Having a temp query his work must have been very galling

Temporary work. It is very difficult to get up in the morning when you know that you don’t really have to. This morning I half-wanted to take the day off and go back to sleep, but I forced myself to get up and go to work.

Most of the morning taken up visiting the photographer the company uses. Because of the nature of the products (very lifestyle-related) the company needs a steady supply of new and interesting consumer-orientated photographs. These are taken by a photographic company called Glencoe based in a small shop in a little parade of shops about half a mile from the company.

I had met the photographer last week - he was aged in his fifties, ex-forces, quite fat, grey hair (with a bald patch), grey beard, very condescending attitude. He had brought up some photographs and I had refused them, saying they were not good enough (they really were very poor). He had then gone over my head and complained to Mitch Holmes (Sales Director) that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I suppose having a temp query his work must have been very galling. To my surprise Mitch Holmes backed me up, and told Glencoe to do the photography again. So this morning I went to the Glenco shop to look at the redone photography.

The shop had a very depressing atmosphere. In the windows were displays of wedding photographs (mainstay of the Glencoe business) with an occasional portrait (stiff and unrealistic). A bell rang as I opened the door. I waited in the empty shop looking at stationary designs (a Glencoe sideline - business cards, headed notepaper, coloured envelopes), conscious of shuffling in the backroom beyond the counter. Eventually the photographer appeared, greeted me fairly politely, disappeared into the back office again, then reappeared with the photographs. These were much better than last week’s effort. I asked if they were available digitally, but he still does everything on film. Leaving the shop, I got the impression that it was a business that was failing. No-one had come into the place all the time I had been there.

I went back to the company and at my desk in the corner looked at the photographs, planning how they could be used (some of them will be needed in literature, so they will have to be converted to a digital format).

Sarah Linton came over and flopped down into the chair on the other side of my desk. She had just come out of a sales team briefing meeting.

“How did it go?” I asked her.

“There were lots of put-downs aimed at me” she said, not appearing to be bothered by this hostility from her colleagues (as she is rumoured to be having an affair with Mitch Holmes I guess she is untouchable).