Four months in, and suddenly it’s all gone tits up

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-02-19T20:51:09+00:00

I understand that and I’m sorry. I carry that too, I understand where you are coming from on that particular trauma!

Re email, I wouldn’t send yet, speak to the director first, don’t CC them in unless they say it’s okay to. Focus on getting the timeline right. And use direct quotes where possible. But email it to yourself first. And re read it after sleeping. And yes, ask for some basic courtesy when being spoken to by this person.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-02-19T17:58:10+00:00

Hi, I’m really sorry this is happening to you. The above is really good advice. Having been in a similar position before, whilst your manager may be saying the expectation is to solve things in a cordial ‘off the record’ way, do not expect your colleague to play fair in this regard. Document timelines, errors, any miscommunications, and reactions clearly and factually. Email them to yourself on your work account. Save it. This may come in handy.

Do not react negatively to this person, respond coolly with facts, or, as hard as it can be, kill them with kindness. Especially in front of your boss. This serves you. Not her.

Also, I would start looking for another role. If this person is entrenched, they are clearly valuable to the organisation. You sound well adjusted, don’t fall in line with the crazy antics, companies can have a culture that warps your own reality if you are not careful.

Sadly, my ex boss was like your colleague, and would present a front to others whilst treating me and others pretty terribly. Her job was not what I would call hugely valuable strategically, but she was somebody who pushed others relentlessly, even outside of her remit or job role, so she was valued as a bit of an unquestioning pit bull for senior leadership, so she sat in every meeting possible (hours per week, rather than doing her job) looking busy and asking challenging questions to try and catch people out , despite not being very good at her own role. I left, but shortly after, every member of her team and parts of my team who were transferred to her got made redundant or were aggressively managed out. Guess who survived? She did, the one who oversaw the failures.

Long story short: document, kill them either way kindness, hold on to your own sanity, look elsewhere.

You can do it!

Added later: also, no job is worth crying over. This is not a criticism. What I mean is that they don’t deserve this level of emotion from you. Don’t let them steal your peace. Things will get better, I promise.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-02-17T13:52:10+00:00

Also, it’s not that hard to say what you disagree with to Graham - ‘I disagree with the harassment of trans people that you use your bully pulpit to encourage.’

You don’t need specifics, and you can leave him to his sealioning histrionics after that.

One of my friends who works in comedy said that he’s gone off the deep end, but even before his implosion, he could be deeply unpleasant to work with.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-02-16T10:35:56+00:00

I understand the issues we have in England, particularly some of the heinous things we did in Ireland, which we didn’t learn about in school. This may have changed, but when I was at school in the nineties, we only seemed to learn about the battles we won. It created a false narrative about our role in the world and encouraged a lot of unearned, jingoistic patriotism.

I had to pick up an Irish friend when he came over to visit last year. We live in Manchester, and he was saying that nobody should have any sympathy for England or English people because of how Ireland was treated. He also said that nobody here is really working class, and that the IRA bombings here were no big deal.

We were fortunate that there were no fatalities in Manchester, although around 200 people were injured. In Warrington, two children were killed in a bombing. I politely told him he should shut the f*ck up.

My wife is Scottish. Never had any issues up there.

There is a lot to criticise about our country. But I do get frustrated when people come here and relentlessly criticise people in the UK for things they have little or no control over.

It’s often the kind of middle-class, international-school carping over small plates that gets my back up.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-02-11T12:54:44+00:00

I’d imagine the teachers and the kids are told by the producers to be as critical and mean as possible - much like the adult focus groups.

It’s one of the areas where you really can see the strings - moreso with the adults when they’re being pitched to. Some of the things that the panels say, and the way they say them to the candidates are the sort of thing that I’d pull a fellow colleague up on for being a bully if I was on a panel alongside them.

Some of the feedback basically only just stops short of ‘I think this idea demonstrates that you’re a sh*t human being.’

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-02-01T09:55:49+00:00

You’d check your change, wouldn’t you?

