Page 47 of Alice Carver Manifests Her Perfect Life
And, when my day started to go really quite well…
Guy Carmichael took the floor. He thanked all the department heads and said it was great to see us all again and he hoped we’d enjoyed our holidays. Commanding and considerate – that’s Guy Carmichael. He told us that he would bekeeping things brief, and that the main communication from him today was about the problems in warehouse distribution. We (Carsons) were bringing on a third-party distribution client as we needed all the profit we could get given the challenges this fiscal. Unfortunately, Glasgow weren’t playing ball and were claiming it couldn’t be done. So he needed to put one of his best people straight on it.
Drunk Stephen and I exchanged slightly confused glances – what did this have to do with the division? Occasionally people mentioned the warehouses, but in the same way they mentioned the mail room. Necessary, but essentially a mystery we didn’t need to know too much about.
‘I’ve had a chat with the department heads,’ continued Guy, ‘and we’ve thrown around some names and we’re delighted to say, Charlotte will be our man in Scotland!’
‘What?’ said Charlotte, hair flicking paused. ‘You’re sending me to Glasgow?’
‘We’re giving you a fantastic opportunity to expand your portfolio.’
‘But it’s the warehouse,’ said Charlotte. ‘Isn’t that Production’s job?’
‘I think we need fresh eyes,’ said Guy.
‘You can’t be serious,’ snapped Charlotte. ‘I do PR.’
‘Exactly. If you convinced Vanessa Feltz to stay at the Cheltenham Literature Festival when she was about to walk due to the smell of drains in her room, you can convince Jock Forklift and friends to pick up tools and load some bloody boxes of books.’
Charlotte stood there with her arms folded, fury barely contained, and Guy just moved on, saying he was excited aboutthe new year, and to all work our hardest, and that we should remember he operated an open-doors policy, then promptly left the meeting room. Barely anyone else moved – we were all pretending to get our stuff together whilst actually watching Charlotte, who immediately went after him – (‘She is playing this all wrong,’ whispered Drunk Stephen).
Charlotte was apprehended by Amelia in HR, who said perhaps they could chat and iron out the details about Glasgow, whereupon Charlotte lost it and said, ‘If you could give me a fucking moment, please,’ and shoved past Amelia quite aggressively.
A collective murmur went round the room.
‘She’ll fit right into Glasgow with vocab like that,’ said the one from Design who always wears Armani glasses. ‘If she’s anything like Ewan.’
‘Fuck off,’ said Ewan from Design. ‘I’ll tell you what though, she’ll need a new coat. She’ll freeze her tits off dressed like that.’
And for the rest of the day, the rumour mill was spinning. According to Nervous Jane who occasionally has lunch with Iris, Guy Carmichael’s PA, Charlotte tried to go and speak to Guy Carmichael and Iris told her she could only speak to him with an appointment. And when Charlotte pointed out that he’d said he had an open-door policy, Iris said that it was an open-door policy with appointments. And Charlotte said, ‘Can I have one then?’ but Iris said he didn’t have any until the end of the week. And Charlotte apparently swore under her breath and then Iris made her own appointment with HR about protected characteristics because Iris is a Christian and felt quite distressed by Charlotte’s word choice and the tone behind it.
So all in all, I’m counting today as a number of mini-steps in the right direction. I may not have manifested Guy Carmichael being in love with me yet, but the key word here is ‘yet’! It’s pretty apparent that the Universe is paving the way for me:
a) Guy Carmichael has dumped Charlotte
b) Charlotte hasn’t even mentioned my photo with Decorator Dave
c) Charlotte is being moved to a different country – talk about threat removal.
I’m certainly going to spend some time manifesting this evening.
In one word:
Glasgow
Date: Thursday 5 JanuaryTime: 11.05am
My thoughts and reflections:
So itisthat bloody biodynamic wine. Definitely. I decided to try some more last night, as quality control, before mentioning to Aziz and Astrid they’d bought a whole case of shit wine, because I’m a considerate person. Total menace. I now have a vicious headache and am wearing yesterday’s outfit which has stains on the trousers because I completely forgot about laundering clothes. Plus I left Astrid’s umbrella on the tube so got soaked walking into work and had to go into Cara’s meeting late, and as no one budged up, I had to walk all the way round the table, looking bedraggled, to get to the seat next to hers. Cara did that wholegoing silent to wait for Alicething, glancing ostentatiously at her hideous Bulgari watch. I’d have preferred it if she’d just saidyou’re bloody late. Then I had to listen without rolling my eyes whilst Yaz said how she had some great ideas she couldn’t wait to share in Acquisitions tomorrow. Then to top it off, twenty minutes after I’d arrived late, Charlotte came in wearing pants and making every head swivel. I can’t believe Guy Carmichael dumped her. Of course, people fell over themselves budging up so that Charlotte could sit down. And when Charlotte said she was sorry for being late, entirely unapologetically, Cara just brushed it aside and said, ‘Who’s watching clocks?’
Er, you, Cara.
To make the day extra fun, Yaz keeps wincing and clutching her stomach and spraying little puffs of Tom Ford’s bitter peach. It doesn’t disguise what she’s doing. She’s just ruined a perfectly good fragrance for me. She even said, ‘I must have got it from you, so chances are you won’t catch it.’
I reckon it’s from those horrible fermented shot things she drinks. I wish I hadn’t sucked her pen yesterday. Anyway, I’m hiding out in the little meeting booth again and will keep hoping no one comes and kicks me out for an actual meeting.
Oh, and Guy Carmichael isn’t in the office today, so there’s not even anything to aspire to. It all feels a little flat, and like a backwards step after yesterday.
