2006-05-29
“It's just one gut-wrenching disappointment after another with you. And it seems to be that if you'd had any belief in me coming back and coming back with the intention of being useful and continuing from where I'd left off you would have put a little more thought and effort into ensuring that the status I'd left with was, was what I'd come back to.You have let me down and I am disappointed in you and I'm angry at myself for putting myself back here. I should have known better that to place any faith in you again.”
Five days back and we were fighting in a big way. This was as a result of one of her colleagues having used her job title when introducing herself at a meeting, and Jo was quick to form the opinion that she had lost her status and effectively been replaced. Very quick. Too quick in my mind. I see no difference at all. And I spent three hours trying to talk her round from where she had got to.
Fighting Jo’s anger is like fighting a fire. Once it catches hold, it rages out of control and then it’s a struggle to rescue anything before it’s destroyed.
And then Thursday morning she was away at a meeting in another office and called me, and although she knew that I couldn’t discuss anything with flapping ears all around she was demanding resolution.
‘You fix it. Because if you don’t I’m out of here. And believe me Kevin, you don’t want that because I won’t be going quietly and you really don’t want to have to explain some other things you’ve done to me at an industrial tribunal. You’ve wrecked my personal life I’m not going to let you ruin my career as well. And if you do…expect to lose everything you’ve got too.’
I was off on holiday on Friday, and it’s a bank holiday in England today. It’s been a tense not-sleeping weekend; for the first time in three years there’s a real danger my life could be in tatters.