Getting to know you...

One of the things you forget when you start a new job is that everyone has a personality.  I mean, when you meet them at the interview, it’s all smiles and ‘JOIN US’, but then when you’re there, after the novelty’s worn off you begin to see the Real Them and sometimes it’s not quite as pretty as you imagined.  Or, vice versa. When you finally begin to relax, will they like what they see?

Yesterday I had a little taster of the other side of Jeremy.  Remember the other week when I gave him the wrong address and he was really lovely about it? Yeah. That was him being nice.  Yesterday, he was late for a meeting because he hadn’t put it in the diary and I didn’t know about it. And somehow that was my fault.

Jeremy has always got one eye on the next project and, as such, his mind is always whirring.  What he forgets is that I can’t read his whirring mind and that while he may be happy putting something into his own diary when he’s at another meeting, if he doesn’t tell me, I really won’t know. 

His previous PA, he tells me, always knew to check with him when he came back from a meeting.  His previous PA knew that he put things in and sometimes forgot to tell her.  His previous PA kept on top of the diary. His previous PA was amazing and brilliant and all the things I apparently am not.

Still smarting from what I think is a misplaced telling-off, I try and turn my frown upside down and look at what I’ve learnt: that Jeremy can sometimes be a bit too direct.  And that I must check with him whenever he comes back from a meeting to make sure our diary is completely up to date.

And I guess, above all, I must try not to take things personally.  I know he was just annoyed.  Yes it was sharp, but it wasn’t necessarily about me. I must focus on listening, learning and not taking things personally.

Apart from that, Lena was on holiday this week and the atmosphere was noticeably lighter.  And, in other news, one of the designers I haven’t met before has just come back from holiday.  He has a nice smile. :)