Love the dress Herbs - bet you looked fab in it.
Glad the article is done and out there, MI - really interesting. Something I am working on at the moment involves a backdrop of a charitable hostel for young women in the theatre business (it ran for donkey's years and is now part of Centrepoint). It was set up originally by a classic Edwardian benefactor and it strikes me how that so rarely happens now - yes there is private charitable giving, but it's mostly one-off things rather than sustained support. Or people set up a charity to fund a school in Bangladesh, for instance, but not housing for the vulnerable on thier doorstep. Not that the school is not deserving, god know it is, but it would be interesting to know why those kind of charitable urges have changed in the last 50 years.
I also got drunk last night and got a bit ranty about working for peanuts and feeling like I am in competition with someone 20 years younger than me for my job. Someone at work is going on maternity leave which creates an opportunity for me to work an extra day a week and do a lot more of the interesting stuff (working more with the head of the company on certain projects, learning the ropes etc). So far so good. But then this week they decided to rearrange what I do now (which is very junior, but stuff that I can organise myself and that is quite fun and busy), combine it with the duties of the company head's PA (who is just out of Uni) and sort of split both the fun, interesting stuff and the boring shit between the two of us. She clearly feels this means she has been promoted and that we are equal office juniors (which was not the case before). And I am REALLY struggling with it - very hurt pride mainly. I know I have been out of the business for 10 years, but I have 12 years of experience which I feel should count for something. Plus, I know one of the reason they have given me some of the shit to do is that I am very organised, reliable and good at dealing with difficult people, the the company head would prefer me to be the point of contact for some of the more tricky people he deals with. I have had this before, years ago, in my career - one boss told me to my face that he would do everything in his power to keep me as his PA (to be fair he offered me a lot of money), and another time I overheard a meeting where they were discussing promoting people and I was up for a step up and my boss said no, I was more valuable to the company as his assistant. I have not, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, made good career choices, but I just feel so powerless. I managed to stand up for myself and ask for extra money, which I got, but now I am feeling demoralised. I shouldn't take these things so personally, should I? I have done that in the past, left jobs and tried to find the magic place instead of sticking it out. Any advice gratefully received.