Winter blues.

I don't know if I've ever been entirely clear about the work-related stuff that's been going on over the past few months. I'm conscious that being detailed will pretty much identify me and even though the blog itself only gets the odd fleeting visitor and no-one really is a repeat guest, part of me wants to protect my anonymity as much as possible.

However, the work thing involves a clash of personalities between a manager and many people on our department. To put it bluntly, this manager is borderline incompetent at his job and appears to be using his position to advance his career rather than actually manage the people he's in charge of.

That's meant elevated stress levels for the past few months on top of the normal stuff (it can get stressful in my job, but only in bursts when deadlines come up) and going beyond that, it's harder to go into work in the morning. Previously, the team got along well with each other, there was a fair bit of laughter and banter around and the guys sitting directly around me are always good for a conversation and any old nonsense.

We were all hoping that this management issue would come to a head around the end of June - there was a specific reason for this and we all had a high level of confidence in the outcome. For reasons that I can't really explain, that never happened and the problems continue.

After a conversation with KfW2 earlier, my hopes sank even further. The more senior management are fully aware of what's going on and how people are currently feeling, but they've stated categorically that there is no imminent solution, if there ever will be one. Their priority seems to be this one person - they think this is something that can be trained out of him rather than simply a personality issue and a now lack of trust.

Personally speaking, though I imagine everyone else feels the same way, this is going to impact my happiness, my stress and potentially my career and potential pay rise as well. I don't see the next few months having too many bright spots.