Weird dream

Had the strangest dream this morning.  If I could have remembered it , it would have made a great novel or series of short stories (If I had the writing skills not to make it too derivative)

I was working in a small hand-made chocolate factory. I was the HR person, I was involved with hiring and firing, employee motivation etc etc.

The company made small individual hand-made chocolates - like you see at high-end chocolatiers. No blocks or bars, just dainty little well petit-fours in chocolate.  I did have to let go three staff during my time there.  One worked contract and felt that as long as he turned up he didn't need to do any actual work, so I didn't renew his contract when it ended.  Another was so odious that he could not work with anyone else.  Hated the job and everyone there, so I helped him apply for jobs in other areas of the company that he felt he would be happier in.  I can't remember why the third one was laid off. Inappropriate sexual advances I think.

Of the people who I worked closely with, there was the manager, lovely fabulous person and manager but the only definite thing I can remember is she felt a failure because she was managed projects instead of having children - and this turns her into a cliche. Wish I remembered more than just feelings.  THere was an old guy in his 90s who should have been retired years ago, but he had a nose that couldn't be beaten, and was still our chief tester for new products.  His grandson was one of our newest chocolatiers and there was a whole raft of others that I can't remember now.

Head office (which was probably some big multinational) decided we weren't profitable and shut us down.  The newest member, the grandson suggested we change our format, and produce ice cream in the taste of our chocolates.  Not big tub of litres of one flavour, but finger length creations.  One of our best sellers was a cherry and chocolate (kinda like a cherry ripe but in individual form - not bar form).  When we turned this into ice-cream we put three small scoops about the size of ferrero rochers, into a a little tray made of the same ice cream. It ended up being a finger length long and maybe 1.5 finger widths wide and was eaten in two bites.  We planned on selling our ice creams like trays of chocolates, each was just a taste, a morsel of decadence at the end of meal.  Very quality over quantity.  THe manager scouted a new location. An island with an abandoned factory - we cleared out the inside but left the crumbling exterior to hide our activities.  The manager also got us all excited about this new idea and way of working.

We worked long weeks discussing and shaping various delicacies that were reminiscent of the chocolates we used to make. I remember at one point she praised the grandson for his innovative way of putting two different flavours together - flavours she wouldn't have dreamt were compatible.  THe old grandfather gets a new lease on life, absolutely captivated by the new line of products and eagerly looking forward to coming to work again.  Its not just an excuse to be out of the house anymore!

Then,a few weeks before we were ready to unveil our new company to the world, the odious guy I helped get a job in another area, started following us and discovered what we were doing.  He reported us to head office who thundered down that we had no right to go off on our own initiative. SHe set up a new arm of the company run by these three people I had laid off (ie those who had an axe to grind) to investigate selling innovative new forms of beer!  Using the full backing of the parent company they were to crush us.

Now I get a bit hazy here, whether the company laid us off and we formed our own company, this there would be a charge of intellectual theft seeing as our previous chocolate creations would be the intellectual property of the company and we many not have had a legal right to use the same flavour recipes for our ice creams. Or it could just be that dreams are weird.  I mean how can they destroy ice-cream makers by setting up a beer company?  Surely the two were aimed at different sectors of the market and could co-exist and even cross-fertilise ideas quite comfortably.

Anyway, my colleagues are getting increasingly nervous so I talk with each of them about their fears (as HR person I seem to do a lot of emotional hand-holding as well as process documentation) and then the big day arrives.

We unveil our company, it is a huge success. We obtain huge orders and adulation on our opening day. Everyone is ecstatic, even the manager who was rather keen to point out that the birth of a new company is longer and just as stressful as having a real baby.

I think about my future and the future of the company and decide that I'm not needed anymore. They are a cohesive working family, there are no disruptive elements, there are no external pressures pulling them apart. They re working as a family of friends.

I write them a letter stating my reasons for leaving (far more eloquently than I am doing here) and I mention each one of them by name and thank them for a service or kindness they had done over and above to get the new company off the ground.

It galls me now that I can't remember that letter, because inside it contains all the hooks I need to remember all the other parts of the story.  All the bits I've forgotten. Why did the guys I lay off hate us so much, why was the parent company still employing them (or reemploying them). Who were the rest of the staff, my dream dealt with each person as an individual, fleshing out their hopes, dreams, desires and back story and I can't remember any of it.

Oh well. That's what a sleep-in will do to you :)