Hello world!

After the madness of last week it feels so good to be sitting in a tiny apartment in London, sipping my PG tips tea and watching the Wright Stuff on Channel 5. I can't believe how much I've missed this country and how natural it felt to reassimilate myself here. The day I arrived the weather was all grey and gloomy and while the other passengers on the flight groaned when the pilot announced the weather, I was grinning.

So far the holiday has been nice and relaxing. Had dinner and drinks with some friends on Saturday night and went to an art gallery yesterday before meeting another friend for a coffee. It looks incredibly grey today but I'm going to hit the shops and maybe go to the park if the weather gets better.

In other news, I have much to think about and I was planning to use this holiday time thinking about it. I hope things get better and I am making the right decision.

Its finally here!!! The day before I go away on holiday for 2 whole weeks! Finally! It seemed like this day would never arrive, especially after the craziness of the last few weeks. But here we are. And no surprises for guessing that I haven't even packed yet. I have a ton of work to get through before the day is out and then gonna get waxed and pick up stuff from Wiggly's mom.

But I am in a fabulously good mood. Not even the Boss can get me down today.

Today has been an emotional day at work. I met with the Boss, we discussed work, for the first time I spoke back to him, I walked out, I cried over the phone to NG, I wrote an email to the Big Boss saying that I wanted to see him about a personal matter. NG calmed me down. I sniffled but stopped crying. My office roomie looked alarmed.
 
I was calm and made an attempt at my never-ending list of work to complete before I leave on Saturday, got a call from the Other Boss, worked straight for 5 hours including pouring over contracts with a fine-toothed comb and meeting clients in Deutsche Bank, came back and was called into a meeting with the Big Boss.

Big Boss seemed to know immediately something was wrong. I tried to sound as professional as I could. I wanted to try different type of work, I said. He jumped on it, telling me he would have a word with the right guy and move me tomorrow, he made it so simple. I didn't have to explain anymore. He said he'd rather move me to a different team than have me leave the firm.

I had to see the Boss next. I didn't want to say anything then, just wanted to quietly move away. But what I didn't know was that between my email to the Big Boss in the morning and my second meeting with the Boss in the evening, the word had already spread: Office Roomie mentioned something was up when D asked her if I was ok, Big Boss barged into the Boss' room, asking if something in particular had happened, the Boss suddenly being super nice and offering to take some files away from me and lighten my workload. I blurted out that might be a good idea since I was going to move to another team. D and him did not look surprised. They already knew.

So there it is. I'm finally moving away from the Boss who had killed my drive to be a lawyer. Working with the Other Boss today made me feel like I wasn't a total moron bacause the Other Boss actually took the time to explain things to me. And as soon as he did, I knew how I needed to work. But I couldn't just work for the Other Boss because I'd still be on the same team as the Boss. D told me later he was proud of me and happy for me. I knew he knew where I was coming from. Afterall, he too had tendered his resignation about a month ago and was leaving for better places.

Hopefully, this is the right choice. I guess only time will tell.

I've just been given the heads up that HR are going to fire my secretary.
 
!!
 
I swear, I had nothing to do with this! She's only been my secretary for a little over a month. But I'd heard a lot of rumours about her from her previous team. Like how she takes a LOT of days off for no good reason. And frankly, when I got a call this morning at 10.30 am from her telling me that she wouldn't be coming to work because she had to attend her brother's parent-teacher conference, I couldn't help but raise my eyebrow.
 
I hate to sound mean (but we all know that I'm totally bitching here). Perhaps today she really had to go to her brother's school because she's an orphan and her brother has nobody else. But then last Monday, her mother fell while cleaning the bathroom so she couldn't come to work then and she's clearly not an orphan if she has a mother who's failing in the bathroom (again, this could have been a perfectly legit excuse). And on Friday she didn't come coz she wasn't feel well. And on Monday this week she had conjunctivitis. Is it me, or is this a lot of bad stuff to happen to one person in the space of two weeks? Not to mention she was on leave last week on tuesday to thurday due to Eid.
 
Nevertheless, I've never grumbled about it out loud. For the most part, I think she's rather pleasant to be around and at least when she's here she does do the work that needs to be done. But it is incredibly frustrating when I come in to work and I need her to urgently do something and she's not there. Or today when I was looking for a bundle of documents that I'd asked her to bind but it had only been half done. I had to get another secretary to finish the work. The Boss had some how gotten wind of this, perhaps from another secretary in my team and had told me that I should complain to HR about it. I didn't even know I could.
 
I guess someone else got there before me. Now I'm not sure whether I should give her the heads up when she comes in tomorrow (or when ever...) or just play it dumb and act surprised when she tells me about it. Or should I just keep quiet and when she mentions it, confess that I'd heard about it some time ago. I'm not sure if it'd be the friendly thing to do to just warn her or if I even have the authority to, seeing as she hasn't officially been notified by HR.

My secretary came into my office the other day and said (with a notable amount of glee, I might add), "You're on leave after next week aren't you?"
 
I guess I couldn't blame her for being pleased... after all, I'm positively ecstatic when I know that the Boss is not at work.

 

"Yea, I am," I replied slowly, then brightened, remembering where I was going and realising that Oh MY GOD, its only next week!!!!! When I'd booked my tickets two months ago, it had seemed like a long time away. "I'm off to London and then Milan!"

 

"Don't rub it in," my office roomie grumbled.

 

Hah! I can and I will!!!

 

In other news, my secretary wants to take me out to lunch next week because it is Bosses Day. While I'm an incredibly chuffed at the idea (not that I'd ever heard of Bosses Day till now), I'm not quite sure what the decorum is here...:

 

1) I'm the boss and she's my secretary. Surely that means that no matter what the case, I am supposed to buy lunch, not her. I know this is old-fashioned and even somewhat patronising but then there's only one reason I would put myself through the horror of having lunch my Boss: I get a free lunch out of it.

 

2) We're the same age. I wonder if this trumps the Boss-Secretary rule in that now we're both almost like 2 friends going out for a meal in which I'd imagine we'd go dutch unless it was a special treat of some sort. Then again... I suppose Bosses' Day is a special occasion of sorts. A bit like how you'd bring your mum out for a nice meal on Mother's Day. Only treator wouldn't feel the same kind of love towards the treatee as he would towards his own mother.

 

3) Eeek! Does this mean I have to bring The Boss out for lunch?!?! Because that would be a completely masochistic thing to do, even for a free lunch. And seeing as it's Bosses' Day, that would mean I would have to pay but it would go back to the Boss-Junior Associate dichotomy (which is rather similar to the Boss-Secretary situation). Either way, lunch with the Boss just sounds like a daft idea.

 

Nevertheless, it's nice of my secretary to offer to take me out. I guess we'll see how it works :)