Marketing experience (desirable but not essential)

My assistant, Adrian Taylor, is leaving in November to spend a year travelling around the world. Therefore this week I have begun the process of recruiting a successor. Recruiting the new person means working closely with Human Resources Director Marion Conway. It is no secret that Marion and I do not get on – in fact it is impossible to get on with her, since she is so untrustworthy, and has mood swings of bewildering intensity. She came to my desk this morning to discuss the new position – this was a rare concession, as normally I would be summoned into her office. On the Sales Desk Keith Williams was singing the chorus from a Natasha Bedingfield song: “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you…” which added an ironic note to the strained atmosphere.

The salary for the Marketing Assistant post is to be increased to £18k per annum, and greater responsibility for designing and maintaining the company’s three websites will be added to the list of duties (I was very firm on this point, as I do not want to get involved in website design myself, and since Zhu Guang left there is no-one I can delegate this sort of work to). We are to specify two years’ marketing experience (desirable but not essential) in the advertisement, as Adrian has been a little too junior for the work he has been asked to do.

Earlier today Adrian Taylor was bemoaning the loss of his Samsung V200 mobile phone which cost over three hundred pounds. He made long internal telephone calls telling people about his loss (“…it looked good, it made me look good”) all the while slumped back in his chair and juggling a Stanley knife, throwing the point into the desk top (I just know there is going to be a complaint from the office Health & Safety committee).

This afternoon he talked of going to the gym last night, of going rugby training tonight, of going for a four-mile run round a lake near where he lives. I told him he might be overdoing things. He is very keen on Anne Marie Beatty in Purchasing, and goes deep red whenever anyone (usually Greg Mitton) refers to this passion. He shows off whenever Anne Marie is in the Marketing department, lifting heavy boxes of sales literature, giving orders to Adam Russell (who is technically his junior) and passing on to Anne Marie some of the many freebies we get through the post (inscribed pens, sample t-shirts, even sweets with corporate logos on the packaging).

On the whole he has been a good assistant.