I must update my résumé now. Get it back online. More work.

So that’s the noise it makes…
I dragged myself to work this morning after another hollow night. I say hollow as it is not fair to call them sleepless. I do sleep. Until about 2 o’clock and then again from 7 to 8. So you see… ‘hollow’ seems to be the right word.
I got the letter yesterday, it arrived at home and Ludivine signed for it. Last night I sat down with a couple of bottles of red wine and prepared for today. The first thing was a series of letters, the first asking not to have to work my notice. The other letters got more and more weird according to possible answers to the first. As it happened, the first was accepted. It took all morning, and the fact that I sat down doing nothing but tidy my desk. I didn’t even switch on the computer. The wastepaper basket is full, it was that sort of tidying my desk. I may now leave the company Friday at 6 o’clock and only come back mid July to collect my papers.

If you really are to be beheaded, it is in your interest that the Head Executioner has a good breakfast. Else he will hack away and botch the job. While the sports reporters will just say: “Well, it wasn’t one of old Lefty’s better jobs and not a really memorable match, but he did break through the gristly bits in the end… ” it is nevertheless my neck on the line. And I feel that I don’t want it botched.
. . . . .
What really messes me up about all this—besides the not knowing—is the way that it effecticely ruins my summer with Kim. I had put my holiday days aside for this summer, taking care not to use them up in advance. And, because of the stupidity of MB and Hubby, I have been sorely tepted at times, days when I have come into work crippled with back pain, but unable to afford to day a day of unpaid sickleave… Just because I believed that the work that I was doing was recognised as possessing some worth.

If I get my notice anyday soon then I have 2 months presence left. That takes me to mid July. Right in the middle of my planned time with Kim. And, of course, MB has said that unlike everybody else she has fired, she wants me to work my notice. Even if I were to find a doctor who’d be willing to put me on paid sickleave—I mean two weeks backpain and sleeples nights is normal fare, it’s easier to give medication to hide the symptoms, than to allow me to get away from MB for a while. Putting myself on sickleave is no good anyway as all it does is extend the notice period.

I am feeling a bit bitter about this all.

Things are also complicated by the unemployement benefit rules. Besides the time-wasting of all the meetings and rubbish that you get called along to participate in, all the monies that you receive on leaving are converted to a daily salary equivalent. If all goes normally, I will leave with 5 weeks’ holidays, and two weeks (pro-rata) annual bonus. This combined with the one-week holding period that they instigated to cut down on unemployement payments, means that I will have to wait 8 weeks before I even see any benefit. Or, if I do find another job quickly, then they won’t let me start by taking time off to be with Kim.

Either way I’m fucked. This is why I am feeling more than a bit bitter about all this.

I heard a strange swishing sound this afternoon. It was probably the axe just slipping by, or possibly the sound of the stone running along the edge, making sure that everything is good and sharp and ready. In fact, this ridiculous situation has been going on for so long that I am starting to get a crick in my neck from waiting here on the chopping block.

That’s life, I suppose.

So, this afternoon MB called me into her office: the company will not be making me an offer to retain my services, after all.

. . . . .
What does all this mean?

Last Thursday, in what seemed a sort of panic, MB came to see me. “I have read through your resumé, she said, I think that I would like to make you an offer to keep you on in a different capacity. Of course, you won’t be interested.” I liked that last bit.

You know my point of view, I replied, I would be perfectly happy to consider a written offer. Yes, yes, she said. I will pass it on to you.
Friday she said, Oh, I haven’t finished, can we talk about this later. Fine, I replied. What about Monday?

Monday she still hadn’t finished and proposed Wednesday. I started to suspect delaying tactics.

After today’s short discussion that went nowhere—although we managed to finish on a good note—“We all do what we have to do.” she said. “Yes, I replied, you do what you have to do, and I’ll do what I have to do also.” Suddenly she was interested, “What do you mean by that?” “I’m sure that I mean much the same thing as you, no?” And I left her office. And called a lawyer.
. . . . .
I am supposing that, after a good weekend’s thinking-it-over, she thinks that the possibility of losing in court in 2 years time—that’s the time it takes to settle things in French courts, and probably the reason why this is not a litigatious society like the US has become—is worth her while if it means she can fire me today as she wishes. I have looked at the situation and sincerely believe that not only is the firing for the reasons that she gives not justified, but also that she has not respected the procedure. And so that I stand a good chance of winning and getting a royal 2 months’ pay as compensation for those heinous crimes. She has, even now, probably budgetted that cost. Hell, I’m sure that she has budgetted a generous 3 months, just in case. Which is why laws to protect workers here in France are totally ineffective and do not cause companies to hesitate in the slightest in hiring and firing. They know that time will always be on their side.