RIP

Found out today that the head of a company I used to work for died this week.

He was a real character, a brilliant businessman, at times unbelievably generous to his employees, but extremely demanding and prone to terrifying fits of anger when things didn't go his way or if he thought someone had failed him or not lived up to expectations. Not surprisingly, he went through a dizzying succession of assistants. I didn't work directly for him, but for one of his MDs.

Once when my boss was away on extended sick leave after an operation, I made a decision in his absence - it was only a paltry initiative - after all I was low, low woman on the totem pole, but for some reason this came to his attention. He called me into his office and asked why I had told X that Y. I started to reply, "well, I thought that..." but could get no further. He picked up a pile of papers from desk and threw them at me, screaming "I don't pay you to think!"

I would like to think that nowadays I would calmly reply, "in that case, sir, you pay me too much" and walk away. But this was a good 8 years ago, I was young, and it was my first "real" job, so I burst into tears and stumbled back to my desk to have a good cry. Various people consoled me ("there there, we all know he's a bastard"), and one kindly soul got me rather large glass of wine. (Yes, there was always booze around, and we could smoke at our desks too, in those days).

On the other hand, some months ago I was looking through old papers and found notes where he had praised me, and even years later, I felt proud.

Once a year he invited everyone in the office, from MDs to PAs, to an all expenses paid weekend in the South of France. We would fly into Nice, take a helicopter to Monaco, and from there his yacht would take us to Saint Tropez for a night out and oh my it was fun.

It all feels a little surreal now when I think of it.

RIP, HPR.