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Negotiation Blues

Posted on October 18, 2008

Yesterday I went for a morning meeting with HR at my potential new office. The practical purpose of the trip was to try out the commute real time. But my mind was pretty much made up. I brought the contract, unsigned, with the intention of signing it there.

On the way I made a few calls about the cost of parking — I had found out earlier in the week none was available on site. A year of parking would come in around £3,000 or roughly 10x my annual bus fare in London. My joy over the petrol card benefit subsided. After a pep talk from husband, I decided to negotiate on this and a few other benefit related discrepancies. Husband is a well known negotiating wimp who fails to take his own advice but hands it out with authority.

I hate negotiating. The only way I have ever done it is if, like in this scenario, I can string together some benefits-related story that shows I am worse off than in the previous job despite a salary increase. Unlike a Loreal model, I have never been able to say actually I want X amount “just because I’m worth it.”

The impromptu negotiation took place with two HR ladies in a conference room named Vivaldi or some other universally liked composer. Despite my discomfort with the situation, I think it went reasonably well. By which I mean I wasn’t cast out from the building to the tune of accusations of being a greedy bugger who didn’t know how lucky I was to get a good offer like this in the midst of the second Great Depression. In general they displayed lots of eye contact and affirmative nodding and only the merest hint of annoyance that it had taken me over a week to ask for more money. I was full of assurances that I was ready to accept if we could come to some agreement on the matter of these expenses.

Friday came and went with no feedback from HR ladies. The rational part of my brain tells me they just couldn’t get in touch with the boss who had to authorise my request, and I’ll hear something Monday. Husband backs this up with assurances that negotiating was the right thing to do – there’s always more money on the table than the first offer—and that the measly sum I was trying to up sell them on is but a drop in their vast corporate ocean.

The crazed emotional wreck side of my brain tells me the boss is furious at my impudent behaviour. Rational brain reminds me I am a grown woman and boss man is not my father. I am a negotiating, skilled professional businesswoman even if crazed emotional wreck brain tells me I have absolutely no skills and these people are clearly insane to offer to employ me at such a wage. They are surely right now at this very moment over evening cocktails coming to this conclusion and my offer shall be promptly rescinded Monday morning.

I too am off for some cocktails to ease the anxiety: a tutored wine tasting benefit at and for the village hall.

Cotswolds

Doppelgänger

Posted on October 12, 2008

Tonight we met our doppelgänger, exiles from London who’ve been living here almost a year. I don’t know how we’ve missed them given the size of our Cotswold town. They’re a couple that are roughly our age, no kids, professionals, and, notably, full-timers despite the need to commute into London regularly.

Right now I am in need of encouragement about trying out rural life full-time, and I welcome the living, breathing proof that residence in the Cotswolds can be achieved without quitting one’s job and becoming a sheep farmer. It’s also a bit of a relief to talk to someone and not feel like I am on an anthropological expedition where conversation is the equivalent of picking up a stick and poking around. We speak the same language, notably lacking in references to shooting, hunting, stalking, tweed, lords or ladies of any kind.

Random

The Good Life

Posted on October 11, 2008

The proverbial home grown, organically reared carrot is dangling in front of me. This week I got a job offer that’s a “commutable” distance from our Cotswold town. Despite all my big talk (and some action) about opening a wedding planning business, it’s not that kind of job. It’s a proper, grown-up, corporate job that materialised on the back of some looking around I started many months ago when my current company was going through lay-offs.

All my talk about a life in the country is about to be tested. And fast.

So like any big decision I am making a list of pros and cons. Here’s what I have so far:

Pros:

  • I got a job offer in the midst of one of the largest global economic meltdowns in history. I say this not to gloat but to remind myself not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
  • I could live in the Cotswolds full-time.
  • The music industry (my current job) is dying and still has no strategy. Potential new company has strategy. They even talked a lot about it during my interviews. Hurrah! How very novel.
  • Potential new boss seems like the kind of guy I could get along with.

Cons:

  • Husband and I would live apart two nights per week. Or is this a pro? Still trying to work this one out. Husband is so obsessed with work right now that most nights in London are spent zoned out in front of the TV when he finally does arrive home sometime after 8PM. Is this any different than being apart?
  • Gas costs – would have to drive to new job – something about a petrol card in contract – must investigate. Oh yes and must get driver’s license!
  • Commute. Have never had a commute, even when I lived in L.A. Am trying to think about bright side. Could download KCRW podcasts for the ride and pretend like am now a Southern California commuter.
  • Cotswold house is a postage stamp intended for weekending. Then again London flat is a postage stamp. Need somewhere to hang all my clothes in the Cotswolds. Damn England and it’s lack of built-in closets.

Four all for now.

England

Away, Ye Blaggard!

