Blog Week 7: Back in Brussels and raring to go!
Sunday 8 January 13.08
Back in Brussels. Feel invigorated after my time away. Now just have to wait and see what is awaiting me in the office.
Monday 9 January 19.28
Back in the office today and the only constant was the fact everything has changed. The main 4 changes are:
I am now Bill's secretary. As:
Jo had a beautiful baby boy last week (a little earlier than expected, but mother and son are doing well) and:
3 Bears has left to join another firm. It seems that all the glaring through his window was less to do with me and more to do with office politics.
My remuneration situation is all finally sorted out and agreed. (I never should have mentioned anything about that on this blog in the first place).
I was told all this by Pierre - who is now based in this office (Yoda's office) and is temporarily Office Manager for both firms till both offices properly merge.
Bill is away in the US for the rest of the week so Pierre has got me dealing with some of the office integration.
Tuesday 10 January 20.54
In Bill's absence I think I am going to be Pierre's personal assistant for the rest of the week. Still the job has its privileges, suddenly Pierre is a lot more friendly, particularly in sharing his thoughts on certain people.
For example, there is a firm of outside consultants that are supposed to be helping arrange the office integration. It turns out they have written a couple of reports, held some meetings - you can imagine the sort of thing. They were the people that had the idea I should be writing intranet blogs each day to unite the offices.
Well one way or another they have really pissed off Pierre. He cannot stand dealing with them. So now I am like an intermediary; I am dealing with the PA of one of these consultants and between us we pass the messages between our "bosses". I can tell she is also finding this situation both bizarre and amusing - adults in a professional environment behaving like children - but we do not say anything to each other.
Wednesday 11 January 18.14
Some photos were emailed around today of Jo's new baby, Chris. Aah! so sweet. Not had a chance to sign the card going round for her yet. My role as intermediary continues.
Thursday 12 January 23.19
Pierre and his enemy consultant had a meeting today. They were there with some of the partners and so both had to be on best behaviour. You could see the fake smiles and hollow laughter were quite a strain for both of them. After the meeting Pierre looked shattered.
It seems the big issue at the moment is where should the new office be located. The other firm's office is big enough - but no one from here wants to be moving into "the other people's place". The office here is not big enough for another person, let alone another office. So it seems a new office is on the cards, but where in Brussels? There is so much to office space to choose from.
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