2006-03-09
Yesterday started well a work. My normal routine – came in, up to my floor, said hello and chatted with the others who were in, picked up my mail. From there I would usually move on to my room (soon to be a thing of the past), put on the computer and then go and get a cup of tea while the warm-up went through. Yesterday I got stuck at the first letter – just four lines from a government department saying that, although they didn’t agree with me on something we’re been arguing about for about six years now, they’d decided that they didn’t want to pursue it through the courts. No other explanation but it means they were scared of losing and setting a precedent other people could follow. Which meant, after all that time I’d just won the company £13 million, plus probably about £3 million interest.My flabber was so ghasted that I was completely unable to concentrate on the rest of my mail. As part of the criticism of me lately when applying for jobs has been that I’m too understated and not good at celebrating success (in fact that I tend to see winning as something I’m just employed to do, not something to tell people about) I thought maybe I should mention it to a few people – oh and dance about a bit as though I was pleased.
Having done that I went back and opened the rest of the mail – and found the next one was from another part of the government giving up on something else I’ve been arguing with them about – ching! another £3 million for the company. At which point it was time to check the calendar and make sure no-one was playing an April fool trick on me.
I met Jo at lunchtime. She was pleased for me (because she knows what it’s taken to get this far, and understands the issues) and knowingly said ‘I bet you were tempted not to tell anyone’! Which was right. As a celebration I bought the rest of the team Easter eggs. Big spender eh?
We were laughing at the idea of Lesley being let out from jury service early and finding us together in the mall. It might just be sufficiently outrageous for her to actually doubt her own sanity. She would be completely unable to comprehend what Jo was doing there, when she’s known to be in California, and the opportunity for her imagination to run riot on conspiracy theories would probably blow her mind. Jo – with me – food shopping – no children – should be in America with her husband – looking well – me in a good mood. Let’s see that’s two plus two plus two plus two plus two plus….BANG!
Jo phoned later in the afternoon. She’d been to the doctor in between and been told that if she flew within the next week she was almost certainly going to suffer the same ear pain that kept her in bed last week. She flew out of here at 6.30 this morning.
‘I don’t want to go back…’ she said. But I don’t know whether that was because of the potential flying pain…or because she doesn’t want to go back…
She talked happily earlier about the holiday they have planned after Dave’s work in San Jose finishes. Disney, of course, and then on down the California coast all the way to San Diego, maybe take in Sea World, and then finally fly out from LA. Look out for her people, will you?
Lynne’s reaction at my good news wasn’t so positive. ‘God! You do all that for them and they still won’t give you another job! I hope you took the opportunity to have a go at them?’ Basically she harangued me for not demanding a huge bonus out of them, and then for not being the sort of person who does that. Seems like not celebrating success is a family trait, eh?
I was awake very early this morning coughing quite a lot. Jo had said to me it was a result of being with her – ‘I’m a walking germ factory you know!’. Lying in bed at four twenty this morning, thinking of her getting up and stirring her children into life five miles across the city I started singing to myself:
‘What do you get when you kiss a girl? You get enough germs to catch pneumonia. And when you do, she’ll never phone yer..’
But the coughing caught in before I got to the chorus.