News from work

I have two pieces of news from work.

Firstly:
I attended a meeting yesterday, at 18:00 (on my day off!) concerning the restructuring of my team at work.
We (5 of us) sat there for an hour and came out of the meeting knowing not much more than we knew before, but that what we knew was official. Basically, no firm decisions have been made on anything except that the team will be reducing down from 12 to4, with the other 8 remaining where they are (if they want) and acting as back up to those 4 who are promoted.
The new position is also still with our security company, rather than an in-house job as we hoped, but will be on a higher rate of pay with "the chance" that those 4 may be taken in house at some later point.
All in all, everything should be sorted by March!! So, it sounds like it will be 3 months of stressing for me!
The manager stated that no one has been selected already for the positions, though if he expects us to believe that he must be stupid. Most of us have guessed who will get the jobs and all came up with the same answers! Not all because of their ability, but some of them because of who they are friends with!!
It's one thing to be told of a job by someone you know, it's another thing to get the job just because you are friends with, or related to, someone! I would hate that, knowing that everyone thinks you are not up to the job, no matter how well you end up doing the job.
I have always earned any promotion I got, and, on the occassions that they didn't work out, I had to deal with the fall out myself. It wasn't always pleasant, but I feel it is the best way to learn. And I was brought up to realise that you have to work hard for what you want.
Thanks mum.

Secondly:
I received a recorded delivery letter from work this morning, which was strange as I wasn't expecting anything.
It turns out that the pay rise dispute that the union had has been resolved and we are getting a payrise of an extra 28 pence per hour. (Better than last year when we got 16p!)
My employers made a point of letting us know that, since they took over our contract, my pay has increased by 41%, as if that was all down to their discretion! They are the ones who got thousands of pounds of bonuses to distribute among the guard force last Christmas and took most of it for themselves!
This pay rise is in addition to any extra money received due to these new positions coming up. It's better than a kick in the bollocks, I guess, but nothing outstanding.
Bet I still don't get my 6-month bonus at the end of the month though! I'll be lucky if I get my appraisal by then!