LIFE ON THE SCRAPHEAP 2019 (3)

WEDNESDAY 20TH NOVEMBER 2019

My first day in thirty-two years of not actually earning a salary. This troubles me somewhat, but I am mostly alone in my own company to think about this, and whilst I do make a few tenuous steps towards doing some things, eventually I do have to go out for a while, which breaks up the day.

THURSDAY 21ST NOVEMBER 2019

Under the theory of trying to keep busy, I spend the morning working up some artwork as a favour to the extended family which was requested some time before the chaos of imminent redundancy hit me.

I manage to produce "something" but I'm less than encouraged at my first efforts at producing some actual Graphic Design in a while, and my confidence begins to crumble, even as the transfer of telephone numbers to an older telephone does at least bring a modicum of success to my day.

But at leat IO do phone the C.A.B. even though it's likely to be a while before I act upon their advice.

FRIDAY 22ND NOVEMBER 2019

I decide to spend much of my day playing with some animation software for an idea I have had brewing for a while and, once I upload it, it does appear to be well-received.

I also send a few emails to people I've been meaning to get in touch with to let them know the current situation. One is to thank our former landlords at the office for all their kindliness over the years because I never got the chance to go and say goodbye.

That probably seems an odd thing to do, but there you go.

SATURDAY 23RD NOVEMBER 2019

There is work to be done around the house, but both our moods plummet during the afternoon as we struggle to engage with our telly choices.

It is not a good day.

SUNDAY 24TH NOVEMBER 2019

After a bad night, I wake up to find more cricketing disasters have occurred (from an England and Wales point of view anyway) and work my way through a couple of long podcasts which have just been published. Sadly, these only serve to trigger an unfortunate sense of despair at my own lack of abilities, and I start to crumble so much that I decide that I have to walk away from Social Media for a time.

In announcing this, of course, I find that my online circle of people are very kind and supportive in the things that they say which I find in my timeline when I pop back to post a quick "angry doodle" that was prompted by the launch of the Tory Manifesto today.

My mood is generally not being helped by knowing that there are probably still enough people out there who still believe that this contemptible oaf is God's gift to get him re-elected, and this is one of the reasons I'm finding it more and more of a daily struggle to face the day.

The mood brightens slightly as I spend the afternoon cooking; firstly I make a beef stew from bits and pieces in the fridge (having skipped a Sunday supermarket run for once), and then I act as sous-chef to my Beloved as she works on the annual Christmas cake bake.

MONDAY 25TH NOVEMBER 2019

Station run tales:

The coffee seller seems to be well again; Two spectre-like eyes punctuate the grey of the dawn sky; A brace of foxes dash from a garden and then go in the one next door; A silver BMW near misses me after he decides that Stop signs don’t refer to him.

...oh, and the thing I thought was a nasty right-wing election flyer that had been left under a stone on the doorstep on Friday evening turned out to be a nasty right-wing election flyer - which is now sitting damply in the recycling bin.

A month to Christmas and I am feeling very down, though not because of that. Instead of trying to spend some time relaxing, I rather stupidly set about doing another animation project, but my brain seems to be full of mush today, despite the kind overnight reply to one of my emails, which prompts a short flurry of activity via Messenger, mostly, but my failures with the animations make me feel rather bleak.

In the afternoon, I decide to attempt another project instead and start to mess around with Book Templates which frustrate me so much that I genuinely start to believe that I can't do anything, and I'm astonished at just how quickly the confidence in yourself evaporates.

Just to prove no good turn goes unpunished, because they have my contact details, I get a message from the former office landlords asking what happened to our keys - the ones we handed over during our TERMINATION meetings.

I respond, once again reminded of the arrogance of the company that got rid of me, but it is an excuse, at least, to exchange messages with my former art department colleagues and prove that my old phone number is active again.

Sadly, this leads to several hours of me grumpily failing to get iMessage to work on my relic of a phone, so I'm three for three on the abject failure scoreboard for the day, and all the kind messages in the world (one of my old podcast efforts getting considerable praise) fail to offset my sense of utter, abject, miserable failure today.

I watched the last two episodes of Van der Valk, too.

LIFE ON THE SCRAPHEAP 2019 (2)

FRIDAY 8TH NOVEMBER 2019

We get an email which, after a little bit of jiggery-pokery with an attachment, reveals a list of "available jobs" within the remnants of the group, all of which are either not art-related, or will require selling up and moving to far-flung places in order (most probably) to get kicked to the kerb anyway after a few months, and  suffering the (perhaps minor) humiliation of returning to a junior position after gaining (in my case) thirty-two years of experience.

WEDNESDAY 13TH NOVEMBER 2019

I take a roundabout route to the office via IKEA, failing to find the shelves we failed to find there the previous Saturday. Bedroom rearrangement plans remain on hold until I can find the shelves we want, but at least getting out and about filled some of a troubled weekend, as did several days of digging into my DVD collection. The diversion leads to me getting fretful as - despite leaving home stupidly early - the route from IKEA to the office is plagued with delays, and I suddenly start to worry that I will be late for my "Consultation Meeting" appointment at High Noon. The plus side, however, is that for the first time, I approach the office from a completely new direction, which adds some variety at least.

One of my colleagues is already indoors waiting for her own 11:30, and the Axe-Wielders are already in place upstairs and (possibly) already in conference with our former managers - although we later suspect that the shadowy shapes were just misinterpreted.

Her 11:30 comes and I am alone with a notebook. It doesn't take long and, as I'm already there, High Noon comes early.

