Corporate Ladders of the Jacob variety.....

4 weeks ago I was an Operational Manager, with a team of around 20 or so people. Then the re-org was announced and I suddenly have no team, just a new role in an area I know little about. I am at what is called Level 5 in the organization. There is one layer below this Level 6, or monkey-people as we know them. Level 5, many years ago was Team leader, but then some bright HR person (an oxymoron surely) decided that we should be called Team Managers. I'm sure that the intention was to make us feel important, to puff up our chests and think "finally made it".

However, the truth is exactly as Tim from "The Office" stated it. Team leader (or manager) is nothing, its a milk monitor role. You get more shit, less money, no power. You get your arse kicked from the team, from the "senior" management and from other teams. You are universally unappreciated and disliked. Even by yourself sometimes. But you do the job because it's the gateway to the next bigger table, on the path to the beautifully and expensively constructed table at the very top of the company inhabited by all the other public schoolboys and Freemasons. However, this gateway is always shut though and occasionally when it's rusty chains and locks are released, it slowly creaks and wheezes open, and you see The Gatekeeper. The Gatekeeper has an invite list, and on that list is some fuck faced little management corporate cock sucker on some fast-track, get you there quick, I love me/aren't I great/funky/trendy/cool/nice graduate scheme, even though their degree is in poxy Klingon Tradition and History. But, hey, these young people are the future, they will use their dynamism and drive to move the company forward. The fact that they are socially inept, can't fucking spell, and produce and deliver nothing is irrelevant.

We live in a society that treasures words more than actions - just look at our soundbite political parties and you can see why this facet of the way we live has come to be the dominant methodology.

My boss, M, as we shall refer to him, is a decent bloke and is at level 4. Knows fuck all about me, or my role, but there was nowhere else for it or me to go. He is the type that likes to enter a meeting whilst having a very loud and important sounding (to him)conversation on his mobile. Before he was my boss I went to some meetings where he was in attendance and he did it every time. Tosser was the word that sprang to mind, but now it just seems to be his way. Some people have no sense of protocol. Maybe he is very important and I'm too disgruntled and militant to notice it.

M has indicated that when he is off, I can represent him at meetings with The Sandman.

The Sandman is our Level 3 (this is getting important now). 2 years ago I was a direct report to The Sandman, but he is very ambitious, the sort of bloke that leaves a wake of soul destroyed, demotivated, demoralized and shell shocked people in his wake as he ascends the greasy Corporate ladder. A seagull manager - flies in, shits on everyone, flies off.

Conversation with M went like this

M: You're the most experienced person in the team, so when I'm off can you deputise for me and go to The Sandmans meetings
Jack: (Out loud) - Yep, I'd be happy to, not a problem
Jack: (Inside) - Whoopy-fucking -do. You patronizing bastard - Oh so I can sit at the top table with the (self) important wankers can I? Well, fuck you
M: Great, I knew you'd be OK about that...it'll be a good experience for you
Jack: (Out loud) - Yep, never a bad thing to raise your profile
Jack: (Inside) - so the fact that I've been doing that for the last 3 years has been erased from my history. Thanks a fucking bunch.
M: Must dash, have a meeting with the Sandman now.....
Jack: (Out loud) - Cheers, have a good one
Jack: (Inside) - so I'm not good enough to come along now huh? I am the pauper, who can eat the crumbs when beckoned to do so........bitter moi?

I sell my soul like this every day, one day it'll be to The Devil and then I can get some real rewards.

A message for The Sandman

Long you'll live and high you'll fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave



We (DC, Jack, teenager and Baby) await the Royal visit of Grand Master and Raptor. We have a theory that their journey time down to us is always short because the traffic just parts for them, and people stand and doff caps as they negotiate the tricky route along the A3.

Pub tonight, a small but increasingly important pleasure

Later Jack the Grocer