Daily Prompt: Pants on Fire

Friday 22nd April  was the end of my penultimate week working in Local Government.  Monday the following week was the beginning of my last week in paid employment.  Not a full week however because it started with a bank holiday Easter Monday and finished with a Royal wedding and a day off work for everyone.  And not much in between as it happened because with accrued annual leave it meant that I had completed my last shift at South Holland District Council.

The following week I became an unemployment statistic and didn’t need that old suit anymore!

Onyx UK and Redundancy

The first time that I was made redundant was on 30^th June 2000 after ten years working in the waste management business.  A year or two earlier the company appointed a new boss and I’m not sure why but he took an instant dislike to me and he immediately started to make my life a misery.  He picked on me constantly, offered no support when I needed it and could barely disguise his hostility.

To be fair I didn’t care for him either, he was a twat, so it was completely unlikely that we would ever get on with each other.  He had a shrill high pitched voice, fierce halitosis that could strip paint and a hawk like face permanently etched with spite and nastiness and he barely had a civil word for me, or anyone else for that matter.  It is completely impossible to capture the unpleasantness of this man in just a couple of sentences but, take it from me, he was hateful and contemptible.

By 2000 he wanted rid of me and would go to any lengths to achieve it so in June while I was away on holiday in Cephalonia in Greece, he gathered together a bunch of ‘yes people’ – conspirators from amongst the Regional Managers and announced that due to poor performance (his own mainly) and the need to make efficiencies (to cover up for his incompetence) there would be some job cuts and one of us would have to go.  Of course it had already been decided by the back-stabbers that it would be me but he was obliged to apply the company redundancy policy and he was having some difficulty in squeezing my name to the top of the list because of the complicated points system that worked in my favour.

This wasn’t a surprise of course because there was some real dead wood in there especially his favourite who was the obvious candidate based on his appalling sickness record and his abysmal academic achievements (not even a cycling proficiency badge).   But I had decided that it was time to go anyway because what was the point in staying where you weren’t wanted so I waited until the last moment, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse and he was so relieved he agreed to a generous pay off including the use of the expensive Vauxhall Omega company car for six months (with all my fuel provided, which was an unexpected bonus) and that was the end of my time in waste management in the private sector and I have never missed it for even a fleeting second.

I left the company at the end of June and for the first time in my life didn’t have a job so with with an unexpected lump of cash in the bank did the most sensible thing I could think of and rather than getting on looking for a new job went on holiday to Skiathos instead.

The list of back stabbers is:

Tom Riall

Colin Whitehead

Peter Clint

Elizabeth Pullen

Nick Patterson

Ray ? (HR Director)

Bob ? (Finance Director)

And Percy Powell (who gave his agreement and approval)

I know this is true because John Wheatley, who was at the meeting but excluded from the process, told me so!

Cameron’s Scrapheap

Friday 22nd April 2011 was the end of my penultimate week working in Local Government.  Monday the following week was the beginning of my last week in paid employment.  Not a full week however because it started with a bank holiday Easter Monday and finished with a Royal wedding and a day off work for everyone.  And not much in between as it happened because with accrued annual leave it meant that I had completed my last shift at South Holland District Council.

I worked there for ten years and in truth it was a wonderful place to work, it was satisfying and rewarding and in the time that I was there I  had the privilege to work with an excellent bunch of people and I am proud to have been associated with an organisation that achieved an external inspection status of excellent.

I had hoped to work there for a while longer but then came the economic downturn which made life difficult for everyone followed by the biggest disaster to befall the country since 1997 and the election of a Government with a determination to make the public sector pay dearly for all of the failings of the commercial sector, the banks and their legions of cronies amongst the massively over rated private sector business classes.

And so it sems that everything worthwhile in our society must suffer.  Not just Local Government of course but the National Health Service, the Police and the state education system as well.

So with careers and reputations destroyed in a tsunami of  Tory dogma  hundreds, thousands, of committed public servants are swept away and sacrificed on Cameron’s scrapheap in a vicious attack to deliver an ideology of smaller government achieved through a crude and blood-thirsty process by little people whose bloated personal ambition exceeds their own modest abilities.

The last three months had been difficult.  Obliged to work an extended notice but obviously not part of the future, increasingly excluded from the present and the past all but air-brushed away as ten years work left the building in green recycling bags or suffered the ultimate indignity of going through the shredder!

And so began a different life starting with a ‘gap year’.  Except for a five week break in 2000 when I was made redundant in a previous job I have worked continuously since I left University in June 1975 so I  belatedly took the break that most people now seem to take immediately after study.  I will probably want to work again at some point but the problem with that is that what I do now is all I really know how to do and what I know is that I don’t want to do it anymore!

