A number of colleagues and me had to work on Saturday due to a special event. I haven’t worked a weekend since about 1984. Add to the fact that we weren’t going to paid for it; time off in lieu only, and I was not best pleased. I had a set time to arrive, and a schedule to keep to.

After I’d been in an hour I was advised that the schedule had been altered and I wasn’t needed for another hour and a half. I was livid! There wasn’t really any point going back home, and it would have been a waste of petrol anyway, so I sat in the coffee bar and quietly seethed. In the end they were even later than expected so I was sat around doing nothing for almost 3 hours in total!

The day was a success, apart from my perspective, and will have raised over £140,000 per year for the next 2 or 3 years. And they’re too tight to pay us?

To add ‘insult to injury’ on Monday there was an email sent thanking everyone who took part for their help; everyone that is except me and my counterpart. I’d like to say it was an oversight, and that we always get thanked. I’d like to, but then I’d be lying. There’s a definite tier structure here and an awful lot of snobbery. I don’t think for one minute that I could do the job of the people involved on Saturday, but I also know that they can’t do mine. We each play our part and each of us is important in our own way yet to exclude 2 of us from the thanks just goes to show the total disdain that some of the academics have for us. We only got to see the email due to another non-academic thanking us for our help and including us in the email.

Other departments are being merged as we speak, so far no more job losses though we’ve been advised that we will lose holiday entitlement, and our new contracts will not afford us any job security. In fact, they could reorganise us, get us to sign the new contract, and then make us redundant with no redundancy pay whatsoever because we’ll have only worked for them a short time. Our previous employment years will not be worth squat! If we don’t agree to our new posts, or sign our new contract, then we could still be out of a job. It’s a lose lose situation.

All of this is down to a certain MP who shall remain nameless as I don’t wish to be sued. He’s a little worm of a man who has had to resign due to campaigning against his own policies when they affected him personally. What a t*t!