One to one with the Imman's assistant

Wednesday 20th October 2010.6am-12pm

With the new contract signed,today is my penultimate day on the early shifts which will be a huge relief.

I received a text from ginger at 5.45am informing me that he wouldn't be in today owing to a mystery illness he caught from his brother.However,the rumour doing the rounds was that he went out clubbing.

The troubleshooter was in this morning wearing a thick fleece jacket to repel the cold.The station is freezing cold and the chill attacks every crevass of the building.

I was called in for a file note due to not scoring 100% on the bounceback vouchers.
This was an ideal opportunity to voice a few opinions with the Imman's assistant.I discussed staff moral,low staffing levels and lack of respect given to the staff by the management.Of course,I'm not expecting any of this to make a difference to our working day but she reckoned that they know about the poor moral.

Clearly there must be a problem if there are 13 vacancies.She has interviewed 30 people in the last 2 weeks and has only taken on 3 new members of staff.I asked her if she wondered why the only applicants for these jobs are Asian or Muslim.She said "its been like this for about 5 years and they don't know why this is the case".

I did the pick and mix and drove the cage very carefully today because it was packed to the rafters.The Algerian is away tomorrow for a few days so i won't work with him again which is a shame.

The stunning Slovakian nanny i met yesterday at my son's school has stayed in my head for 24 hours.She is about 25 years old with black hair,perfect teeth,good English and all assets in the right places.