For a moment this morning I thought that this cough had miraculously disappeared at last, but I guess it was the noise of the alarm clocks (I have 2 set off at a minute apart to ensure I cannot oversleep) that distracted me. About a minute later my congested chest decided to de-congest itself. Nice image, imagine having to live through it. I have given up on the expensive drugs and trying TCP to see if that will help. As well as alcohol, but only a drop before I go to bed, I can’t have the whole world knowing that I’m the drunken lush who has been bitching about them on this blog.

The day started off relatively well. I remained quiet in my corner the only noise I made was to say “oh wow” a couple of times as a colleague told me about her adventure week in Dakar disguised as a workshop. I feel envious as I compare it to our workshop in one of the meeting rooms in our office and the special lunch which will be provided in the corner of the dingy canteen. While they were absailing, we will be staring at the PC. While they were doing that thing where you are gliding in the air on the rope thing, we will be staring at the PC. While they were rafting, we will be once again staring at the PC but this time we have the added bonus of wrestling the sleep as boredom sweeps over.

I managed to get headmistress her quotation for the photographer. There was no thank you but I didn’t let a little thing like common courtesy ruin my day. Made a few calls, solved a few issues and went for lunch. Nothing out of the ordinary. In the afternoon we ate cake. A creamy rich chocolate cake with a chocolate topping with a pineapple and mango garnish from Supreme in Osu. I have to say, as cakes go they do one of the best. On my birthday I had a vanilla and chocolate cake with chocolate topping garnished with strawberrys. It was as if they new about my love affair of strawberrys. Now I am not a chocolate person except around that time of the month but after eating a Supreme cake I can understand the whole chocolate and orgasms connection. It is 70ghs for a birthday cake and it is a hefty size for that sum, a lot of things here are not worth the money but for the size you get, I think this is one of those rare occasions where I will say it is value for money.

It was my Ivorian colleague’s birthday. He turned 26 yesterday and as is our tradition the budget allowed for some cake and juice. Previously we would also have a breakfast of pastries in the morning but cost cutting, but I no bore as I had my bacon and egg buttie this morning and some of us ladies have been complaining about the amount of weight we had gained so it is good that we cut out the pastries. I did enjoy the bacon and egg sandwich this morning though I must say, toppled with the cake this afternoon, I can even forget about the crap they call food which they served up as lunch this afternoon.

But I digress. The young man was feeling quite emotional that this nice thing had been done for him, he got ribbed for shedding a tear, but come on he’s a very innocent 26 year old (he really is, I would say one up from Forest Gump). He sat at his desk eating his cake and drinking his juice when headmistress asked if he had got an estimate for the transportation for the participants of the workshop. He said he had asked, the functional assistant had said she would get back to him, but she hadn’t yet so he will follow up. I don’t know if he had gone on to insult her or threaten her grandmother and none of us in the office heard but a second later she erupted like a volcano. “You were supposed to get this information last week, and the girl said she would get back by 12, it is now 4, go back and get the estimate NOW”, no word of a lie, no exaggeration, but this girl went wild, like a lady who had been cheated out of her tomatoes at Makola market. It was so uncalled for.

When I first started with the company, my “mentor” had a similar approach. She had a real patronizing tone and well I found her a real bitch, coming into work was hell knowing that she and I would have to work with each other. Her method was to half heartedly teach me something, then basically call me thick when something went wrong. That is until I called her a bully and only spoke to her when I had no option but to. I thought she was unique, but I guess when you after a while, if you don’t take time, that pitiful behaviour becomes innate as part of your persona. Even my Nigerian friend who thinks the women in the office are just crazy and pretty much ignores all the bitchiness and tantrums that goes on was quite taken aback.

I think some women feel that being a bitch will get them through the working day in this “man’s world”, but really, the best female bosses I have had and the one’s who got the most productivity out of the teams are the ones who were well just plain nice. Not a push over mind you and if you take their leniency to be their weakness then yes the bitch will come out. But for the main part they have been respectful people who have understood that we all get up in the morning with the same aim of making a living so why make another persons life a living hell thinking that it would make them somehow do what you want. The even shitier part is that this chick is not the boss of anybody and we are all chipping in to help her make the workshop a success, and we don’t actually owe her anything, but for the sake of teamwork and we are doing our job we do.

I didn’t say anything throughout all this, even though the non qualified lawyer in me wanted to defend this guy. If I had though, I may have got carried away and give her a long overdue piece of my mind and it could get personal, so I said nothing. But what I did do was hit her friend on IM and ask her to have a quiet word that she went a bit too far, today added to her outburst on Friday may give this guy the impression that she has something personal against her, and well we all have issues at work we are dealing with so she needs to chill out a bit. I don’t know if the message will get to her, but from my interaction with her, she certainly knows that I am not her biggest fan in any event.

I will be secretly pleased if the cost cutting axe falls on this workshop as I have a feeling there will be plenty more tears before bedtime.

In the meantime I am relaxing while watching Due Date on my laptop and then it’s an early night for me. Three meetings tomorrow and a teleconference of which I don’t know if the Cote D’Ivoire team even paid attention to my meeting request tomorrow, and two of the meetings kind of clash, whoopee.