As with my colleague there is little to say. I have no suggestions as to how the business might have been saved (I wasn't running it) and, as expected, none of the vacancies I am deemed suitable for. I ask a few questions about possibly salvaging some of the assets for my own use, and head downstairs, chatting to Carl - one of the former building managers - as I go.

He agrees the world seems bleak.

The programmer and our other artwork colleague both arrive presently and head off for their own meetings, whilst the two of us go over to the local cafe and buy lunch at the sort of daily rates that explain just why I took sandwiches for all those years.

Presently, we are joined by our other colleague, and time passes in doom-laden conversation  until we drift away, and I take an hour out of my afternoon to visit the country park because, well, I can.

THURSDAY 14TH - MONDAY 18TH NOVEMBER 2019

Days pass. Flaps about questions not asked by my colleagues, angry exchanges of iMessages, and other distractions fill the time, but I remain gloomy. A friend invites me out for a walk on the Friday which is nice and supportive, but my hopes remain low, even if, every now and again, I start to believe that perhaps I could make a living of sorts doing the things I enjoy doing "for fun" at the moment.

TUESDAY 19TH NOVEMBER 2019

The Axe Falls.

A day earlier than expected when "The Announcement" happened, but it seems not in order to save them a day's salary.

I arrive stupidly early to the empty office and am able to clean mountains of forgotten rubbish from my desk and place it in the bin bag I brought along especially, which I hand to the office cleaner as we chat about what the fates have brought me.

The meeting is mercifully swift, and my keys and phone are handed over, money is discussed, and it's all over bar having to pop back to tell them my other colleague has already arrived, and a couple of further questions that struck me when I got downstairs - chiefly about the shredding of the documents piled on my desk.

The three members of the (now former) art department then cross the road to buy coffees, chat about life, the universe and everything, and promise to stay in touch, before heading our separate ways with an air of bleak finality.

LIFE ON THE SCRAPHEAP 2019 (1)

I started the "Life on the Scrapheap" blog a few years ago, the last time it looked as if things were about to go belly up in the less than great story of my life.

That time, of course, things sort of sorted themselves out and, after re-applying for our own jobs in 2016, we were employed by the parent company that had just pulled the plug on our bosses efforts to survive in the (once) independent sector, but decided that the artwork team made a tangible asset.

Ten months later, without any real consultation, they bundled us up as part of a package with a new venture run by some other waifs and strays from the industry and formed a not entirely happy marriage which staggered along for about two and a half years.

I can't say it was the best of situations and we laughed and joked a little about the fact that the plug was always likely to be pulled, because it's alright to laugh and joke about such matters until the plug actually gets pulled.

Then, of course, it's all a different matter and, despite everything, few of us learn the meaning of the old adage: Be careful what you wish for.

THURSDAY OCTOBER 3rd 2019

The (extended) "forty day" consultation period is over and the entire office are in to gather round a laptop and listen to a fifteen minute presentation by the head honcho of our new American parent company. To all intents and purposes, our "brand" is dead. Our leaders convince themselves that this is a good thing, as our product is "so good" that they want to put their name on it. Cynics that we are, the Art Department, three people who have been through thick and thin, but work well together in a way I doubt I'll ever find again, are less certain.

October passes.

WEDNESDAY 6TH NOVEMBER, 2019

Despite morning trepidation (and a slight migraine), for once the entire office is present. A rare occurrence, but the "money man" we'd heard through the grapevine had resigned is due to visit. Despite our liaison with the parent company having been mysteriously unavailable through "illness" (he's NEVER ill) throughout much of the past three months, things remain upbeat as I am praised about the latest project I've been working on. Our leaders seem optimistic, although mention of a HR representative known to us drifts through the door and some of us suspect things are afoot.

However, the visitors arrive, including a different HR representative than the expected one. They refuse a friendly cup of coffee, and immediately whisk our managers/owners upstairs to a meeting room. Minutes later they enter through the connecting door and the plug is indeed pulled as £10m in savings need to be made.

They disappear and even our usually overconfident management team seem shell-shocked. My immediate colleagues, especially. One has the air of having been hit by a truck (as sole breadwinner with a family and a sick wife - now in tears apparently - this is not a good day), and the other, despite many claims of wanting this to be over, seems to be surprised that it's suddenly all over.

Slightly later, the axe-wielding bean-counters return, asking whether we have other questions, and giving out contacts that seem to forget that our phone contacts and computer equipment are all things that come with the job.

They depart. My manager suggests we take our computers - I've already wiped mine clean of "my" stuff - home and that they might be something we can negotiate over in our redundancy packages. Already that word "redundant" is becoming the norm now.

Desks are cleared, and our three managers, or presumed managers, drift away, full of surprise, and promises, and the usual platitudes, but we fully expect that, other than passing through doorways on our way to meetings we never wanted to have, this may be the last we see of them.

I head home. A visit to family is more than I can face. Instead I watch a film, but find it hard to concentrate upon, before meeting my Beloved from the train and eating pizza.

Later on, of course, you realise you still know nothing at all about that tricky little thing of applying for new jobs and surviving in this terrible world we have now, but that's another story.

My internet pals are very supportive, if otherwise unable to assist.

My Beloved is, of course, a rock.

THURSDAY 7TH NOVEMBER 2019

After a night slightly broken by panic around 1:00am, I wake up for the first time in years at 5:45 instead of the recently normal 4:15. Am I finally more relaxed? Or simply exhausted and fatigued?

A day at home. Finding stuff to do, and ignoring the works equipment as best I can. I cancel a dental hygienist appointment for next week (it suddenly feels expensive) and sit down to write and watch TV in order to keep myself busy.

The work phone buzzes, and there is an exchange of emails (and phone calls) as the first "Consultation Day" is going to be next Wednesday.

I get High Noon.