Work Wife Balance

by Jo Edwards

Wednesday

  I arrived at work exhausted. I had got home pretty late last night, feeling sick with stress and could only manage a few glasses of wine, and not much else. The Husband had been forced to make his own supper again, which hadn’t gone down at all well, especially when he’d managed to burn the toast to go with his baked beans and we didn’t have any more bread. Apparently it was my fault for dusting the toaster and knocking the heating button to max.

  I had driven to work almost still asleep, which was silly and dangerous. I couldn’t recall bits of the journey. I felt very light-headed. Text from IT simply said: “Overnight fix unsuccessful”. So the problems continued, our calls were stacking up and my guys were totally frazzled. Lisa the Weasel and Brett the Boss arrived (together) just before 10.00, although her boobs came through the door five minutes before the rest of her appeared. We planned to get together with all the team managers at 11.00.

  I found them a couple of spare desks next to the fax machine and the Weasel went to get some coffees from the canteen. When I looked up, I saw The Climber stood at the fax machine. That was unusual; she didn’t normally get her hands dirty with real work. Ten minutes later she was still standing there, so I went over to see if she was ok. “Oh, I’m just waiting for a customer to fax me something, er, a policy document,” she said, looking like she’d been caught out. I went back to my desk and watched her. She was obviously trying to catch Brett’s attention, there was some frenzied hair flicking, but he appeared to be ignoring her, looking at his emails, his phone, anything but making eye contact.

  At 11.00, the team managers and myself gathered around a table with Brett for what he called a “drains up”. Lisa the Weasel had taken a call on her mobile and was walking around on her high heels, talking earnestly and trying to look important. At one point, she leant across our table, picked up Brett’s coffee, took a sip and put it back on the table whilst she continued her call. We all looked at each other. Brett carried on talking about the issues. The Climber stiffened, and flushed dark red. She talked across Brett:

  “Well I think this project team has an awful lot to answer for. They should have made sure that the new system wouldn’t affect the existing systems. They simply couldn’t have tested it properly. I hope that heads are going to roll.” She looked pointedly round at The Weasel.

  Brett said he didn’t think there was anything to be gained from finger-pointing (but it’s so much fun!) but instead we had to plan for the worst case scenario. He said we had to face the fact that we “might not be able to get the toothpaste back in the tube.” I translated this for the benefit of the others as: if IT were unable to find a fix, we’d have to manually load 12,000 policies back onto the system. The Drain clutched at his stomach. I prayed he hadn’t followed through.

  The Rock reminded Brett that we had almost 400 customers who were expecting a call back, and this figure was increasing hour on hour. The Snake reminded Brett that our people were getting demoralised and were losing faith in the management. Gee, thanks for that.

  Lisa the Weasel finished her call and came to join us at the table. She wasn’t a particularly good judge of mood, as she said airily “Here we all are then! Have I missed anything?”

  The Climber went for the jugular. “We were just saying Lisa, what a disgraceful situation we are faced with, and we’re all extremely upset with the project team for putting us in this mess. We’re all appalled that this has happened and we hope someone is going to be held accountable.”

  It was the Weasel’s turn to flush bright red. Brett jumped in with “We can take this offline, but for now we need to have a plan for the re-loading of the policies. That’s what we’re here for.” He looked at me for help. I said we needed to examine the facts, and went through a back-of-a-fag-packet calculation that I’d hurriedly put together. To re-load 12000 policies over a time period of one month would require 25 full time additional staff. The cost would be around £40000. I also reminded him that it would take about six weeks to recruit them. There was silence while he tugged at his chin and looked thoughtful. The Drain’s stomach gurgled loudly.

  “Well,” said Brett eventually, “Lisa, what budget can be found from the project for this?”

  By the look on her face, she clearly didn’t have the first clue but didn’t want to look stupid.

  “I’d have to make some calls but I think we could cover about £5000.”

  The Climber snorted. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, “Absolutely ridiculous. Kate, how many people can we get for £5000?”

  “Amanda,” I said, “Brett’s right about finger-pointing, it’s not helpful. But to answer your question, we could only get about 3 staff with a budget of £5000-”

  “Oh that’s ludicrous!” exclaimed The Climber, talking right across me. “It would take the best part of a year with only three people, and in the meantime we’d still be getting complaint after complaint.” She glared at the Weasel. “And will anyone from the project team be here to help us answer these complaints? Are you going to come and help us explain to our customers why you’ve lost their policies?”

  The Weasel, still brick red from the last attack, spat back:

  “I find your conduct extremely unprofessional. Brett and I have come here today to offer our support and guidance, and all you can do is make negative comments. You’re being very disrespectful.”

  “Well I’d rather be disrespectful than, than totally useless at my job!”

  “Ladies that’s enough!” I interjected, as Brett clearly wasn’t going to. Everyone else looked horribly uncomfortable. “I’m calling a time out. Lisa, you need to find out exactly what budget is available from the project, so could you go and make some calls, please. I suggest Brett and I put our heads together to see if there is any available resource across the other sites that could support us. We’ll get together again later this afternoon. Thank you.”

  My team managers gratefully got up from the table, The Drain heading straight for the Gents. Brett and I started to discuss the other sites and which poor bastards we could tap up to try and squeeze some resource out of. As we were talking, a commotion broke out behind us. We turned in time to see Lisa the Weasel, who had coffee all down her white top, grab The Climber’s hair and attempt to punch her in the face, shouting “You little bitch!” The Climber started screaming, and one of the lads jumped up to try and wrestle the Weasel off her.

