Today was the start of a marathon stint at work. I agreed to do some extra days to help cover while the manager is on holiday. This was arranged about two months ago, when August appeared a long way off, and I don't think I can really have been concentrating as he ticked boxes on the staff rota, but the effect when you add the extra days to my normal working pattern is that I'll be at work for seven days out of the eight between now and next Monday inclusive. Oh well, I expect I'll cope.
My usual road to work had re-opened and the evil, tyre-destroying potholes filled in. Given they only patched the edges, and didn't resurface the entire lane, I don't entirely understand why it was shut for five days last week, but as it only inconvenienced me for one of them I don't really care. Driving home, a normally OK right hand turning was rendered unsafe by a van illegally parked in front of the used-car dealership on the Harwich road. It isn't the first time that's happened, and I really ought to complain to the council, or the police community support officer, or somebody.
(I did get organised to complain to the council about the proposed closure of the dump, and got an official reply saying that my comments have been noted and will be fully considered before a final decision is taken later in the year. I don't suppose my comments will make a blind bit of difference, but for anyone else who wants to give it a go, your man is Councillor Kevin Bentley, Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Waste and Recycling, at the Cabinet Office, PO Box 11, County Hall, Chelmsford CM1 1LX. Musing on what else they could cut instead of front line services I noticed that Colchester Borough and Braintree District Councils have just decided not to pursue the option of a joint Chief Executive or shared management. Colchester's total net revenue budget for 2010-11 is £25.67m according to their website, and Braintree's is £14m according to an Executive Leadership Case Study they published which was the quickest thing I could find on the internet. That's a combined annual budget of £40m, then. Makes you wonder how Tesco manages its annual sales of £67,573m with just the one Group Chief Executive).
Apparently yesterday was busy at work, and we did OK today for a Monday in August (I think). A kindly woman wanted ideas for plants with Pearl in the name, as a present for a friend called Pearl, and using the RHS on-line plant finder my colleague came up with a couple of camellias, which she bought. It is customary to proclaim in your Mission Statement that you wish your customers to be delighted, but I think she really was. She said we were the only nursery she used where she would get such service.
My colleague also had a good and intelligent idea for a low-cost, targeted way to market ourselves to large gardens. Having expressed my complete approval for this plan, I had to take a turn calling large gardens and asking for the names and email adresses of their head gardeners. Responses were mostly kind and helpful, one very suspicious and sniffy. I am glad my job does not normally entail cold-calling, it must be quite soul-destroying. I should be more compassionate when people cold-call me, except that they have chosen to work for boiler room scams and double glazing companies that ignore my stated wishes according to the telephone preference service.
It was very nice having a working watch, and I got a little glow each time I looked at my wrist, and saw the red strap, and red second hand ticking funkily away. Buddhists who teach that material possessions do not bring true happiness ought to try going to work and keeping track of the R4 schedule for 3 weeks with no watch, and then they would admit that some material possessions bring, if not true happiness, then quite convincing false contentment. An unfortunate side-effect of my quest for a watch has been that Google has worked out that I wanted one, but not yet clocked (ha!) that I have got one, so every other page of every newspaper site I look at now contains ads by Google for Swiss Railway watches. They'll get over it, I suppose, like the time when I was briefly pursued by ads for Denby pottery (grunge china, as a former City colleague so uncharmingly described it).
Getting into the car at 5.20pm I deduced from the fact that the news had already got on to the London riots that the world financial system had not yet gone into total meltdown. There was some not very sensible discussion of whether governments or markets were in charge, which missed the point. Markets are signalling mechanisms, and I reckon they are signalling, firstly that Standard and Poor's are utterly useless and irrelevant, and secondly that the Euro is unworkable and is not going to last.
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