Posted on October 9, 2008

Today husband had an out of body experience: the deferential Liverpudlian re-emerged and took control. This time it wasn’t the corn cob chewing, cider swilling, thread-bare cap tipping peasant that last made an appearance when we met the Cotswold hamlet squire. It was more fumbling yet well intentioned knight.

It happened when husband was escorting his new boss, a real lord, to a west end restaurant for lunch. Said luncheon had been long anticipated but materialised on short notice, leaving husband all aflutter. Adding to the chaos, roadworks required they walk the two blocks to the luncheon establishment – the lord of course has a driver who’s typically employed for that kind of distance. Thanks to his company, husband was treated to gawking usually reserved for those choosing to walk around central London stark naked.

Just before the restaurant a particularly gnarled Big Issue vendor made an aggressive sales pitch to the lord. Cue the knight. Husband thrust his body in front of the homeless person, covering him from sight, then extended his arm to usher the lord onward. He repossessed himself just as he was about to shout, “away ye blaggard!” and throw his suit jacket over the man’s head.

That would have been embarrassing, but husband took care of that later when he ordered French onion soup. I have often tutored him on the necessity of avoiding holding one’s fork like a shovel, but even Emily Post is no match for melted cheese in hot liquid when attempting to look composed.

Uncategorized

Scary Sarah

Posted on October 9, 2008

This morning I went on Linked In because somebody I used to work with has asked me for an “endorsement.” He was lovely but lazy and has severely misrepresented his job; there’s no way in hell I will be endorsing him. I went on the site just to entertain myself with how much he had BS’ed. In the process I got sidetracked, as you do, and clicked on the link of a company name where another former colleague of mine is now working. And, that’s how I found this:
http://shop.cafepress.com/palin-halloween

Scary Sarah is now on her way across the ocean to me. I shall be wearing her to the Halloween party at the pub in our neighboring village. Yes, I know I am breaking all my rules about remaining an enigma, but rules were meant to be broken.

Uncategorized

Cheerleading try-outs

Posted on October 6, 2008

Yesterday I dragged husband along to a wedding show at Bleinheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill. Armed with my Vista Print virtually free business cards in their complimentary silver effect case, I was there to introduce myself to the world as a wedding planner. Never mind I had been interviewing rather successfully for a new corporate and totally unrelated job in the background during the last week. I wasn’t going to let what might be get in the way of what was: my new found entrepreneurial enthusiasm.

I hadn’t done anything as bold or expensive as renting a booth, nor was I aspiring to sign up any brides up on the spot. My low key strategy was just to introduce myself to various vendors and suss out the competition. Decked out in cashmere and pearls, what I imagined to be wedding planner power dressing, I approached the first vendor. He was manning a booth that provided undercover singers and musicians ala that great wedding scene in Love Actually where a choir materializes in the church balcony singing “All You Need Is Love” and various musicians pop up in the congregation to riff at the appropriate points. Booth man was gay and charming and pedalling a great idea. We exchanged cards. I was off to a terrific start!

Next up was a florist from Oxfordshire. I complimented their floral designs and introduced myself while discreetly slipping the booth lady a business card. “Oh, let me introduce you to the owner,” she said while leaning over to tap an elegant fifty-ish lady on the shoulder. Power florist lady turned around then proceeded to size me up while we made small talk, finally asking me where I got my flowers from. “A florist in Cheltenham,” I lied then immediately made an excuse to move to the next booth. Thankfully it was cake. I needed some sugar. All this networking was exhausting.

My tour around the remaining booths was uneventful except for observing that photographers are not good at small talk. Husband and I strolled outside to take a look around the rather grand grounds. We were turned back at a gate which required a ticket purchase to go any further. I then watched a fifty-something lady from the power florist school of women blag her way into the grounds on a flimsy excuse of needing to look around a venue inside the “pay for entry” enclosure. She was, you see, a wedding planner.

My entrepreneurial try-out is not going as well as hoped. I’ve just finished my routine – a bit shaky but I didn’t drop any pom poms – only to be upstaged by a back-flipping, toe-touching professional.

Uncategorized

Fall Hots Up

Posted on October 4, 2008

The Cotswolds are in the first throes of autumn. Red and gold are edging in on a landscape flush with apples and blackberries. The air is crisp and log fire scented. Friday we lit our stove for the first time using the dregs from last season’s wood pile. The warmth lulled husband into abandoning plans to attend the charity barn striptease in favor of another mistress: the debut of Little Britain in America, the new HBO series.