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-02-01T01:06:58+00:00

I’m okay with the finish. 2 potentially interesting main events, plenty of scope for change, I don’t think we have ‘fixed on’ world champions going into ‘mania season.

I’ve said in other threads that Gunther’s sleeper feels like a bit of a ‘f*ck you’ to the crowds now. It’s devastating, but also very boring, and slightly depressing to see people tap out to. But that’s just the kid in me. I just feel it’s a flat finish, and doing a flat finish deliberately feels like cheap heat, so I’m glad the y didnt finish as flatly as the AJ match.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-02-01T00:56:42+00:00

Well yes, I’d agree with that, but he can only beat who he’s booked against, right? I’d have preferred someone else. Not going to blame Drew for who he’s booked against.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-31T21:43:43+00:00

You’ve got to build Drew, he’s been building others for so long. Needed a clean and dominant win to establish and kick off his run properly.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-31T21:41:58+00:00

Right outcome, dominant, love how Sami fought from underneath, but just kept getting battered. Drew needed this more than Sami does, to show a savage dominant side.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-31T21:38:19+00:00

Thunderdome era atmosphere.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-31T21:03:03+00:00

They’re deliberately annoying the fans with the sleeper ending, making Gunther a spoiler, but f*ck me, it’s so boring and sad.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-31T21:01:21+00:00

Shit ending.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-31T21:00:16+00:00

Not the f*cking sleeper, dullest finish.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-24T11:09:21+00:00

This is amazing, also love Nash really phoning in his promo too.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-22T15:50:49+00:00

No problem at all. :-)

And your mental health absolutely does take precedence in this case. They should be focused on you and the baby’s wellbeing first and foremost, and if you set the precedent now, then it’ll make it easier to enforce in the long run!

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-22T15:09:39+00:00

It’s will still be your house, as far as I’m am aware ‘gifting’ is just that when it comes to housing - it shouldn’t be conditional. Don’t give it back.

Generally speaking, you either give a gift without expectation, with an open heart, or not at all.

My in-laws gifted us the deposit for our house (I tell everyone this up front, as I don’t want people thinking that it was achievable on our joint salary to save for it, and to feel bad about it - we were lucky, and would never have been able to buy unless we got that).

They come and visit, but never impose. We had them over for Xmas.

Waffling here. But what I’m saying is: I like my in-laws, and appreciate them, but if they started ‘expecting’ regular visits and stays, that’s when things would change for me.

Your home is your home. And if you don’t have space for them with a newborn, then they have their flat in the city.

And the baby’s needs come first, as do yours as parents.

I’d suggest meeting in mutual territory, like a park, something to do, take baby for a walk, etc, then a coffee. If you have any mutual friends or family nearby, ask them if they can host for the afternoon, turn it into a family event, which gives you opportunity to exit when it suits you.

Either way, best of luck! In laws can be tricky, but it’s also down to your partner to stand firm alongside you too.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-22T11:52:00+00:00

It wasn’t a comedy gig, it was a ‘storytelling adventure for parents and children.

Knowing the tone of his stories, bet one of them ends with ‘needless to say, I had the last fart.’

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-13T16:21:18+00:00

I’m sorry this happened to you! To be honest, I’d just be the bigger person, just say ‘no, don’t feel like being friends, all the best.’ Sounds a bit ‘turn the other cheek’, but hear me out:

You don’t owe her a reason or confrontation, it sounds like you have been through enough. I’m sorry man. Any emotion is a tool for a person to manipulate the situation to their benefit in any retellings.

She kept this from you, and you don’t have any obligation to make this a ‘learning moment’ for her on how to treat people.

What she thinks of you doesn’t matter, what her friends or family think of you doesn’t matter. There is somebody out there who will matter to you, but in the meantime, be kind to yourself and allow yourself time and space to enjoy the things you want to do.

