H aRRgh!!

On Friday, myself and the rest of the HR team were treated to the rather amusing sight of one of our employees getting increasingly irate at our HR Manager.

What she obviously hoped would be a quick query was extended into something beautifully complex, thanks in no small part to some badly crossed wires.

It's been 5 days since our job advert went up in a very widely read publication.

As a result (and as you may have read previously), the last few days have been manic.

The phonelines have not stopped ringing, and the postman has had trouble getting all of our mail to us.

Despite some reports to the contrary, I am, deep down, a pretty nice guy.

Today saw a heart-warming example of this other side to my personality, as I took a few minutes off from moaning about life's annoyances to cheer someone up.

Another testing session on Friday ended somewhat abruptly in what must go down as one of the most bizarre moments of my professional career.

It had not begun well, with the candidate being 20 minutes late after cancelling a previous session due to car trouble.

However, I was prepared to not make a big fuss about this being as he had travelled nearly 150 miles for the session, which was to include an interview straight after the tests.

You may recall that last week I was doing a good deed, by getting the brother of one of our employees enrolled at a local recruitment agency with a view to coming to work for us as a temp.

Well, remind me to never bother being nice again!

I was pretty pleased with myself today (nothing unusual there), after resolving a tricky situation between 2 employees that threatened to spill over into something quite messy.

However, though I can seemingly be trusted to undertake tasks such as that, it would seem that for other, basic tasks, some people have their concerns. Namely my Managing Director...

Let me get this off my chest before I explode. I don't care about legal action, I just need to say...

... I DESPISE BT.

Not dislike, not "am mildly annoyed by", but truly, madly, deeply despise.

As mentioned a couple of days ago, we are hosting a global conference next week.

To be honest, it hasn't even started yet and already I'm sick of it.

Normally level-headed people are running around like headless chickens just because of a few visitors. It reminds me of being at home whenever my mum had family visiting.

I think it was plain for all to see that I was not looking forward to the Global Conference that has taken place at work over the past couple of days.

However, any pessimism I may have had beforehand was not enough to prepare me for how truly hellish it has been.

Today I dabbled with a spot of flexible working, with the blessing of my boss.

Unlike some of my colleagues who have frequently utilised (some may even say abused. I wouldn't be one!) this for reasons such as childcare, mine was for a far more important issue.

The football.

Something very, very strange happened today.

Was it that I was able to fill 3 vacancies with very little fuss? Well, that is strange, but not as strange as a recruitment agency actually doing their job properly.

Despite being on the verge of the depths of winter (or joys of Christmas, depending on your festive spirit...), we have decided to have a massive spring clean at work.

Well, when I say we, obviously I mean my boss.

I'm not the tidiest man in the world, as anyone who has ever lived with me would testify. It's not that I like mess, but I've got too many things to be getting on with to worry about organisation.

It's fair to say I was somewhat taken aback today when I received a reference request for quite possibly the maddest employee we have ever had.

Well over a year ago the gentleman in question left us in bizarre circumstances after having been at the company only a few weeks.

Towards the end of his time with us, his behaviour had become somewhat 'erratic', to put it mildly.

One of our Senior Managers really dropped himself and I in it today.

Yesterday, I forwarded him a CV for one of our current vacancies which was certainly very strong, but also had very steep salary requirements, far above what we have agreed for the position currently.

Despite this, the Senior Manager in question replied asking me to arrange an interview, but also to keep the salary details to myself.

Despite sinking in work at the moment, it has been deemed necessary for me to spend 2 hours covering reception this afternoon.

It is something I had done a bit more of a couple of years ago, but I was hopeful those dark days were behind me.