Sunday, February 18, 2007

Countdown to being a domestic executive: 32 weeks to go

Boy was I pleased to leave the office at the end of this week. It feels like it's gone on forever with every day bring new and interesting (not) challenges to face.

We started with a story on the front page of the Dom (Wellington Daily) with a Hells Pizza manager claiming that Work and Income (one of MSD's service lines) telling a single parent beneficiary that she was better off not working but claiming benefit instead. As you might imagine this caused a little upset in the bosses office and the bosses, bosses office. Still, my media maestro closed down the story as nonsense within 1 hour and 15 minutes (nearly a record) but nevertheless some damage was done. It's just not the thing you need first thing on a Monday morning.

By mid week there was plenty of angst trying to calm the brows in the Minister's Office who were getting overly excited about all sorts of things. Somehow our no surprises policy is still surprising them!

The end of the week culminated in a huge gorrilla (not the usual monkey) being passed my way to pick up the pieces of someone else failure. I did have a chuckle when my boss suggested I spend the weekend getting up to speed on the social development of NZ and reading the infamous Briefing for Incoming Ministers, a document that runs to about 600 pages. In my normal kiwi dilligent way, I'm spending the weekend reading the Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton. Who wants to lay a bet that the gorrilla will have changed shaped anyway by 10am on Monday!

Big week next week though - new coaching course starting which should be fun. Best dust off my notes from my last course to save any embarressing moments on the teleclass.

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