I think a social scientist would have had an interesting
time analysing the interpersonal relationships that existed within Convenience
Foods. The strangest employee of all was Linda R. She was either friendly and
co-operative, usually towards other women, or she was rude and aggressive,
usually towards men. It turns out that her father had been drowned not long
before I first met her and I have always wondered if that was something to do
with her behaviour. Every week one
member of the department was allowed to go to the other United Biscuits factory
in the town to buy damaged biscuits at a heavily discounted price. When it was Linda R’s turn to do this task she
was almost invariably “forgot” to buy anything for other people although the
rest of us always seemed to be delegated to buy things for her when our names
came up on the rota.
I never worked out exactly what role Linda R was supposed to
carry out in the department. She didn’t seem to have any obvious duties or
responsibilities on either the creative side or on the technical side of the
work that was carried out. She had an accomplice, July S, who was a pleasure to
work with when Linda R was away but who was almost as difficult as her mentor
when the two of them were together.
At this early stage of my career it was most unpleasant to have
to work in the same department as the two of them and I wasn’t even a tiny bit
sad when circumstances separated us. Needless to say I would have loved to have
been Linda R’s line-manager when I was a bit more experienced in dealing with
people!
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