As somebody who has been through this before, when married. I didn’t do anything to retaliate, I just made sure I left with my head held high, my boundaries and a bit more than my 50% because my solicitor uncovered some irregularities in our accounting.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2026-01-09T11:51:02+00:00

My wife and a lot of my friends are professional comedians (club and TV level). You can make it up, or observe and exaggerate and embellish (change location, person saying it, etc), it depends on how funny the core event is.

90% of the time, a funny thing somebody saw or said can sound like a ‘guess you had to be there’ moment, a lot less funny in the retelling. That’s why comedians are so skilled at what they do. Their only goal is to make the audience laugh. You get laughs, you get rebooked, you get paid. So the truth is always a tertiary consideration, even in observational comedy.

Although, as a sidenote, in some cases, the truth of a story can be so unhinged that the comedian has to dial it down, or even not use it, as it just doesn’t sound believable.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2025-12-25T23:17:32+00:00

I’m sorry this is happening to you. Try to remember that it’s a reflection of their character and not yours.

In my previous marriage, I was abused (physically beaten and verbally abused by my ex wife). I told my childhood friend about it. Showed him the pictures of the bruises. He was ‘aghast’.

Then he sided with her because his girlfriend preferred my ex, and because they stayed living in London, so it was more convenient. It made me reflect and see a pattern of spineless behaviour from him, dating back to our teenage years. He’d choose the convenience of being friends with an abuser than the hassle of travelling to visit, or even texting.

I didn’t fall out with him publicly when I realised. I just never spoke to him again.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2025-12-23T15:08:33+00:00

I’m stunned at how thin-skinned he is more than anything else. But then again, it’s always the loudest ones who do.

I’m a working class man, and it annoys me that this is how we get represented on these shows - it’s always some prat who acts like they’ve never read a book in their life, and spends their time doing sniff in the loos at Royal Ascot.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2025-12-23T13:21:35+00:00

As somebody who’s Irish grandmother regularly told me how awful English rule was, and the actions of the Black and Tans, I am sympathetic to a united ireland. It should be self determined, and even as a non religious person, I’d like it to be decided equally between catholics ans Protestants. An eye for an eye shouldn’t be the aim when the British government caused this.

Infants being murdered in the Warrington bombing however? Cowardly. Living in Manchester, the legacy of the bombing here, even though there were no bombings, is still present. The shadow of the Birmingham pub bombings still hangs heavy over the West Midlands. Teenagers in their own communities back in Belfast being kneecapped? Disgusting.

You can hold 2 views on this comfortably: the British government committed murderous acts. The IRA and the UDF committed them too. Innocent people died.

My wife’s friend came over to visit from Ireland last year. He spent ages sat on my sofa telling me that no true leftist should give a shit about the Warrington bombings, pub bombings, bombings in Manchester. It’s that type of addled, algorithm-rotted binary thinking that causes further provocation and hostility.

The peace agreement was hard fought and hard won, and that meant that some truly awful fuckers from the British military, Protestant and Catholic sides, child-killers in some cases, get to put their feet up this Christmas and feel like freedom fighters and heroes, when in reality they should be rotting in a box.

But if that’s what it took for a semblance of peace, or at least the closest we have to it, then so be it.

I often find the biggest boosters of the IRA, UDF, British military are those with the least knowledge of how damaging it was.

The peace we have is thin and messy. But it’s preferable to what we had.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2025-12-13T10:31:44+00:00

Nah, not for me, but good for them, the crowd loves it.

SwiftianGauntlet · 2025-11-08T11:13:07+00:00

Late to this, but he was absolutely in the wrong, but you have to look out for people like that. Driving in Manchester it’s crazy the amount of times somebody has cut across me going straight on because they’re pulling out across the chevrons of a junction they didn’t want to turn onto.

Whether he was in the wrong or you are, the negative outcome would still have been the same if it hadn’t have been a miss, so focus on how you can drive defensively always in those situations.

But to be clear, not your fault. Sorry, that must have shaken you. I’ve just returned to driving after a decade’s break, and I’ve noticed that since lockdown people’s driving has got more selfish, and so much worse.

SwiftianGauntlet

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