A Loving Family

By
Jacquimac
Pt Eleven

A New Start in life

The following day we decided to go shopping,Sarah was the first to be ready and had decided she would drive.Ihad finished getting ready and asked her to go to garage with me.I opened the garage door and told her to take her pick,she was surprised and chose the bigger of two cars or the " Jag " as she called it.She asked why I had two cars when I didn`t drive so I told her they came with the house.She looked at me and said that I had done pretty well out of deal,all I could was agree but i couldn`t tell her how well.Eventually the other three girls joined us and after locking everything up we drove off to town.

On the way Beverly who knew I was still a bit uneasy shopping for womens clothing assured me that everything would be OK and reminded me I wasn`t on my own.what started out as a nervous day turned out to be a fun day,we shopped till we were hungry then shopped till the stores closed then went home.Everyone had got what they wanted which wasn`t as much as I thought the whole day only cost me a couple of thousand.Considering that Jeanette knew how much I was now worth she only picked out a couple skirts and bloused.I wasn`t worried about spending money but after seeing that the girls hadn`t got that much I realised they weren`t going to take advantage of me.

The shopping trip had finally taught me that not everyone is bad ,it was new experience having people I could finally trust.It had taken me a long time but I was getting there.The rest of weekend we just sat around and talked watched some TV and a couple of videos.
We didn`t have to be in work till tuesday,so monday we cleaned up the weekend wreckage and then they went Sarah and Marjory picking up they`re children on the way.

Tuesday arrived and we met in staff canteen for coffee before everything got started,for the next couple of weeks all the contracts were staying at the other building until all staff had bee through the induction procedure. We had a staff of 200 not including myself and the other 10 managers, the first day was taken up with introductions and organising the 8 teams so they could get to know one another.
As I already the managers I still had to meet with the rest of the women and 200 interviews were going to take the best part of the week,
all in all they seemed to be enthusiastic about the new set up and the facilities provided.

As all the managerial staff had been through the induction it meant that I could talk to each them during the morning and start the other interviews in the afternoon.Sarah and Marjory weren`t required for interview by me so they could interview each of they`re 4 junior managers.As the first day was for the 200 women to go through the security briefing and get their new ID`s we set up 11 offices ready for the interviews to start the next day, so I interviewed the 8 junior managers.At the end of the day I got all the managers together in the canteen and told them that I thought the first day went well and thought we would all work well together,I then allowed Sarah and Marjory to have their say and then we all went home.

The rest of the week as I said was taken up with various induction lectures, interviews and setting up each of the eight teams of 25 under a junior manager.Once each team was set they began the task of getting their work stations set up to their individual preferences, the only thing I banned from the desks was any thing containing liquids that might damage the word processors if there was an accidental spill,but they seemed satisfied with that.By close of play on friday everyone was tired but morale seemed high,I had an open door policyand only had to deal with one or two minor problems.I went down to reception were I waited for my taxi and finally reached home at around 6.30pm.

Monday arrived all too soon and the task of setting up continued,Trucks arrived carrying boxes of files that needed filed in they`re respective cabinets.The team managers took charge of that and each truck was soon on it`s way empty,which left Sarah,Marjory and myself to deal with more difficult problems.There were a few problems with the team placements but with shifting a few people around we sorted that out,and by the end of day everyone was ready to home.This went on for the rest of week and surprisingly except for a few petty squabbles it looked like each team had settled down,well monday was the big day so I felt the first few weeks were critical and some reshuffling might be needed but on the whole and after talking to all the managers I felt sure that we ready for anything that came our way.

After the first few weeks each team had finally finished shuffling people around and worked in tight knit teams, occassionally teams would work together on various projects.We worked a happy enviroment with happy people who supported each other when things got tough.A fully day care nursery was set up and mothers could either leave their children there or we would try and arrange their working hours to suit them.