shooglynail

Stage 8: E4 in the day time

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 19:47:00 +0000

They say that the five stages of redundancy* are 1/Shock and denial 2/Anger 3/Bargaining 4/Depression and 5/Acceptance. They missed out 6/Tidying and 7/Tedious maths.

I’ll address 7/ first. I’ve been doing all manner of maths that frankly our HR department should be doing, because they are useless. So useless that they don’t even call themselves HR, but ‘Employee Services’. There’s little in the way of service being provided though. The standard response to any query seems to be to copy you in as they forward your email to yet another clueless admin. The result of this electronic ping-pong is that I know I’m being made redundant in two days, but not how much pay in lieu of notice I’m receiving nor when I’ll receive it. I have a rough idea, but the draft redundancy schedule I’ve been provided has no breakdown, obscure holiday entitlement calculations, no end of notice date and no deductions for tax and NI. This has led to be discovering that there are a wealth of handy calculators online for trying to work out such things - it’s a pity that our Employee Services bunch are clearly strangers to Google.

As for 6/, today I have discovered the joys of trying to pack six years of your working life into one suitcase. I’m surprised that in this digital age, I still have a suitcase full of paper AND 3.7GB of files to take into the next life. You’d think a modern go-getting designer could just pack up their typefaces and go, but I apparently can’t do without the paper samples, the branding guidebooks and of course the finished products, dozens of which got slung into the suitcase with wild abandon (it should be worth noting that I’ve saved nothing in the way of payslips or appraisal info.) Realistically, I don’t know what I’m thinking I’ll do with all this stuff. I just know I’m not ready to let it go yet.

So I’ve handed over my projects. I’ve taken the comedy decorations off my cubical. I’ve scrubbed the fonts folder. I’ve said goodbyes, and now it’s just the official business of being made redundant, and then getting pissed in the pub afterward. And then? I go home. Watch the job market. Wait.

*I won’t comment on the fact that someone’s clearly just nicked the five stages of grief and crayoned in the word ‘redundancy’, but oh, I just did.

Happy Hogmanay! #thedailyshoogle

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:18:48 +0000

Happy Hogmanay! #thedailyshoogle

Dickensian Christmas Desk - Stave 2 (my manager’s desk).

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 09:10:35 +0000

Dickensian Christmas Desk - Stave 2 (my manager’s desk).

Dickensian Christmas Desks - Stave 1.

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 19:09:20 +0000

Dickensian Christmas Desks - Stave 1.

Not getting any less wierd or scary - the Evil Robot Christmas...

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 22:54:05 +0000

Not getting any less wierd or scary - the Evil Robot Christmas Des Tree. (at Strathbungo Area)

For some reason, I’m feeling oddly unsettled while...

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:05:31 +0000

For some reason, I’m feeling oddly unsettled while watching the TV. Like something’s hovering in my perpheral vision.

After.

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:39:53 +0000

After.

Before…

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:21:07 +0000

Before…

The Importance of Hiring Proofreaders, Chapter 1. “The...

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:37:34 +0000

The Importance of Hiring Proofreaders, Chapter 1. “The case of the Primark Onesie.”

Call to action

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:43:57 +0000

Comedy client requests are like buses. You wait for ages and ages, and then three come along at once. Wonderfully, they’re all from the same client. The piece is a single A3 poster, featuring a photo of one of our most senior partners, with a line of text promoting one of our high-profile business competitions. The following requests have been submitted by an assistant director in marketing:

1/ Do we have to have the sponsors’ logos on the poster?

2/ This is an internal only poster, so we don’t need any contact info or further instructions for people.

3/ Can we change this line of text to read “We have access to the UK’s largest company’s [sic]”

The answers, were of course, as follows:

1/ Lady, let me explain how the concept of sponsorship works. Sponsors typically pay us money so their logo can get plastered all over our stuff. If the sponsor’s logo doesn’t get plastered over our stuff, they take away our money and then we can’t make any stuff. Basically, the short answer to your query is “YES”.

2/ If we take out the text you’ve requested, the poster will consist of the senior partner’s HUGE face and a slogan that essentially says “I like [X]”.

Client response: And?

Me: Well, if you’re not going to tell people how to find out more, who to contact, or why they should care, you might as well have a big A3 poster of me, with the slogan “I love midget gems!”.

Client response: But that would be weird.

Me: Yes. I know.

3/ ….

Birthday cake part 3! Happy Birthday Mum!

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 09:39:07 +0000

Birthday cake part 3! Happy Birthday Mum!

Cake stage two. I think I’ve finally conquered icing.

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 22:59:20 +0000

Cake stage two. I think I’ve finally conquered icing.

Today I mainly made this. My Mum gets to eat them on Tuesday.

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 22:07:00 +0000

Today I mainly made this. My Mum gets to eat them on Tuesday.

“13 years of friendship”. Was feeling a bit gimpy,...

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 15:05:45 +0000

“13 years of friendship”. Was feeling a bit gimpy, so knocked this up. Not sure when the first photo was taken (sometime between 1998 - 2000 I reckon) but the second was October this year.

Congratulations to two of my best friends on their wedding day!

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:30:40 +0100

Congratulations to two of my best friends on their wedding day!

Well thanks for that nightmare, random Queen St pop up shop....

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 18:28:28 +0100

Well thanks for that nightmare, random Queen St pop up shop. (Taken with Instagram)

Favourite Shutterstock Caption of the Day

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 12:31:47 +0100

“beautiful asian women with two doors”

How to avoid international incidents through graphic design (an occasional series)

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:00:28 +0100

Part #1

When your offshore designers are creating a document about Chinese business people, remind them not to fill it with stock shots of Japanese business people.

Afternoon tea at Culloden House Hotel. #hentimes #fullofcake...

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:59:42 +0100

Afternoon tea at Culloden House Hotel. #hentimes #fullofcake (Taken with Instagram)

#hentimes #carl (Taken with Instagram)

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 03:05:28 +0100

#hentimes #carl (Taken with Instagram)