jag

Lucy Kellaway writes about being asked “Are you alright” by a colleague and to her horror bursting into tears immediately. It brings to mind a very pathetic episode by yours truly at MS, when I was so tired and stressed at work, that the moment I was to have a meeting with a superior, and she asked me “what’s wrong” and I started crying! It was in her office and no one else was there but still. It was most unprofessional, but she was a good British sort, a Hildabeast (literally from St Hilda’s at Oxford) and had seen it all and she said “there, there, have a good cry then”. So I cried for a little more and then blew my nose on her handkerchief and on we went as though nothing had happened. It was most illustrious of what a good manager should be like, at least for me and I have never forgotten her magnanimity since.