Lessons in (Mis) Management

Well, the wind had clearly blown through my town yesterday, it even managed to move the shed which had a load of stuff in it. Good job we didn't have the patio umbrella up or I'm sure it'd be in the next county.

Whatever the polar opposite of management is, that is what I'm experiencing today. Typically, it's always at review time that it becomes a) painfully obvious that both the big and small team management things are not happening, and b) it's somehow the team member's fault and up to us to fix it. I feel as if I'm living in a Dilbert cartoon.

Right, apparently I should at some point have written a personal development plan with my manager. Since that didn't happen, do I make one up and pretend or just put 'not applicable'. I can't even remember what my objectives were supposed to be! Aaargh. How can it be that something that will affect my pay/bonus and more importantly my manager's pay/bonus is so far down their priority list, and yet still my problem! I suppose I should look at it as an opportunity to stretch my creative writing skills.

Going to the gym tonight and find myself strangely looking forward to it. Not sure why, really, exercise is a pretty tedious thing to do but there is that buzz from it at the end.

I watched Nigella Lawson's 'Nigella Express' last night. The conceit is that it's gourmet food prepared quickly for people who don't have the time and inclination to spend hours at the stove and counter-top. It tries to capture some of Jamie Oliver's old joie de vie and combine it with Nigella's coquettish charms. She spent most of the programme last night squeezing citrus fruit and licking her fingers. I'm surprised that the news on Tuesday mornings is taken up with the number of middle aged men who had heart-attacks watching this gastro-porn. I'll say this for her, she makes the link between food and sex VERY clear. Last week she picked up a lemon juicer, turned to camera and said 'I love a good impaling!' I mean, wtf?

Watching it for the comedy value (honest, guv) the same things niggle me each week. Firstly, Nigella is pretty wooden on screen. Secondly, the idea that she is some sort of busy 'working woman', juggling career, family and cooking is just too fake to bear. It's patronising in the extreme and makes you doubt everything - are those really her kids? Are those people actually friends or just actors? The conceit is that she is cooking in her home for herself and her family/friends and frankly I don't believe a word of it. M seems able to suspend her disbelief (of course a busy working mum has time to prepare an entire freezer of 'time saving' ingredients! She does that in the hours between eleventy-twelve and nixteen) but it's almost unbearable. It must be the same sort of suspension of belief that gets M through 'romantic comedies'...