Rownd a Rownd

So the year turns and time marches on. Last Saturday, while City were labouring in the Arctic melting pot (see what I did there? Oxymoron and historo-cultural reference all in one. Stoke have got to be one of the worst teams to take on at their ground in the winter - especially when your players are so mollycoddled that they get to drive home at half time in order to avoid the traffic...) of the Britannia Stadium, I marked the anniversary of losing my job at Defra/Interserve by watching Football Focus.

It is now 8 months that I have been working for Olive, though for only just over a week as a member of 'the family' and not as some expendable service or good, to be discussed (in my own presence!) and discarded as if I was a broken domestic appliance. It may be possible to detect a slight note of bitterness in my tone as I look back on those days, and this is of course coloured by the lengthy period I spent out of work after I was let go, but is also the result of memories of the boss at the time.

I have heard that he was removed from the contract about 4 months after I left, and that he has now found employ (gainful or not, one could hardly say) at another. I have met some arseholes in my time, let me tell you, but this guy was right up (or should that be down?) there with the worst of them. I firmly believe that managers should re-define themselves as leaders, and as such should display some of the characteristics necessary to inspire people. These may include - though will not be limited to - saying hello; showing a modicum of interest; listening; saying goodbye, etc. He displayed none of these traits. It may have been of course that he was carrying a terrible burden, in the knowledge of the decimation that was to come, and that the only way he could survive was to cauterise his humanity and behave as an automaton. But to assume that would be way too charitable a gesture on my part, and I sincerely hope that the guy is twisted up inside, like Stan wishes on Eminem at the end of the song:

"I hope you can't sleep and you dream about it
and when you dream I hope you can't sleep and you scream about it
I hope your conscience eats at you and you can't breathe without me!"

This one's for you, Pat.