline said: “Flood Victims Thank Our Chief Exec”. There was a gushing article on how The Big Cheese had sprung a “surprise” visit on the residents of Shortham, whose village had been badly flooded recently. Apparently, as soon as he stepped out of the car, our customers had “rushed to embrace him”. You’d think he was the messiah. There were pictures of him in his wellies, stood looking sadly at someone’s soggy garden, pretending to muck in and sweep water away from a front door and, particularly puke-making, holding up a tiny kitten that had apparently had a miraculous escape.

  There was an interview with the woman in the anorak, who happened to have a severely disabled son. Utterly shameless. She said that the Perypils claims team had “instantly processed her claim”. Unheard of! She was so grateful she’d said if she ever met anyone from Perypils she would kiss them. Poor woman; now she’d have herpes to add to all her other problems.

  There was no mention of yesterday’s article in the Sunday paper. Let’s all pretend it wasn’t there! I rubbed my temples. I had a headache starting. I was dying for a coffee; this green tea was shite, like drinking liquid iron filings. I opened another email. It was from The Boss, inviting all department managers to a team building event next month. Oh no, please no. It was a two-day event being held, for some reason, in Nottingham. As Perypils didn’t have any sites in Nottingham, I assumed they were just trying to make it inconvenient for as many people as possible. There was an activity day, a workshop, dinner and networking. How utterly ghastly. How could I get out of it? The Boss had added at the end of his email that a reply wasn’t necessary as “it is expected that all managers will attend”. Not really an invitation then, more of a summons. Oh crap.

  After lunch, I was sitting at my desk fishing around in my hand bag looking for some polo mints, which I knew where in there somewhere. I’d had chilli beef soup in the canteen and it had left a rather unpleasant taste in my mouth, as well as a hair. I eventually found a couple of grubby looking mints at the bottom of my bag and was considering whether or not it would be safe to eat them, when I became aware that the department seemed very quiet. I also felt a sudden chill. Looking up, I saw the angular figure of Cruella upon me. Too late to feign another conference call, or to pretend my mobile was ringing. As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death....

  “Hi Clare!” I said, giving her a pretend warm smile. Could she smell fear? “Would you like a polo?”

  “No thank you,” Cruella replied with what she possibly considered was a smile, but really didn’t look like one. It was more a sarcastic smirk. She looked down her long nose at me. “I’d like to arrange a meeting with you and,” she looked around distastefully, “your people, to discuss the unacceptable number of errors your team are making.”

  Blunt and to the point as usual. No finesse, no attempt to build any kind of rapport. Straight in, bam. Had she never heard of foreplay?

  “They are causing a significant number of customer complaints, and creating additional work for my teams. It needs addressing urgently.” She was still semi-smirking, and her pointy chin (from which a wart had been removed, I was certain of this) was stuck out defiantly.

  I looked up into her dark, witchy eyes. I wondered if I threw my cup of water over her she’d dissolve, like the Wicked Witch of the West.

  “Ok Clare,” I replied, tapping my fingernails on the desk. “Yes, a meeting would be good. And during it perhaps we could discuss the amount of time it’s been taking to hand over calls to your team. It seems to be getting worse and worse - sometimes our calls aren’t answered at all. We’re finding the problems this is creating for us quite, what’s the word - unacceptable.” Fifteen all.

  The semi-smirk snapped off. “Kate, all I’m trying to do is support our customers in offering the best service that we can. I’m just asking that we work together to achieve this.” No, you’re just petty point scoring as usual. “I’d appreciate your team’s co-operation.”

  “Fine.” I turned to my screen to show that this exchange was over. “Send an invite through and we can discuss it during the meeting.”

  “Fine.” Cruella turned on her heel and went off to drown some puppies. Although I still felt cold from her presence, I could feel that my bum was sweating - how does that happen? Had she placed a curse on me? An email dropped into my inbox a few minutes later inviting me to a meeting. I felt like declining it, especially as she’d picked the only gap I had free in my calendar for over a week. I didn’t decline it though; I didn’t want to turn into a toad.

  The Snake came sliding over, her eyes glinting at me hungrily. Perhaps I had been turned into a toad! She looked as if she was just about to devour one.

  “Kate,” she said, “did you know that Lee Halfpenny had phoned in sick again this morning? Well, he said he was feeling fluey, but Jane’s just seen him in the Rose and Crown. He’s downing pints and having a laugh with some mates.”

  What an idiot. Phone in sick and then pick the busiest pub in town to go into. I sighed.

  “It’s unbelievable really Cynthia, he just doesn’t care does he? Would Jane be prepared to make a statement to confirm she’s seen him, do you think?”

  “Better than that,” she replied triumphantly, “I’ve been up there myself and seen him. He didn’t see me. So I can give you a statement.”

  Good work. “Well done Cyn, we’ve got him by the short and curlies.”

  “Can we go and dismiss him then?” The Snake asked, hopefully. I had to laugh.