The following week I became an unemployment statistic and didn’t need that old suit anymore!

A Life in a Year – 30th June, Onyx UK and Redundancy

The first time that I was made redundant was on 30^th June 2000 after ten years working in the waste management business.  A year or two earlier the company appointed a new boss and I’m not sure why but he took an instant dislike to me and he immediately started to make my life a misery.  He picked on me constantly, offered no support when I needed it and could barely disguise his hostility.  To be fair I didn’t care for him either, he was a twat, so it was completely unlikely that we would ever get on with each other.  He had a shrill high pitched voice, fierce halitosis that could strip paint and a hawk like face permanently etched with spite and nastiness and he barely had a civil word for me, or anyone else for that matter.  It is completely impossible to capture the unpleasantness of this man in just a couple of sentences but, take it from me, he was hateful and contemptible.

By 2000 he wanted rid of me and would go to any lengths to achieve it so in June while I was away on holiday in Cephalonia in Greece, he gathered together a bunch of ‘yes people’ – conspirators from amongst the Regional Managers and announced that due to poor performance (his own mainly) and the need to make efficiencies (to cover up for his incompetence) there would be some job cuts and one of us would have to go.  Of course it had already been decided by the back-stabbers that it would be me but he was obliged to apply the company redundancy policy and he was having some difficulty in squeezing my name to the top of the list because of the complicated points system that worked in my favour. 

This wasn’t a surprise of course because there was some real dead wood in there especially his favourite who was the obvious candidate based on his appalling sickness record and his abysmal academic achievements (not even a cycling proficiency badge).   But I had decided that it was time to go anyway because what was the point in staying where you weren’t wanted so I waited until the last moment, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse and he was so relieved he agreed to a generous pay off including the use of the expensive Vauxhall Omega company car for six months (with all my fuel provided, which was an unexpected bonus) and that was the end of my time in waste management in the private sector and I have never missed it for even a fleeting second.

I left the company at the end of June and for the first time in my life didn’t have a job so with £24,000 in the bank did the most sensible thing I could think of and rather than getting on looking for a new job went on holiday to Skiathos instead.

The list of back stabbers is:

Tom Riall

Colin Whitehead

Peter Clint

Elizabeth Pullen

Nick Patterson

Mike Butler

Ray ? (HR Director)

Bob ? (Finance Director)

And Percy Powell (who gave his agreement and approval)

I know this is true because John Wheatley, who was at the meeting but excluded from the process, told me so!

A Life in a Year – 22nd April, Cameron’s Scrapheap.

Friday 22nd April represents the end of my penultimate week working in Local Government.  Monday next week will be the beginning of my last week in paid employment.  Not a full week however because it starts with a bank holiday Easter Monday and finishes with a Royal wedding and a day off work for everyone.  And not much in between as it happens because with accrued annual leave it means that I have completed my last shift at South Holland District Council.

I have worked there for ten years and in truth it was a wonderful place to work, it was satisfying and rewarding and in the time that I have been there I have had the privilege to work with an excellent bunch of people and I am proud to have been associated with an organisation that achieved an external inspection status of excellent.

I had hoped to work there for a while longer but then came the economic downturn which made life difficult for everyone followed by the biggest disaster to befall the country since 1997 and the election of a Government with a determination to make the public sector pay dearly for all of the failings of the commercial sector, the banks and their legions of cronies amongst the massively over rated private sector business classes.

And so it sems that everything worthwhile in our society must suffer.  Not just Local Government of course but the National Health Service, the Police and the state education system as well.

So with careers and reputations destoyed in a tsunami of  Tory dogma  hundreds, thousands, of committed public servants are swept away and sacrificed on Cameron’s scrapheap in a vicious attack to deliver an ideology of smaller government achieved through a crude and blood-thirsty process by little people whose bloated personal ambition exceeds their own modest abilities.

The last three months has been difficult.  Obliged to work an extended notice but obviously not part of the future, increasingly excluded from the present and the past all but air-brushed away as ten years work left the building in green recycling bags or suffered the ultimate indignity of going through the shredder!

And so I begin a different life which will begin with a ‘gap year’.  Except for a five week break in 2000 when I was made redundant in a previous job I have worked continuously since I left University in June 1975 so I will belatedly take the break that most people now seem to take immediately after study.  I will probably want to work again at some point but the problem with that is that what I do now is all I really know how to do and what I know is that I don’t want to do it anymore!

Next week I will become an unemployment statistic!