Fredrik Fogelberg

 ‘Never can say goodbye No, no, no, I … I never can say goodbye’ (the Communards)

Dear Virtual FriendSorry that I haven’t been in touch for a while.  The truth is, I don’t seem to have time to do anything anymore.  Today was no different…. 

Dear Remote LeadersIt is my sad duty to inform you that Karlov, Kristoff or Konstantin – I never can remember the man’s name – is not here this month to send you his usual under-powered, misinformed and self-pitying comments about the life of a remote leader.  The truth is, he had become so overweight and unhealthy eating chicken nuggets and drinking incessantly and generally not doing a stroke of work that I decided to send him off to a health farm to do the ‘C Plan’ package – counselling, cosmetic surgery, crash diet – that he will need to restore him to any semblance of professional functionality.

Dear Virtual FriendA gentle sunshine strokes my face and a light breeze caresses my lustrous hair. The fresh scent of cut grass fills my nostrils, and the sweet Spring air is filled with birdsong.  I lie back on the warm ground, and stretch out my lithe and muscular body..

Dear Virtual FriendHow are you?  After a bit of a rocky start – career demise, midlife crisis, marital exile in spare bedroom, impending divorce, 20 kg weight gain –  …

Dear Virtual FriendI’m sitting here, frostbitten hands typing this to you on my new (and unfathomably complicated) computer, and wondering why this remote leadership nightmare ever had to happen.      

Dear Virtual FriendMay I call you that?  I’ve no idea whether you’re reading this in Bombay , Barcelona or Basingstoke, but I need to feel someone out there, even a complete stranger whom I’m never met, actually cares about me.  Today my whole life was turned upside down, and I don’t know who I am anymore.  I feel like that chap in Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’, only I haven’t even turned into a beetle, but something much further down the insect pecking order –  a wood louse or carpet bug, perhaps.