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you Cynthia? But no, we’ll have to have a discussion with him when he returns, document what he says, send it to HR and wait for them to arrange a disciplinary meeting.”

  “But that will take weeks!” she exclaimed in dismay. “He’s sat up there drinking beer when he’s supposed to be at work, having blatantly lied to me this morning, and you’re saying we’ve got to wait weeks before we can get rid of him? It’s ridiculous.”

  I absolutely agreed with her. But that still didn’t change anything. I realised I was scratching my arm again. Thinking of Lee always made me itch.

  Saturday

  I had heard on the radio that your optimum level of happiness occurs at 12.30pm on a Saturday. This was because it took a certain amount of time to get over the frustrations of the working week and to start enjoying the weekend. It falls again at around 5.30 pm on a Sunday evening as you start to think about going back to work the next day. My mate Karen got a ‘Sunday night tummy’ at the thought of Monday approaching. But she is a primary school teacher, so that’s understandable.

  As it approached 12.30 today, I did indeed feel extremely happy and contented. I was sitting with a lovely fluffy cappuccino outside the coffee shop in the village square, with my face in the sun. This was the first bit of warmth I’d felt from the sun since September, and the outside tables were all filled with smiling people. I knew I should have asked for a green tea, but sod it; it was the weekend after all. And I had resisted the carrot cake.

  The Husband had been away last night at a golfing lads’ dinner and he’d stayed the night at a friend’s house. I’d spent my Friday night catching up on work emails. What a saddo. It had taken me until 1.00 am but I’d cleared my inbox and I felt so much better. On Monday I could drive in
to work feeling in control and on top of things for a change. I’d spent the morning being a domestic goddess. I’d tidied, vacuumed, dusted, cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen and sorted out a huge pile of post that had been threatening to topple over and bury me. I hadn’t done any ironing yet, but I had matched up his socks and rolled them into neat balls, as a special treat for him. I’d do the rest tomorrow in front of a rubbishy Sunday afternoon film. I’d just bought a nice bit of lamb from the butcher so I could make us a casserole tonight - all in all, I reckoned I had earned some serious wifey brownie points.

  I had texted The Husband to tell him where I was in case his friend wanted to drop him in the village. He texted back to say he was two minutes away, so I ordered him a cappuccino too. I wondered if we would go out for the afternoon, it was so nice today, I fancied a walk in the countryside and a late pub lunch. Heaven.

  I saw him approaching across the square. He appeared to be having a little difficulty walking - had he injured himself? He spotted me and came to sit down, crashing into several chairs as he did so which caused heads to swivel in our direction at the sudden clatter.

  “Hi Hon!” he exclaimed. “Wow, massive coffee, cheers.” He took a big noisy slurp. “What’s in your bag?”

  “I got some lamb from the butcher’s,” I told him, looking at him closely. He seemed a bit odd. “Thought I’d do us a casserole tonight.”

  “Hey hey! Casserole tonight!” To my mortification, The Husband stood up and did a little dance, moving his arms around as if stirring a massive pot, singing “Casserole tonight, casserole tonight, we’ve got casserole tonight!”

  Everyone was staring. “Sit down,” I hissed urgently. He crashed down into his chair. I leant in towards him. He reeked.

  “You’re still pissed aren’t you?” I couldn’t believe it. How much had he drunk last night? Had he been to bed at all, or just been up all night drinking?

  “No of course I’m still not drunk.” He looked confused, muddling his words and his jovial mood changed very quickly. “For God’s sake, I only had a few drinks with the lads. God, just because I’m cheerful you think it’s because I’m pissed. Well I’m not. Bloody hell.”

  He slurped his coffee and tried to change the subject. “So what’s in your bag?”

  “Still the same – lamb.”

  “Oh right. So what have you been up to this morning?”

  “Oh you know, the usual stuff. Johnny Depp kept ringing the doorbell but I wouldn’t let him in, a herd of giraffe trampled through the garden and crapped all over the lawn and Hello called again, they want us as their centre page spread next month.”

  “Oh right, yeah great.”

  The fantasy of the walk-in-the-countryside-and-pub-lunch disappeared. He would have to go to bed for the afternoon to sleep it off. What would I do now for the rest of the day? The bloody ironing I suppose, while listening to him snoring. It’s not fair. My optimum level of happiness was supposed to last until tomorrow afternoon, not just ten flipping minutes.

  Sunday

  Whilst reading the Sunday papers, I noticed that Perypils was featured in the finance pages again.

  Headline: Perypils Customers: the odds are stacked against you.

  There was a picture of four studenty-looking types stood in front of a large Victorian house. Three of them looked fresh, clean cut, nicely dressed, like they’d just stepped out of an advert for fabric conditioner. The fourth stood apart from the others, arms folded, scowling, dressed in a dowdy tracksuit. The caption under the picture read: Guess which one has a Perypils policy?

