Catching Up - don't read this, it is simply a cathartic dump post

 We aren't ignoring y'all....but we do have some catching up to do.  

Posidonia Week is over along with all the social and sporting events that accompany it.

F is disappointed she could not take the opportunity after 4 years of working here, 2 of them in quarantine, to attend events and finally meet in person the clients for whom she does so much work. 

Their business has doubled, in these 4 years, the number of ships that they insure here and F still hasn't met most of the people for whom she provides (free) daily or weekly legal advice, guidance on international sanctions, advice on risk assessment and insurance cover, a claims handling and general problem solving service, and answers to a myriad of other enquires about ports, safety, regulations in different places around the world, and people to contact for local help virtually anywhere in the world that a ship can call.

However, with one colleague on long term medical leave and another making a permanent departure the week before Posidonia, their office was running on 50% staff (and the other one of those was new in the office 3 months ago) so it has been long hours, lots of apologies, and having to get really efficient at fitting the work into the waking hours. I have overheard a lot of "I have 10 things to do today and you are number 8 in the queue. I will likely solve only 7 so you will get your answer tomorrow."

Of course tomorrow throws up another 10 things, and so it goes.

The last thing F wants is to put the new girl off before she even completes her probationary contract, and some time of most days needs to be devoted to the training she would get in an ideal world. Even I now know how to arrange precautionary cargo surveys, issue and record securities (that get ships out of arrest), and process invoices.

To top it all off the colleague who left had never been attentive to administrative aspects of the job and left files that have much in common with the proverbial 'dogs breakfast'. Everyone knew he hated doing the desk work but had no idea the extent to which he had buried it.  Even an internal audit the week before he left hadn't picked it up; 1000s of unfiled emails, 100s of unpaid invoices, myriad of tasks simply ignored and way beyond their use-by dates.  

In a 'money' industry like insurance, there is strict regulation on a lot of what they do, but he somehow managed to slither past loads of it.  All his files need to be read to work out what has been done and what ignored, unpaid invoices located and brought up to date, service providers placated and assured that their fees are on the way (some it seems have been chasing for 2 years...who waits that long to get paid without escalating their grievance to senior management?). 

F has also had to placate the internal departments who have suddenly had their workload increase to catch up on the backlog. It is one thing to suddenly take over 600 extra cases, but quite another to discover and clean-up a serious backlog of work in the process. The only good thing to come out is the reassurance that about 2/3rds of notifications that open a case never result in a claim and 2/3rds of 600 files have been closed in the last three weeks of evenings and weekends spent on the review process. When the sick colleague returns it will be to a claim portfolio that is about 25% of the size of the one she left (some further cases have been paid out and closed) and F is developing some training to get the staff to clean up behind themselves and reduce their own stress and anxiety about the admin that goes with open cases (even if they are going nowhere, there are regular reminders to review them and provide estimates for likely expenditure etc).

So....no parties for F.  She had signed up for one late on Monday evening, but had to cancel even that when her senior managers and underwriters from head office announced there would be a staff dinner " for team morale".  I wasn't invited but F assured me I missed nothing.  The 'meal' was one of those tasting menus, a dozen teaspoon sized servings of art, but no real food. It was the kind of 'dinner' you buy a burger on the way home from, and it took three hours to be served by one or the surliest waiters F has ever encountered.....really great for team morale. 

What's wrong with big platters of gavros, kalamarakia, and grilled chicken, with patatas and xoriatiki and lots of sharing over beer and cask wine at a local taverna? Why is team morale supposed to be better served by €90 a head in a stiff and formal carefully arranged seating plan with pretentious food and surly waiters, than in an open air stoop, with a view of the sea, plastic table cloths and truckloads of good fresh and HONEST food?

There, rant over. Things won't change in the short term and we will struggle to do justice to blogging for a while but we aren't planning on giving up. Bear with us. (Although if I could get a full time secretary to replace F I wouldn't say no. I pay in furrings and purrings. Applicants need to be competent at driving donkeys, opening the fridge and extracting chicken, operating a vacuum cleaner and the fur brush, and opening doors on demand. General companionship would be a favoured bonus in my view.)