Page 20 | Crepes, Cats and Calamari

CointreauVersial · 23/02/2017 08:19

Need your advice, crepeys.

Having put the word out amongst friends that I was looking for a new assistant, if they knew anyone, blah blah blah, the inevitable happened, and a good friend of mine has mentioned SHE would be interested in the job. She would do an excellent job (currently helps her DH run his own small business) and she's the loveliest person, but but but..... I'm not sure if it's a good idea. Luckily I wouldn't be doing performance appraisals (we don't do them), or deciding her pay (that's decided further up), but is it ever a good idea to mix friends and business?

Molly/MI - I know you worked together, but didn't the work relationship come before the friendship (chronologically, I mean)? I'm still friends with E, who worked as my assistant over 20 years ago, but we weren't friends beforehand.

Argh - I need to call her today, and I'm not sure what to say!

Lalsy · 23/02/2017 08:33

Auriga and Crem, hope you both feeling better today. Love the goats! Crem, that sounds good about dd......fingers and toes crossed.

Cloud, tis too much. What does file a police report mean anyway? you can report a crime (or something lost like security passes or passports), I thought it was up to the police what they did? Look after yourself.

Herbs. hell no. If you don't have childcare you don't go away for cultish practices fun, until you can offer sensible reciprocation (which obviously no-one would want in this case). Bangs gavel.

herbaceous · 23/02/2017 09:19

CV - how tricky. I'd feel just the same as you. Could you just say to her 'I never mix business and pleasure, and am afraid it would spoil our friendship, which is very valuable to me' or some such? It would be so deadly to have to discipline her, or fall out over stationery supplies, etc.

Re early drop-off-gate, I texted back (request was on a text) saying 'Make it 7.30 and you're on'. That is apparently too late, so she's making other plans. Good.

MI - not t'ai chi. More sinister.

motherinferior · 23/02/2017 09:37

Cv, I agree re trickiness. Molly was actually vvv good at keeping work and personal stuff separate when we worked together - which is perhaps one reason our whole team is still very good friends!

Collymollypuff · 23/02/2017 10:14

I think it helped enormously that I didn't know any of our little team before they came to work in it. In fact, MI, you joined at a time when I was still reeling a bit from having had a friend, and then the friend of a friend, working in the team. And before that, I had (stupidly) suggested to another very close friend that she should not apply for a post because of our shared history. In fact I was thinking how impossible it would've been for me to tell her how crap her work was (which I knew it was). Inevitably she took massive offence and later took her revenge on me.

It is a hopelessly complicated area and best avoided, CV. In some ways it's lovely having people you adore working with you; but what happens when their work isn't up to scratch? Awful. I would predict you would lose her as a friend. Herbs is right.

herbaceous · 23/02/2017 10:39

This bloody choir thing is getting RIDIC. DS had a rehearsal last night, one tomorrow night, another one on Saturday afternoon and a concert Saturday night! And he wants to sing in the morning service on Sunday. I have put my foot down about that one...

Collymollypuff · 23/02/2017 10:41

...Plus the power balance is forever shifted if you employ a friend, so I'd argue that you can never really be friends again.

If you need something to say to put her off, perhaps you could tell her that friends have been regaling you all morning with stories of how good friends are lost once you give them a job. I could regale you.

Tis odd how the reverse situation works, isn't it? It's so easy and delightful to move into friendship once the uneven power balance has gone. But I think it's because strangers apply to you on the terms that you have power over them - the power to give or withhold a job; the power to discipline; indeed the power to sack. That is the deal; and the applicants who aren't friends accept that. Applicants who are friends struggle with it. And if they have tricky personal info on you (even quite mild stuff) then the power balance is murky.

Auriga · 23/02/2017 10:53

Is the Sunday service optional, Herbs? Confused about what type of choir it is.

IDismyname · 23/02/2017 11:10

Herbs - looks like that worked! Possibly work out some ground rules for this arrangement going forward.

Or start practicing the word "No".
(Because "No' is a complete sentence according to MN).

Blowy day here in the H Counties. Sent DS out with the dog to blow away the cobwebs. Told him to walk and then walk some more. To shout at the wind if he needs to. He's said he cannot manage another whole day sitting in a hospice room. I get it...

Colly and MI - I had no idea you two knew each other previously. Did you find each other again through the Crepeys?

Cremolafoam · 23/02/2017 11:19

Poor ds will be wrecked Herbs, (and you too obviously) seems a little, much.

CV I'd say v difficult. I do work with someone who used to be my bf, but now hates me because I do things differently ( long story) Also the working relationship can be difficult as soon as one persons says, ooh do you mind if I nip home early on Friday. ( open to abuse and can cause resentment.)
Dangerous I'd say CV.

Anyone heard from Waf?

herbaceous · 23/02/2017 11:30

The choir is the boys bit of a cathedral-type choir for a pretty high-church Anglican church. It has mens, boys and girls choirs, and they sing in various combinations in morning service and evensong each Sunday. So, every other Sunday the boys are needed in the morning, and the other Sundays the evening. All are semi-optional while he's so young. There are also two rehearsals a week.

The event on Saturday is a one-off - a 'chorister's musical evening', where they'll get to sing some fun songs they've been learning, some will do solos, there'll be a little orchestra, etc. All good fun.

