Christmas Parties

Candice : As this post goes live I’ll be putting the finishing touches to my outfit before my office Christmas party.  Hopefully it’ll be abit better than last year where I ended up getting smashed because, being a contractor, I didnt really know too may people that well and ended up walking in on my own.  However, the ensuing glasses of vino on the free bar and Argentine Tango impressions helped to build my reputation and I did end up having a good last month as everyone had a bit more of an inclination of what I was really like.

Anyway, the Christmas Party is key to our story.

The team from K.O.D. stood outside the imposing doors to Oswythal Hall and wondered what they were doing there. HIA’s Christmas parties were described by the staff as “legendary” and this one was to be last big get together before the place would be closed down. Gareth had been really surprised when the invite landed at their office, as he thought they burnt all their bridges with the government agency;  what with the fact they’d been instrumental in the close down and had personally given everyone their marching orders, an all. However, the invite had been insistent that they attend to ‘Celebrate the end of an era, which you have been an important part of’, as the covering letter stated.  Tracey had even taken a call from a member of the HIA staff checking they were coming, though she couldn’t remember which one it was.

Without giving the game away, there’s conflict, snogging, dodgy outfits and the unmasking of one of our more mysterious characters.  There’s no bottom photocopying, but only because, by this point the photocopiers have been sold on to cover costs.  Seriously though, it would be far to predictable.

So, I’m off to throw some shapes to some good tunes I hope and down a few glasses of medicinal plonk.  Flashing Christmas tree badge anyone?

The Office – but not the Ricky Jervais one!

Candice: As a contractor, I work in many different environments, often more than most people will work in in a lifetime.  I have to say, particularly in some of the places I’ve worked more recently, they just don’t get the whole “contractor” thing, and wonder why anyone would want to work anywhere else other than their lovely, safe, comfortable company. The thought of going anywhere else is quite a shock! However, to me that seems to breed a complacency and attitude where it’s acceptable to surf the net, tell everyone what you have been surfing for and then ring your husband on the office phone to discuss what you have been looking at…..
Anyway, the point of this blog is not to slag off the mainly hardworking people of the UK but to discuss the bit that keeps one going when in the monotony of an office – the book writing (and acting in my case and regular bags of tangfastics).
However, the office and idiosyncrasies of working with one are the bread and butter of our book. We think we have captured some interesting nuances from different offices which will have those people reading the book chuckling to themselves thinking, “Oh yes, I know one of those types of people, oh God so and so does that everyday etc.”  The place were Phil and I met (in a writing sense) was an education quango that had a mixture of people who had worked office jobs all their lives and those from an education background – which brought together two very different mind sets.  Add in around 40% contractors, who been and seen everything, and confusion reigned and sparks would fly.  The number of times I sat in a meeting going “what” as the educational types talked pedagogy and teaching nuances and I was like, aren’t we here to talk about a leaflet to schools?  But these colourful personalities flavoured the characters in our book, in fact some of our ex colleagues may find they are a character by name or personality.  But I shall leave them to interpret when they can finally read our published book…

Roll into that about 30 years of working for different companies in to the writing team’s experience and you have a book full of slightly embellished truths, and we hope it will all ring true with our readers.
Added to that, as we have put in our new improved synopsis, a strong female lead character who is a closer approximation of what female readers want these days.  (Bridget Jones – funny then but now don’t you just want to slap her). Then we hope we are on to a winner.

But it is for you to decide – so Phil – it is time to add a chapter of the book to the site so you can see what we mean?