Payroll and management day at Comart before setting off on The Lady for the weekend again
A warm day with sun at first and then a more humid and cloudy afternoon. An office day spent helping June prepare the payroll information of new employees, reviews and pay increases, overtime and outwork claims. A new organisational chart for the group is inevitably the biggest ever. Meetings also with Daniel Jeffrey service manager to review personnel issues and decide how to get our very headstrong field service team into more reasonable work patterns. Also with Derek Morgan to discuss the arrangements for the new customer service building and our present problems of factory security. Lastly with Ian Nickson to establish the timescales for moving into the new Portakabins and discuss how the Development Manager could be helped in coping with the massive expansion of the department team planned for the next year.
I also, this morning, had to talk to David Woods, our management accountant, about the poor timekeeping and personal discipline of the accounts department, upon which subject two individuals had made cause to remark. All in all a good organisational day with time to call Geoff Lynch who seems broadly satisfied with my reward plans for him.
An early finish and home to find the boat nearly ready for a weekend on the river. A few last minute arrangements and we set off at 6.30, lock through Offord and Brampton locks to arrive at Godmanchester moorings 2 hours and 7 nautical miles later. After a chicken salad tea, the children are put to bed and Diana and I take an hour’s walk around the village. We have a new guide book which informs us fully about the range of period buildings dating from 1600-odd. We discover a number of new streets and small shops that we did not know existed.
The news today is of Labour Party leadership rows between Roy Hattersley and Michael Foot, further video films of the child murder district and report of the UK’s European negotiation on budgetary contributions.
Then to bed with the breeze rustling through the Godmanchester trees and the regular church clock chimes the familiar background.