I had the dubious pleasure of attending the new-work (I’ve yet to come up with a suitably clever name for it) Christmas function on Friday afternoon – held at Cockle Bay. The standard line on the first few days was “you’ve joined at a good time – just in time for the Christmas Party”, I really wanted to respond, “Yeah, watching a hundred complete strangers getting drunk – now that’s my idea of a rockin’ time!”.

It was marginally bearable. Only very marginally. The food was palatable. I consumed alcohol yet again – that’s twice in a week (certainly making up for the last 3 years – during which time I consumed precisely none).

Things I loathe about the new job:

• Taking attendance every morning (what is this, school??)
  

• Staff are grumpy and resisting the changes HR & management are trying to make. These changes were mentioned at the interview, so among my questions were “what’s the overall vibe like amongst the staff?” and “how are the staff reacting to the changes you’re making?” – I was ASSURED that the workplace was happy & joyful & everyone immensely happy with changes. Well that was a complete load of shit. The Powers That Be have just removed RDOs & everyone is majorly pissed off. TPTB are also trying to get rid of the long term employees (that old mentality that if you have been somewhere for over 10 years, you are completely useless).
  

• Part of the role involves reception relief (this was not mentioned in either the job spec or the interview). I hate reception with the power of 1,000 suns & never would have accepted had I known.
  

• The offices are ugly ugly ugly.
  

• There are a couple of really freaky freaks (almost as freaky as the batshitcrazyorg freaks).
  

Things that are bearable about my new job:

• There are people that are left wing.
  

• The work does not seem overly arduous (although will take a while to get my head around some of the esoteric aspects).
  

• Some people are actually attractive.
  

• There are gays & lesbians.
  

• There are people with tattoos & bodypiercings.
  

• IT actually respond to requests.
  

The very lovely chicky (a chirpy Californian) I’m replacing confided that she felt so bad for me that I had accepted the role, because the job sucks, a lot of the people are weird & Management/HR are tools. She was on a maternity relief contract & only working at new-work while waiting for something in her field. We’ve formed a rather close bond in 3 days. She advised me to get out before my 3 month probation was up for the sake of my sanity – at this stage I completely agree.

Note to self: In future avoid employers with 3 letter acronyms.