grumpyf1

There are saints who wouldn’t have the patience to put up with me for more than half an hour, but an amazing apprentice has just survived a whole year. I’ve never had the word ‘Manager’ in my job title, and for a very good reason – I’m the kind of anally-retentive, OCD-ish, sociopath that tends to alarm people at a distance so great, you can only just make out my threatening scowl using binoculars. And that’s before the true extent of my shirt collection becomes apparent. Imagine my surprise when I suddenly found myself with ‘staff’ just before Christmas last year, after the departure of my own manager. True, I had been doing a large amount of the training involved in having an apprentice, but I’ve spent the vast majority of my adult life letting someone else tell me what needs to be done, attend meetings, talk politely to others about priorities, deal with the paperwork and smile at me tolerantly whilst I point out what’s wrong with everything and why it’s all not fair. And ti...