I left myself a ‘What to do’ list so that I could resume where I left off without wasting time having to rack my tiny brain thinking what on earth was I doing before going on holiday.

Nothing quite prepares you for the 500+ e-mails that have accumulated because you signed up to Durham Free-Cycle in a fit of civic ‘do-goodery’ in order to shift some unwanted items into grateful hands instead of landfill. Bad planning on my part not to have set-up a divert box, as this was all intermixed with important work stuff.

Work stuff positions me as a front line contact to the Retail industry on behalf of my main client, to service their packaging print business for their largest dairy customer who buys the Own Brand printed packaging to fill and supply back to the supermarkets. After years of dealing with jumped-up arrogant suited individuals fresh out of University brought in to cut their teeth on retail project management; whose lack of knowledge, experience and turnover was truly breathtakingly awful; we now we have progress… Web based project management.

Everything is set up, sectioned up, laid out in grids with part codes, sku numbers and all sorts of abbreviated jargon. Anonymous e-mail alerts are received that can’t be replied to, tasking you to do something, but being pityfully uninformative as to exactly what. It is my responsibility to follow this up using my alloted username and password and delve through all this ‘Web Mesh’. Most of the time the alerts are just to inform all concerned of forthcoming or current project status. However because one has been blessed with a username and password and are therefore part of the project coterie, any failure to respond or supply requested information is wholly apparent and attributable within the system, so one daren’t be named and shamed and definitely not let any reason for critisism be cast in one’s direction, as splashes of such, landing close to the client – will definitely stain!

So in the last 9 days, I have received 7 alerts just from one retailer system alone, all of which need checking thoroughly for any hidden tasks. Only 2 required some input. To my amazement on Thursday am, a courier delivered the un-released artwork, un-alerted or announced, ahead of schedule!

Next day I receive yet another alert requesting printed production packaging samples of the project for which my client has not yet received an order from their customer. – I am bemused by such ‘progress’.