...And Coming In Second...

My Dear Fellow,

My PM dropped the bombshell today that her contract is not being extended. This is disappointing. We work well together, but more importantly she tells me stories about her naughty dogs and her naughty horse.

So she was a good PM. I haven't had that many. I tend to classify them in three categories.

- Good
- Pointless
- Actually out to sabotage me and ruin my life

That first category is pretty slim. The second makes up the bulk of them. But there have been a fair few in the latter category too. Including Neil from RX who found it funny when I was under pressure to sit next to me going, "Ooooh stress, stress."

Helpful.

Italian PM was undoubtedly the most entertaining. I'm not sure if he went out of his way to be an outrageous stereotype, but he was. He loved clothes, he loved food, but most of all he loved women and was always engaged to one woman from Eastern  Europe or another.

"Awww... my poor baby cannot get a visa to come to the UK," he would complain. "But I start seeing a Romanian girl this weekend," he would continue, bouncing back remarkably quickly.

He wore a scarf at all times, even in the summer. "Scotland is focking COLD man," he explained. He also booked a morning off - and I quote - because he was "having a camel-hair coat deliver-ed." Then there was his crocodile skin belt - 

"No, no, is pee-thon," he corrected proudly.

If I'm making him sound like an idiot, he wasn't. He had a mind like a trap and was extremely technically minded. He was always very protective of his team and did his best to protect us from Senior Managerial BS. He had absolute contempt for other managers. I heard he breezed into a PM forum, told everyone they were idiots and breezed out again. It didn't make him popular.

Then there was the time he hacked into the budgeting system and multiplied all the budgets by 10 to see if anyone would notice (they didn't). Then he multiplied them by 100. Still nothing.

He was supportive of the team too. I remember one late night implementation where he stayed up with us until 5am. He was completely bloody useless of course. But I appreciated the effort he put in to keep up morale by telling us of all his sexual exploits (with gestures).

He was also very generous, and loved to reward his team. I think I went on more team lunches with him in 6 months than the entire time we were on RX. He's Italian. He loves and he wants to be loved. I think that's a good quality in a PM.

So that is Italian PM. I think he edges Horsey PM out in my personal rankings, but he's not number one. That would be Scottish Widows Mike. I'm going to have to write about him in another blip I think. He deserves one all to himself.

El P.

p.s. No peethons were hurt in the writing of this blip.