I'm trying to find some kind of exercise class near the church so I can do something more productive than gossip with the fellow mums while the boys perfect their Glorias.

hattymattie · 23/02/2017 11:31

Hello Crepies,

CV - last time, I knew people where this has happened it ended extremely badly but I don't think this is probably always the case. Difficult to advise - she's going to be upset if she doesn't get the job anyway. I know this sounds really bad but could you not interview her with another manager and then say she was pipped at the post or something.

Crem - bus experience sounds awful - hope you are feeling a little better.
Auriga - hope you're feeling better too.

WAF - poor DM - fingers crossed for a quick recovery.

Cloud - the teenagers are doing sterling work. Batshit house sitter sounds more trouble than she was worth.

Very windy here, I think it must be the edge of the UK storm.

motherinferior · 23/02/2017 11:44

Is there a nearby pool, herbs?

herbaceous · 23/02/2017 11:49

There is, MI, but on the days I'm there it doesn't seem to be open for ordinary swimming. There's a private gym/pool, but too rich for my blood.

motherinferior · 23/02/2017 12:20

Day membership not a possibility?

wordassociationfootball · 23/02/2017 13:17

Colly and others v wise re employing friend, CV. I wouldn't interview.

Mum in a bit of a state. Had a difficult night. Been asked to be here for docs at 3pm. Am here now. She is talking delightful gibberish (UTI). Don't think head bang is her biggest problem necessarily. Nausea/weight loss/ sore stomach...

Meanwhile, I am too jittery to work, leaving myself tomorrow for a deadline but is doable and nothing near what the Stroppinator could pull off in a crisis.

Barely saw my girls yesterday. Dd2 desperate to compare some Spanish hotels with me. Might not get the chance today either as out with good chum tonight. So often feel I',m short changing her (DD2)

herbaceous · 23/02/2017 13:21

It would seem not. It's a 'mere' £66 a month, but if I join now it's free membership until April. Hmmm. If he keeps up this nonsense, it could be worth it. It's the sort of gym with wooden lockers, free shower gel and jacuzzis by the pool.

IDismyname · 23/02/2017 13:51

Herbs - go for it. I do find exercise so helpful, but am still waiting to look like Kate Moss (or maybe not?)

However my mother told me that there was never such a thing as a free showergel lunch

herbaceous · 23/02/2017 13:52

In Vitriolic Crepey news, I have received a cringingly apologetic letter from CEO of company for whom I had interview but no feedback or even acknowledgement of email. 'A combination of annual leave and admin failings' apparently. Hopefully someone's getting a roasting.

WAF - keep on keeping on. Your DD will forgive you one night of not being there. You're setting a good example for your dotage of looking after your DM.

Lalsy · 23/02/2017 14:12

WAF, you sound pulled in all directions. Hope the docs give you a better sense of what is going on. You can't do everything.

Herbs, go for it. I am a broken record but I do 30 min intense classes at my gym which have had more effect on fitness/anxiety than anything I have ever done. Wish I had known/had chance when dc were little and it was so hard to find the time to look after myself. Are you locked in for a year? Is it a chain?

motherinferior · 23/02/2017 14:50

WAF, take the night out and have a drink and some grown-up time.

bigTillyMint · 23/02/2017 15:35

WAF, as MI says.

Herbs, get the free membership and try it out tI'll April

Flipping heck, Doris is on one!

motherinferior · 23/02/2017 15:45

We are still stalling about holidays - DP seems to think we can be tacked onto my dad's holiday and the dates don't work, and there's always the whole Venice debacle (by which I seem to be responsible for taking him to Venice WHICH I NEVER SAID I WOULD) and it always blows up into a row and we can't afford it anyway

I want to go somewhere cheap and warm with beaches and history.

BeachysSnowyWellieBoots · 23/02/2017 16:19

Croatia with Venice on the way back?

Squeezy jet to Dubrovnik, few days of history, week on trendy island for beaches and teenagers and few days in Venice on way back.... train travel between all centres and cheaply flight back from Venice?

Blowing a regular Doris here.... we have a young sparrow hawk living in the garden who keeps going backwards past the windows like the pigeon in Wacky Races and then clinging onto trees like a novice ice skater does to the rails!

Off to see The Sixteen tonight in the Cathedral with some Sarf East London friends who are choral fanatics and travelling all the way here for the concert.

Am harbouring fantasies of travelling alone like Eat, Pray, Love probably less of the praying frankly. Doing fantasy itineraries in my head

CointreauVersial · 23/02/2017 17:02

Thanks to Molly and others for the wise words re: the friend/employee situation. She is a lovely person (one of those big-hearted people no-one ever has a bad word to say about) so I can't envisage tension between us, but it would be a worry. DH thinks it would be a bad idea too. But she sounded so enthusiastic.....

Doris has been making the windows whistle all day. The phone line into the office has been down since about 11am, so no ringing phones, or means of phoning out, except by mobile. Trees on the line nearby, so no trains out of town. And about half an hour ago, the front door opening mechanism jammed, trapping people inside. I thought I was in the opening credits for some sort of horror movie; we just needed a power cut and a mysterious figure at the window.