My New Boss By Joe Hakim

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I've encountered the new manager's breed many times before. Expensive suits and shoes. Napalm tan and ostentatious wrist jewellery. Showered in aftershave and cigar/whiskey breath. A bad Swiss Toni impersonator with dyed black hair. A career built on the backs of broken bad marriages, over-privileged children, and sticky, sickly, superficial friendships. Where do you see yourself in ten years time? he asks me. I dunno..I mean, we're lead to believe that there's terrorists lurking around every corner. And then there's global warming and dwindling fossil fuel supplies, I say.

What the fuck are you talking about? he says. I'm talking about The Company. I say, Oh, I know. But if you're asking me about where I'll be ten years from now, well, who knows? I mean, we could all be blown to smithereens, or there could be mass global flooding, or an outbreak of a lethal man-made virus - and you have to take all of these things into consideration when making career decisions. There's a pause, so I continue, Then I look at the managers and the supervisors in this place, and they'll all going a bit mental because of the pressure of the job. XXXX has got a stomach ulcer, for example. And XXXX has split up with his wife and he's had to move into a bed-sit above a chip shop. She's gonna screw him for every last penny..I just look at them and think, is it all worth it, y'know? There's a loooooooong uncomfortable silence. I think that you need to evaluate your current position within The Company, he says, finally. Or, indeed, whether you even have a position within The Company.

My new boss can barely contain the disgust he feels towards me. He looks at me like I've just crawled out from under a rock. He finds fault with everything I do, and I respond by mooching around and grumbling all the time. It's like I'm a teenager and I'm living with my parents all over again. I'm developing an impetuous streak. I fly off the handle at trainees, and I don't talk to anyone in the staff room on cig break.

It occurs to me that this is all just about power. He's arrived here, and he's been told to sort it out - it's his place now. If we were dogs, he'd walking in circles and growling, and then he'd piss in the corners of all the rooms. What he probably wants is for me to up my game. Turn into a badass and generate myself some promotion possibility in the process. It's a handshake with the Devil, but I have to admit, offers like this are always tempting.

They say stuff like, Yeah, you're earning crap now, but put in the hours in five or six years time you'll be earning a mint. My new boss drives a jaguar. If I stay at The Company, who knows? In a few years' time maybe I'll be able to afford one.

But this is what they don't tell you: By the way, you also have to surrender your individuality and your dreams, as well as all of your time. Forget the travelling and the writing - your arse is ours. Forget friendships - you must be a wanker, our wanker, because if you're not, people will run all over you. They'll take the piss. Forget sitting in the staff room with those pricks. In fact, forget all your relationships. But at least you'll be loaded, so don't forget that.

I look in the Hull Daily Mail jobs section when I get in. It's obvious to me now that my time with The Company has come to an end. I feel like a can of Dr Pepper that's been shaken too much. There are no decent jobs in the paper. I'm under qualified and too inexperienced for the best ones. The only alternatives are canvassing and factory work, both of which I loathe intensely. But I continue to look, because I can't carry on as I am, working for The Company and my new boss; I'll go round the bend.

Still, you never know. Tomorrow, I might find the job of my dreams. But I doubt it, because I hate having to go to work. In my mind, work is a four letter word.

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