My First Day at the CIPD

The CIPD have recently announced the appointment of a new Deputy Chief Executive , I thought I’d use this blog post to speculate what her first day in the office might be like.

 

 I’d like to be very clear that this is a parody and that I have had no contact with Susannah Clements and have only heard great things about working at the CIPD. 

It would be funny if working at the CIPD was awful though…

 

9am

 

Bounce into the office ready to make a good impression on my first day. Slightly disappointed that nobody has allocated me a desk, but I’m told that George isn’t in today so I can use his 

 

9.30 am 

 

Finish tidying up George’s desk. I can’t believe anyone hadn’t noticed the smell from what, I assume, was once an egg sandwich, but is now a strange brown blob.

 

10 am

 

After several attempts to log on I have been told that my new starter paperwork hasn’t been passed to IT. When I speak to IT they tell me that there is a 5 day service level on this kind of thing and it isn’t their fault they didn’t receive the form. 

 

11am 

 

Spend time reading latest CIPD publications, very enjoyable. IT have now set me up on the system, but unfortunately I’ll have to remember to log in as Sue-hannah.Clemenza for the near future. Still, important to stay positive about these things. The default font is set to Coptic, but that just means I’ll have to keep to my mantra of ‘learning something new every day’

 

11.30am 

 

I’ve had some time allocated in my calendar to deal with a range of ‘hacks’. I hate dealing with the press, so I ask PR to take care of it. It turns out after a short exchange that it was a different type of hack and I’ve just referred the entire output of the hackathon to PR.

 

12am

 

Asked to deal with ‘hacks’ again. Walk into a conference room assuming I’m going to hear some suggestions about next generation work practices, only to be cornered by journalists. We really need to get more consistent with language. It doesn’t go well

 

12.30pm

 

It’s been a testing morning, so I decide to try and cheer people up over lunch by sharing some extra food and nibbles I packed for the day, the jaffa cakes go down really well but then I said

 

‘Cheese crackers anyone?’

 

The room went silent. It turns out that Peter Cheese, the CEO, is really well loved by the team here and that they believe that I’m attempting to deliberately undermine him. People are muttering about signs of an early power struggle.

 

1pm

 

Whilst taking a comfort break (and I have to admit sobbing a little,) I overhear a conversation in the ladies about how ‘the new lady ‘Sue-Jannah’ attempted to start an open revolt against Peter and nobody wants to work with her as she smells of stale egg sandwich’

 

1.30pm

 

Peter calls me into his office for a short chat over some feedback he has received. 

 

2pm

 

I really enjoyed my time working with the CIPD, a great institution