Despite this false start, the autumn social calendar is filling up. It kicks off this afternoon with a harvest church service and tea in G.P. We’ll be back there later in the month for a Friday night bingo extravaganza. Next week our local inn re-opens after a scandalous closure several weeks back that saw the tenants abandoning the place at 4am. It’s been taken over by a chef with a well regarded pub in the “big city” of Cheltenham, so expectations are high. Later in October the manager from the wine bar’s wholesale business is hosting a wine tasting in the village hall, and the hotel further down the road restarts their Sunday night old movie series in their pink sofa-ed private cinema. And the butcher has promised to source a Thanksgiving turkey for me.

Even London holds some promise. Husband’s new job is starting to pay dividends in the form of theater tickets. But the jury’s still out on whether or not the West End will hold up against bingo.

Uncategorized

Defeat Looks Like Joe Biden

Posted on October 4, 2008

It’s an interesting thing watching the debates from abroad because I am seeing them a day or two later than when they took place. I’ve already heard the press coverage, which in the UK decreed the vice-presidential debate a draw, neither harming nor helping either campaign. There was the admission that Palin had held her own in contrast to the snippet of her unraveling in the Katie Couric interview which was also widely shown on British news outlets. I am beginning to think what we saw of that in the UK was as edited as the snippet of the Queen storming off during an Annie Lebovitz photo session last year, which cost a BBC producer his job.

For my money, defeat looks like Joe Biden, that is if I could get him to look at me. He spent the whole debate making eye contact with Gwen the moderator, which seems like a waste since I’m pretty sure his ticket already has the black, female vote sewn up. It didn’t help that he smiled like the joker whenever Palin delivered a blow or referred to himself in the third person ala Bob Dole.

But it didn’t really matter what Biden did because I wasn’t paying attention to him anyway. The debate was like watching a Destiny’s Child video and Sarah Palin was Beyonce. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she winked, hokumed, and “you-guys”-ed her way through the questions.

I admit I have formed a minor obsession with Palin, and after a bit of soul searching I think I’ve figured out why. She is another embodiment of Amber the homecoming queen, student body president, and cheerleader. Watching her I regress twenty years, simultaneously seduced by and jealous of the most popular girl at school. Nobody is paying attention as I wave my straight A’s in the air; they’re all watching Amber do the splits.

As in high school I am lacking the maturity to resist the petty swipe. And so I invite Ms. Palin to make use of her newly acquired passport to come see for herself what a healthcare system “controlled by the feds” really looks like. I think she’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Uncategorized

A Charitable Affair

Posted on October 3, 2008

So far husband is still employed, smoking only tobacco, and staying away from high school cheerleaders. (I’m not even sure if they have the latter in the UK.) He is instead doing the respectable country gent version of pulling a ‘Kevin Spacey in American Beauty.’ This consists of drinking beer in a barn with other men and two strippers imported from the big city likes of Birmingham. It’s all for the sake of a cancer charity so how can I say no? And it leaves me free to jeer with abandon at Sarah Palin when Channel 4 broadcasts a recorded version of last night’s debate.

I’m sure the men in the barn wouldn’t mind a striptease from Sarah. As pointed out elsewhere, her up do and glasses lend themselves to the clichéd image of the librarian/teacher/insert safe woman career here, unfurling her hair and whipping off the glasses to reveal the sexpot within. Sarah is welcome for a bit of Cotswold burlesque anytime. I’d just prefer she stay away from The White House.

Random

What’s in a Name?

Posted on September 29, 2008

Amber. It sounds like a mean cheerleader. And wedding and motorcross sport event planning sounds exactly like the kind of job Amber the mean cheerleader would have when she grows up. That or an aggressive realtor in the model of Annette Benning’s character in American Beauty.

The real life Amber who taught my wedding planning course in Bath this weekend looked the part of a former cheerleader. Slim with blond hair and blue eyes, she also would have been the homecoming queen and student body president. She is the cheerleader you couldn’t help but love, nothing like the mean Heather or obnoxious Tiffany types.

As if to reinforce the high school paradigm, there was one man in my class of ten women, and he looked exactly like Rod Whited, captain of the mighty Green Wave football team. Then he opened his mouth to speak and all of a sudden Rod Whited had a Yarmouth accent, shattering my trip down memory lane. All the better, there was a mood board and some craft glue calling my name.

Sixteen classroom hours later I am the holder of a diploma from an accredited professional wedding and events planner institution. I’ve also become some kind of cliched nightmare of an aspiring small businesswoman. Today at work I toggled back and forth to a surreptitious Word document where I was constructing nauseating prose in the third person for my website profile (Bob Dole says…). Tonite I procured every possible variation of my company domain name, then spent the rest of the evening fiddling with the Vista Print free business card online editor. I’m now the one in danger of becoming the Annette Benning character in American Beauty, albeit a bit fatter. I won’t worry until husband quits his job and starts lifting weights, smoking pot and chasing a high school cheerleader.