Ted's Tale - Part One

Ted’s Tale – Part One

Following on from the summary of Ted’s Tale, I may as well tell the whole story now and deal with ‘Ted’ later, if he does, in fact, decide to sue me. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission anyway… so here I go, leaping in blind, ignorant faith to tell a tale about magic / love / fate / faith / perseverance / stupidity / whatever you will…

I was in a rather bad space back in 2010, as my books Eish! London and Haikona! London openly narrate and describe. By November I had managed to get myself a job out of supply teaching and into the company ConsumerLine (henceforth CL). I managed to use my Industrial Psychology degree and training experience to get a junior spot on the training team. ‘Ted’ was my boss, but he was in transit out of the Company and was acting in the role whilst they were finding his replacement. He was really tense about the whole thing as he was running out of time to hand-over all the clients and his triple portfolio of heading up training and HR, with his specific client services. They needed 3 separate people to take over his job as he had become so integral in the organisation. He knew it too, and strutted around being all important and wanting action from everyone. As I write in Haikona! I was in no space for letting him get to me as I needed two pay-slips to get out of debt and get back to South Africa.

He was the academic type, complete with his Masters in something or other, along with being incredibly OCD, impeccably dressed, completely anal and annoying. He intrigued me in many ways as he appeared gay, and the girls and I had many discussions over ‘which way he swung’ and were never quite decided. When Ted and I had our one-to-one sessions I used to question him where possible to get as much information as I could to feed the gossip line. I gathered very little, his lips were sealed. All I managed to accumulate in the first weeks was that he grew up in South Africa, then moved to Switzerland as his Dad was Swiss, Ted had a girlfriend in Spain who had met his parents, he had his Masters and he had spent some time being a barman back in his 20s, he was currently working on the salary reward / bonus system and he thought very highly of the MD of the company. That was it. I gave up pestering when he told me that he had a girlfriend. I got the sneaky suspicion that he was making it up because he thought that I was interested in him and he was trying to get me to keep my distance. Although he had a charm about him, he was the metro-sexual type and I prefer the rugged Camel Man type myself, so I wouldn’t have gone there, except, maybe for a bit of fun ;-) I did try text messaging him a couple of times, but he never replied, so either way I got his message, even if it wasn’t linked to my intentions. The guy was completely uninterested in bonding with anyone; even for his farewell I tried to organise a parker pen gift and no-one wanted to put money in, his ‘best mate’ in the organisation only put in a Quid! (I think he felt guilty though, because he gave me another 4 the next day) I was shocked at how much he had isolated himself from people’s hearts; but if you go around barking at people, I guess they’ll believe you just might bite too. I felt sorry for the guy and put in the money myself. I remember when he sent me out in the snow to do some facilitating at another location, the train got stuck and I couldn’t get there, so he gets on the phone and starts yelling at me, like it was my fault. Man I was pissed off with him, not that I said anything; I needed to keep the job.

Anyway, crunch time was arriving and he was getting incredibly anxious about his hand-over, until he had ‘the interview’, that’s what he called it. In ‘the interview’ he met Sayuri. You should’ve been in the office to hear him harp on about this woman! We were all like, ja, whatever. Apparently her presentation was flawless, her CV brilliant, her appearance impeccable, her manners perfect, blah blah blah. We were just relieved that he had finally lightened up. He was thrilled that ‘his plan’ was working and that, as always in his life, the timing was perfect. She couldn’t start straight away, as Ted had to wait for MD approval, and she had commitments she couldn’t get out of, so that made Ted happily irritable, and he focused on his hand-over to the HR and Client divisions.

I always thought it rather strange that Ted had been there so long, yet still didn’t fit in. I later learnt that he wasn’t actually an employee. It turned out that he was a consultant working in the company to sort out the divisions and then move on; his consulting deadline was the end of December 2010. His deliverables were the Head of Training, HR and Client Services, he’d had 24 months to get all the systems up and running and fix all the glitches, then employ and hand-over to meet his contractual requirements, hence why his moods had fluctuated so much and Sayuri really was a genuine Godsend. He’d found people in the company to fill the other two roles, but not the training one. I was out of the loop on all this information as I’d only just arrived in the company. I didn’t even know I was part of the minor deliverables required for the training team. I think that may have been why Ted was so pissed off with me when I resigned so suddenly and he only had a week or so to find a replacement for me; that was not my problem though. I terminated in my probation period and that is completely legal; he’s the one who gave me a probation contract in the first place and a job I was not suited for, I just said ‘Amen to that’!

I also kind of, well, actually I did, eventually, become blatantly honest with him, and Ted is a man who no woman has the right to put in his place… and I am the kind of woman who will put anyone out of line, back in their place… yes, you got it, a bad combination that resulted in ties being cut and Ted not wanting to have anything to do with me. Sayuri, on the other hand, what an angel! She and I got on like a house on fire, we had walked such similar paths and shared so many interests it was uncanny. Having her sit next to me in our circular ‘cubical’ set up was the best gift ever. When I left we stayed in contact, and that is why I have all the dish on their tale, and Sayuri is happy for me to tell it.