  Brett and I rushed over. Brett tried to get in between them, dodging punches thrown by the Weasel who was making Mike Tyson look like a girl. The Climber was blindly and pathetically flailing her arms around in an attempt to strike back. There was uproar in the teams. As I grabbed hold of The Climber and pulled her back, I saw Cruella walking through the department, a stupid smirk on her face. Perfect. “Everything alright, Kate?” she called. Up yours. Brett had hold of the Weasel and had managed to prise open her grip on The Climber’s hair. We pulled them apart, and Brett dragged the Weasel outside. I took an hysterical Climber off to the meeting room, where she dissolved into huge sobs, wailing “She attacked me, she attacked me.”

  I felt quite shaken myself. I tried to calm her down and asked her to tell me what had happened.

  “I don’t know! We were going back to our desks and I accidentally jogged her arm.” Oh really? “She spilt her coffee down herself and she just went for me. I want her dismissed, she assaulted me.”

  “How did you manage to jog her arm?”

  “It was just an accident!” cried the Climber. “I didn’t do anything, nothing at all. I said sorry, and the next thing I knew she called me a bitch and attacked me. I want her thrown out.”

  I didn’t believe for one moment that the coffee spillage was just an accident.

  “Amanda,” I said, “What’s really going on here? You spent the meeting verbally attacking Lisa, incidentally you talked right over me and over Brett which I found extremely rude; I expect better from you. Is it just a clash of personalities with Lisa, or is there more to it than tha
t?” Although technically you do need to have a personality before you can have a clash.

  “I was just sticking up for us,” said The Climber, sniffily, “because you don’t seem to want to say it how it is.” Oh that’s right, I wondered when it would be my fault. “I don’t know how you can blame me for this, I’ve done nothing wrong, nothing at all. You should be supporting me, she attacked me. I want the book thrown at her, I’ll be taking advice you know, I want her out.”

  “So if I ask for some witness statements they won’t tell me that you chucked Lisa’s coffee over her?”

  The Climber wouldn’t budge, insisting it was an accident and berating me for not being “on her side”. Brett eventually came into the room and said the Weasel had gone home. How will you get home then, didn’t you come in the same car? He asked to speak with the Climber, so I left them to it. They were in the room for hours. I checked that all the teams were ok. The Snake looked like all her Christmases had come at once. I hoped to God that no one had been quick enough to film it on their phones; it would be a FaceTube sensation.

  Brett and the Climber eventually emerged and all eyes were on them as they walked back into the department. The Climber went back to her desk and Brett came over to tell me that he’d “smoothed things over”. I asked what action should be taken. He looked very shifty and just said:

  “It’s all done with now, we can leave it at that.” I started to protest but he cut me dead saying “Just leave it now, Kate, that’s the end of it,” and walked off. He came back a few minutes later to ask me where the train station was.

  I received an email from Big Andy entitled “Ring Side Seats” and asked if I would be selling tickets for the next fight. Ha bloody ha. Word certainly gets around quick.

  Thursday

  Text from IT: “overnight fix unsuccessful”.

  Email from IT informing us that Mo had left the company for “personal reasons”.

  Email from the Weasel saying she’d checked with the project senior manager, and there was no budget for any additional staff. She didn’t offer any alternative solutions.

  The Climber seemed to be ok after her “attack”; she was quieter than usual, but I did hear her snapping at one of her team “Well you’ll just have to work a bit harder then, won’t you?” so I guessed she was back on her usual form.

  We had over 500 customers to call back. We’d stopped telling them when we’d call them back, just that we’d do it as soon as we could, but many were still calling back to complain. My own email inbox had 232 unread items in it, as I hadn’t been able to get anything else done. People were starting to call me to see if I’d read their stupid emails.

  The Husband texted to remind me that we were supposed to be going to Debbie and Paul’s that evening. Christ no. I texted back to say I was too knackered, he’d have to go on his own. I’d be in the dog house but I really was too drained from this week to have to make conversation with Paul - I’d run out of things to talk to him about six months ago.

  Friday

  The Husband was not talking to me. Apparently, Debbie had made a lasagne especially for me as she knew it was a favourite of mine. I didn’t remember telling her that, probably I was pissed when I said it. I reminded him that Debbie may have spent forty minutes knocking up a lasagne, but that I’d worked over 60 hours already that week and I still had Friday to go. Didn’t he feel sorry for me? He said it was my choice, and it didn’t excuse snubbing our friends. You mean your friends. He could be a right snot when he wanted to be. I asked if he’d rather I gave up my job and not be able to cover the mortgage payments, and he said I was being melodramatic and ridiculous as usual and he couldn’t be bothered to talk to me any more. I went to work wondering if he was going to sulk all weekend; two days appeared to be his current sulk-average.

  Text from IT: “overnight fix successful”. Whoopee! Oh thank God. I kissed my phone when that message came through. After all that buggery bollocks, IT had recovered the missing 12000 policies and got them back on the system. They did say there would be some “defects” which had fallen through the net, which meant we would still come across some policies with missing information, but I could live with that.

  I called the team together to give them the good news and to arrange the 500 plus call backs, which we agreed to share out between the teams and use some overtime to get through them.

  Everyone was happy and relieved, apart from The Snake who looked disappointed that the crisis was over. I sent The Rock out to get some cakes for the department and made a start on my huge backlog of work. At least I had the weekend to catch up; it’s not as if I’d be doing anything with The Husband now.

  Into my inbox dropped an invitation from the project team for me to attend a Post POQS Implementation Review. They must be having a bloody laugh! I replied: “Here’s my Poxy review: countless unpaid hours worked, one lasagne ruined, one fall out with husband, forty seven useless telecons attended, thousands of customer policies lost, hundreds of complaints received, one extremely irritable bowel (including one near miss), seventeen more grey hairs, one IT bod vanished and one punch up. But whatever I put, you’ll still publish the review as “a triumph” so I really can’t be arsed to attend.” I deleted it in the end. I wasn’t quite that brave. Not yet.

  Chapter Twenty