Faces

I came back to work after a week off sick, and found this unhappy face on a card in my keyboard.



On the rear of the card was this much happier face.



The energy management team had put out the cards. A smiley face means you switched your monitor off overnight, consuming less unnecessary energy and thereby saving the world. An un-smiley face means you left your monitor on standby overnight, using up limited energy resources and thereby dooming future generations to a life of leather, studs and Tina Turner. What a good idea.

What the energy management team may not have realised is that the faces cards have another function, and in my opinion a far more useful one - desktop mood indicators. A green smiley card displayed on one’s desk denotes goodwill, job satisfaction and contentment. A red un-smiley face depicts the opposite, grumpiness, dissatisfaction and ire. I’ve gone for a more nuanced three faced system.



Today I found out two things that placed me firmly in one of the two camps.

Firstly, there has been no development relating to the security of my current job role beyond the end of the current month, which is in two weeks. Grossly unprofessional email behaviour from my by-proxy line manager (the real line manager having left in June and remaining un-replaced even now, in March) has – if anything – unsteadied my nerves on this matter. I don’t think I was supposed to be copied into that email to Personnel.

Secondly, my overall boss, in whose ability I have little faith, has been appointed to that role on a permanent basis. Until now, she was covering somebody else’s maternity leave. Until now, I’d consoled myself with the thought that she wouldn’t be the best candidate to apply for the job permanently. I’d lived in hope, until now.