  The story was that the four lived in a shared house and the chimney needed repairing. Three were able to claim on their policies but the fourth, who was insured through Perypils, had had his claim declined. As well as the lead headline, the article was crammed full of lame chimney ‘jokes’: Perypils policies are potty, it’s a clean sweep for other insurers, Perypils don’t stack up... and many more. Oh dear. The press really had it in for us at the moment. Perypils wouldn’t be winning a Pride of Britain award anytime soon.

  Monday

  The dreaded meeting with Cruella’s Customer Complaints team was upon us. The battle-lines were drawn. I’d chosen TLS George as my wing-man (he’s always up for an argument) and he’d bought a couple of his scariest team members with him: Growling Graham, who with his long beard looked like a ZZ Top throw back and Moany Mandy, who also looked like a ZZ Top throw back - for the same reason. We were armed with a vast amount of data that evidenced the Customer Complaints team’s appalling performance.

  Cruella bought her deputy with her, who was basically a miniature version of herself, minus the charm. She’d also bought along two heavyweights (in every sense of the word) Kim and Pat (or KowPat as TLS George named them). They arrived with a huge pile of paper which apparently contained all the errors made by my team, and dated back six months. You couldn’t even see Mini-Cruella behind it when it was placed on the table.

  Being a strong believer that the best form of defence is attack, I thought I might as well fire the first salvo. I opened the meeting by expressing my disappointment that it had taken Cruella’s team six months to provide us with feedback. I said we weren’t psychic, how did they expect us to correct issues if we were not told about them?

  Cruella responded by saying that details of errors were fed back to my team every week.

  I said I’d never seen any feedback; was it being sent telepathically? Cruella gave her sarcastic smirk, which told me I’d just walked into a snare. She produced, from the top of the pile, a sheath of emails which had been sent every week to TLS George. You stupid tit George, what have you been doing with these emails? Just deleting them?

  “You can see that your team receives very regular feedback from us,” said Cruella, relishing her moment, “but despite all the effort my team put into collating this feedback, nothing has improved. In fact, I would say things are deteriorating.” All four of them looked at us smugly.

  TLS George, who had turned flame-red, opened his mouth, presumably to spurt out some limp-dick of an excuse but I stepped in quickly:

  “Well, in future would you please make sure I am copied in on these emails.” I’d deal with TLS George later; I wasn’t about to wash our dirty colleagues in public.

  We had a look at some of the most recent complaints, which made uncomfortable reading. One customer had written to complain after they had received a letter from my admin team with a word mis-spelt - the “o” had been left out of “account”. Oh dear.

  Another customer, who was transgender, had been trying to speak to one of my telephony guys. They’d given their name as Miss Clara Jones, but as they had a deep masculine voice, my advisor had a fit of the giggles and eventually had to hang up. Miss Jones had phoned to complain that “Perypils clearly has problems with my sexuality.” There were numerous complaints about text-speak in letters, and one of my admin guys had actually drawn a smiley face at the end of a refund letter. Oh God.

  To bring an end to our humiliation, I said the best thing we could do was for George to take the pile away, go through each example and come up with an action plan. TLS George looked aghast - tough shit mate, it’s called penance for making me look like a tit. I was keen to move onto our issues. I got Graham and Mandy to talk through their experiences of trying to transfer complaint calls to Cruella’s team, and I flourished some statistics that showed Cruella’s call waiting time as being over 20 minutes on some days. Cruella countered this by saying her average call waiting time was much lower than this, and was usually around five minutes. But what good was an average if some customers were having to wait over 20 minutes? I said it was impacting adversely on my teams’ call handling times, and asked what they were doing to make improvements.

  It occurred to me that a fly on the wall would never believe that we all worked for the same company. Cruella started to talk about making amendments to their lunch time shifts and then there was an extraordinary exchange between Min
i-Me and KowPat, all arguing about their teams’ shift patterns. My guys sat and looked at each other in bewilderment. The scene ended with Pat bursting into tears and walking out of the meeting, saying she was “fed up with everyone picking on her”.

  “Oh dear, we seem to have touched a nerve,” I said, trying not to laugh. I suggested we wrapped it up for now and put something in the diary for a couple of weeks’ time to share progress. Cruella was fuming; there was practically smoke coming out of her ears as she left the room. Her team were for the high jump now. Honours even I think. Deuce.

  I helped TLS George carry his pile of complaints back to his desk and asked him to show me his email inbox. He opened it up like a sulky child. It had over 500 items in it, some had been read, many hadn’t. What a mess. There seemed to be lots that were entitled: ‘Football 2night?’ and ‘What time u lunching?’ and ‘Laura lookin fit today!’ All these had been read.

  I told TLS George he needed to focus on his work, not his social arrangements and to get his emails read and sorted by close of play tomorrow. He started to whine that he couldn’t do this as well as go through the pile of complaints so I said he’d have to ask the others to help him out; it was up to him to take responsibility and organise himself. I suggested he might need to break the habit of a life time and stay five minutes past his finish time to catch up. He looked at me like I’d suggested he spend the night with Susan Boyle, so I assumed that was never going to happen.

  Chapter Ten