Chantal - Have Laptop Will Travel: Blissful Peace

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December 01, 2002

Blissful Peace

Tracey’s been off sick for the third consecutive day, and this is my second day with a minimal workload. I can barely remember why I was so desperate to leave this job.

This has also been our fourth day without a manager, and it’s amusing to watch the power shifts within our department. Or the shifts in dynamics.

Let me start with Tracey, as she’s so hard to forget. Judith came into our office on Tuesday to inform me Tracey had called, she wouldn’t be in and would somebody call her back. Judith told me that a consensus decision had been made not to. Yesterday, most of the department was in my office when Debbie, Tracey’s sole friend, reported that Tracey had thrown her back out, was in a lot of pain and could not move, was worried about her workload and was very upset. Debbie was the only one who appeared at all concerned or indeed bothered by the news. Later in the day, she complained to Judith about Tracey’s attitude and behaviour; it seems Tracey has lost her last remaining friend.
I suppose Tracey had the most to lose when our boss left last Friday. Debbi and Andrea, who left last Wednesday, were half of the smoking crowd; now only Debbie is left. Debbi appeared to go to great pains to reassure Tracey about her significance and irreplacability, which to everyone else represented an aversion to dealing with her.

On Monday, it seemed that Tracey was the most obvious person vying for managerial role. Despite her tendency to become overwhelmed and hysterical over every little event – which is far from healthy in a chronically busy office – she seized the opportunity to remind everyone she was in control, from bullying the lawyers over their timesheets, making a complaint about me (that she had to do all the typing, which she doesn’t actually do), and finally provoking me into two arguments. We no longer had anybody in charge; she was untouchable.

The most noticeable problem which arises when you lose your manager is: who fills in the gap? If you’re not happy about what a colleague has done, there is nobody to turn to, after all. We do indeed have a token manager, Colin, who is very busy being the Head of Housing and who has not yet realised that being Debbi’s replacement requires more than an hour of his time each week. Dawn seems to have become Debbi’s natural replacement, however Colin visited while she was out at a meeting on Tuesday, spent about an hour talking to Debbie and left before she returned. It was Dawn who warned me that Tracey had complained about me, and that I should watch my back; it’s to Dawn we turn now when we have questions, however, we know that she is carrying Debbi’s workload as well as her own, and has neither the time nor the stature to manage us in any official capacity. Hackney has managed to save money yet again by replacing two people with only one, hoping we will be satisfied with someone who has had little hands-on experience of Social Services, despite his professed enthusiasm. Monday evening, we received an urgent duty call enquiring about our policy regarding illegal immigrants; everyone’s first suggestion was to refer it to Colin; he’d already gone home.

Sylvie tells me I’m being oversensitive, but it does seem that the atmosphere has mellowed a lot since Tracey has been off. Certainly there was little interaction in my office before – surrounded by two fax machines, the printer and photocopier, none of which work particularly well – on Monday, Tracey shouted at Sylvie because our discussion was distracting her, then threatened her on her way out. She also shouted at two men in one of the corridors for doing the same; even in the furthest offices you can hear her simply talking on the phone. Normally some of the lawyers will tease, or make faces at Tracey when she’s not looking (but I am); when Tracey was off sick last week Sylvie transferred her teasing to me instead.

If anything, it seems we all spend a lot more time socialising; the lawyers have their workload and we all have the dysfunctional technology to make us stressed (including the boiler it seems: we haven’t had hot water or heating for two days. We’ve decided that Hackney didn’t pay its gas bill and has been cut off), however that we can deal with so long as our environment is peaceful. I’ve switched from chamomile tea to ginseng tea, and joke that I too am responsible for perfuming the air in the office, only now we have herbs instead of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol.

The greatest perk of having reduced my workload is that I have more time now to work on anything IT-related. I’ve upgraded Sylvie’s internet browser, and created a hotmail account for her; I’ve been asked to set up two more. I’ve connected Judith to the network, and helped set up Candice on her computer (with Debbi’s hard disk) on her first day. I started work on a database but got distracted, probably by working on the department’s first worksheet. Once I start reading my VBA book I can start developing some applications for the benefit of my CV.

I no longer watch for Tracey’s reaction when I arrive in the morning: will she swear? will she blank me? will she pull a face? but slowly settle in, taking my time over starting on the day’s work if there’s nothing pressing, perhaps chatting with one of the lawyers until the others start arriving. I don’t have to slam the headphones on my ears immediately in order to drown her out, nor do I have to worry about constant back and shoulder pain or headaches.
Perhaps Sylvie’s right, perhaps I am the only one so affected by Tracey not being there. Debbie smokes alone now, and seems to spend far less time in my office, yet she is the only one whose patterns have significantly changed. Yet we can all relax without the endless shouting, swearing and rows, the feeling of being under siege in the workplace.

I don’t know what exactly she’s done to her back, but if she’s in excruciating pain and bedridden after two days, without painkillers or physiotherapy, it’s going to be a very long time before we see her again. Oh God, I hope so…

Posted by chantal at December 1, 2002 03:07 PM

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