The end of an era

Today is the last day in the office for our current head of department before he heads off to pastures new. It’s hard to believe today is his last day, I’ve only just got used to the idea that he’s leaving and here he is clearing out his office to leave. I’ve never really got used to the fact that everyone in the US, regardless of seniority, seems to be on a 2week notice period, it’s so short compared to the six months notice required for many of my friends who hold senior positions in the UK.

It's quite a sad day really. I’ve worked for him so long it'll be weird not to have him around anymore. He hired me to work here just a month shy of 7years ago and although I’ve had my moments where I haven’t exactly agreed with his way of doing things - he can be terrible for having favourites and he’s always been very reluctant to expense a few drinks on those rare occasions he’s called upon to reward his underpaid, hard working staff. Seriously you’d think he was being asked to spend his own money - but for the most part I've appreciated working for him and I’ve learned a lot so seeing him leave is like the end of an era.

I'm not the only one that feels that way. His resignation stunned a lot of people as everyone just seemed to assume he'd be around forever. He made no secret of the fact that he loved working here and he did very well for himself. Understandably news of his resignation led to a lot of whispering in corridors with people speculating as to whether he’d decided to leave of his own accord or whether he'd been pushed out due to the recent deterioration of his working relationship with certain senior someone, especially given the company he’s leaving us for hasn’t exactly had rosy financial prospects of late. It feels like a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire to me and so in a wine fuelled bravado at his leaving do on Wednesday night, I decided to ask him what the story was on his resignation.

You would have been proud of me, I fearlessly got down to the nitty gritty and did not once shirk from asking the hard hitting questions. Seriously I’m like Jeremy Paxman after a couple of glasses of wine; except unlike Jeremy I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with the quality of my M&S underwear, you’ll find no quibbles here about the supportiveness of their underpinnings, oh no, in fact their lingerie appears to be of a far superior quality to the shite sold in Victoria’s Secret, but I digress…..

He’s usually a very diplomatic person, so I was surprised when he responded to my questions very frankly and pretty much told me flat out that he’d decided to leave because of his rapidly souring relationship with the CSS who, putting it mildly, has a reputation for being difficult.

“I really just couldn’t deal with it any more” he told me. ”It wasn’t worth it to stay.”

I can’t say I blame him. He’s lasted longer than most, but I saw first hand back in September how the CSS treated him and it wasn’t pretty. A few of us later learned from our manager – the one who's been promoted into his position – that things got so bad between them that they both used him as a conduit to communicate with each other. You know the way you do when you're about 12 and you’re mad at someone, so you refuse to speak to that person things directly even when they are standing right next to you? Instead you talk to them through a third party and say things like 'Miles, could you ask Kimberley if she’d like a cup of tea please?'

It's hard to believe that I work for grown ups sometimes.

Anyway I’m very sorry to see him leave us, but I wish him all the best. It’s a small industry so I'm sure our paths will cross again in future.

Photo of Jeremy Paxman courtesy of the BBC