How utterly powerless I feel today. These two wonderful people, by complete coincidence have left our company today and I have been able to do nothing to prevent it.

Both of them are absolute gems.

I will miss Beth sitting outside my office door, firing me emails telling me what's what or giving me encouraging smiles when she can see I'm under siege. She's one of the best qualitative researchers I've met yet we have let her walk away from us with barely a second glance. I'm still baffled as to how that was allowed to happen.

Marianne is an inspirational manager of people. Her team was transformed by her arrival. She turned a bunch of dishevelled, unmotivated individuals into a cohesive team within weeks and she continued to motivate and inspire them until today when she too walked away from us because we didn't have it in our heart to allow her some compassionate leave.

Do I sound angry? You bet I am. I feel as though our company will be a worse place without these two. Don't get me wrong - this isn't indicative of the company as a whole or even of my division as a whole.....and it's no worse than every other company I've worked for. I think I'm just frustrated that I'm now part of the club that allows these things to happen.

Beth and Marianne - how much I will miss you. You are both deeply loved and cherished by all of your friends. I hope we can find the time to stay in touch and to continue the process of supporting and looking out for each other.

I have irreparably damaged my own life by working too many hours and saying 'yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir' when necessary. Sometime I have to just say - enough!