Welcome Back

He's back. Is he glad to be back, I asked.

No

Simple really.

Pretty much every one's been hauled upstairs over the past 48 hours for a carpeting. I didn't see him during my first hour on duty, although I'd sent a few people to his office at his request, but already my question was rhetorical.

'Poor' was his adjective of choice to describe pretty much everything about the place. His copious notes had not been read, or taken in, the weekly newsletters had been ignored, stock had been under ordered in certain sections and grossly over ordered in others. We've not enough warehouse space for what will be coming in over the next three weeks. Thankfully we're not selling fireworks so there's no bonfire promotions, but we've still got Halloween to get through and already bulk allocations of Christmas special lines are clogging up storage space.

We're bulging at the seams and that's before we take in what's headed our way as a result of Bolshie Book Worm being allowed to play with the promotion order.

So the last thing he needed was me running upstairs to tell tales on someone in a whingeing "Mr X, So-and-So's been really, really mean to me" fashion.

The Handmaiden had told me when I first arrived that he was in not too bad a mood. In the face of all the evidence she repeated that assertion and then made a couple of enquiries at intervals about whether I'd 'been to see him, yet'. She let slip that both she and the Paper-Shuffler-in-Chief had dropped a word in his ear about Poodle Head so the groundwork had been laid and (hint, hint) he's expecting to hear from you and we'd all like to see him as soon as possible.

I held off and eventually he descended from his lofty perch, obviously ready to get out of the place. I asked him if he'd be in [today] and he said he wasn't with obvious relief, then asked if there was something I wanted to discuss. Well yes, there is, but it isn't urgent. Is it about Poodle Head, he asked.

So, we've had a brief chat and I've told him I'm both pissed off and bored and that I'm actively looking for work. I've also read him the riot act, which I can do when there's no one else present. He has 157 hours to cover back office per week and has five bodies to do that with. Currently there are three full time contracts of 39 hours plus one contract of 30 hours and a spare bod who does one seven hour shift per week plus any extra hours that crop up due to holidays and training. He knows there's very little excess fat in those hours. He now knows that he's vulnerable to losing 70 productive hours, because Senior Frustrated Novelist is herself some distance through the recruitment process at one of the utility companies.