After 40 years hard work, I’m resting by the sea and reflecting on times gone by. I’ve been a traveller you see in the topsy turvey world of changing organisations. I’ve laboured, I’ve taught, I’ve researched, I’ve advised, and I’ve been roundly biffed, as you have, in many reorganisations.

As a retiring academic, I’m supposed to write The Book — a well-researched and referenced tome — drawing together theory and practice in organisational power and politics. Well, having thought about it, I can tell you no-one will read it. It will just gather dust on a few shelves before it is consigned to the bin of history. So, after much thought, I’m going to draw on my rich experiences and write novels — much more fun.

So, come and join me, here by the sea, and hear my stories of the dynamics of power and biffo politics as we journey first to the dark heart of St. Angela’s University Teaching Hospital and all its goings on, then to the Western Theatre to meet its sweet and highly emotional people, and finally, to the mother of all mismatched mergers and its enduring warring tribes.

The posts come once a month but I’ll send beach and weather reports now and then on twitter @AGbythesea

Welcome to our Merry Band …

It just gets harder to make new friends as you get older so I’m grateful that so many of my old friends and colleagues going back over the last 40 years are still in touch. Well, at last, I’ve almost retired. I’ve finished teaching, and I’ve got a few bits and pieces to complete and then it’s time for my novels. I’ve been promising myself for many years that I would take up novel writing as well as reading. The book walls litter my house so it’s time to make a dent in them.

I have been so fortunate that my job has allowed me to jump into many established networks. And, thank you to those who have awarded me lifetime achievement medals. Such recognition brings a warm glow. I hope you will enjoy the gobbets, and even recognise some of them as shared experiences of horrifying behaviours that we have had to sort out. I think we made, on the whole, quite a good fist of it. It has been a pleasure working with you.

And to all my fellow conference attenders, welcome. It has been great fun getting to know you and how you have coped with your difficult organisational problems. I have learnt much from our discussions, and, as a retiree, I hope I can still join you in the future as a conference junkee. I hope you enjoy the gobbets, and, when you have time, let me know your vignettes and I’ll weave them in.

After all these years of teaching on Monday mornings, I’ve stopped. Yes, I’ve retired. I still can’t believe that I can now sleep in late after the weekend, and that I don’t have to fight my way onto the packed train to get to my teaching room on time. I don’t have to line up for coffee, and I don’t have to search for the AV technician to load up my slides.

And, dear students, I don’t have to mark all those essays and exam scripts that you carefully put together for me. Most were very good to read and nothing pleases a teacher more than to be presented with a well-researched and written essay. I do miss you all and it is a delight when I get news of your progress. I know you will all do well.

As you know, it is very hard to teach organisational politics without it becoming as dry as dust, so, I’ve taken some of my case work to illustrate the dynamics of power and the genesis of dysfunctionality, and set them out for you in gobbets taken from my forthcoming novel. I hope you enjoy them.