National Week

It’s National Asbestos Awareness Week.

Check out these links. One is a newspaper story, the other an amazing series of portraits

Caught in the Act

So, I'm sat on the sofa watching Casino Royale tonight. Puss is curled up next to me. I hear a thud in the kitchen and turn round. This is what I see...

This little bastard is getting bolder and bolder.

Pass the Port

A couple of weeks ago I mislaid my passport. OK, I dropped it on the way to have it photocopied by my new employer. Anyway… after reporting it and asking the lost property people to keep an eye out for a couple of days I reported it to the police. I set myself a cut off, if it hadn’t been found by Wednesday at noon, I was going to call the Passport office and tell them I was a idiot.

Wednesday (last week) dawned and I hadn’t heard anything. I called the police, gave them my reference number and was told, nothing had been handed in. I looked up the number of the passport office on the web.

At 11.55 my mobile rang.

It was the Canberra Passport office. Some nice citizen of Sydney had found my passport and mailed it to them. I was informed that it would be sent to the Sydney office and I would have to pick it up from there.

I went down there today and ended up waiting for nearly an hour and a half while they found it. Yes, they had temporarily misplaced it.

But, it’s OK. They found it and now I have it back :-)

Saucy Pasta

I like to catch up on the news in the morning. Obamas kids seeing their new bedrooms in the White House and petrol prices dropping aside, this story caught my eye and this line in particular:

‘A search of his car found pornography, women's stockings, a home-made sex aid and a Jack Russell terrier.’

Why do stories like this keep making the news? I know they are amusing, but is it really news?

Feeling Unwell?

The place where I work relies on Lotus Notes databases for everything. And I mean, EVERYTHING! This has its painful side, in so much as you can’t find anything and most of the stuff is hopelessly out of date.

On the plus side, you can get lost for hours looking for stuff if you want to hide. It’s like a lovely big, dimly lit warehouse full of dusty boxes. You can walk in the door with the intention of looking for, say, stocktake documentation but end up silently giggling at Incident reports.

I did such a thing the other day. It was like one of those chain email joke thingies about insurance claims. It’s not just the incident, most are boring, it’s way they’ve been written up that makes you laugh. You get this picture in your head of someone falling over or whatever, not in itself funny, but when it’s written like this*…

- Customer felt dizzy while standing at the checkout
- Employees feet were sore from blisters on her feet while walking
- Xxx was at the register talking to her colleague when she noticed her nose was bleeding
- Long term issue with walking on right
- Staff member had panic attack (mental illness)
- Xxx was walking on the shop floor when he felt a twinge in his groin
- Staff member sprained his ankle at home whilst walking too fast on an uneven surface
- Member was playing football outside of work hours away from place of employment when member sustained a hard tackle

There are countless incidents of both staff and customers having sore and blistered feet from both new and old shoes, which tell me that if you are shopping or standing all day, there are no ‘comfortable’ shoes.

It made me realise too that every first aider is an amateur doctor. Terms like myocardial infarction and viral infection litter the reports like a tickertape parade, but they have no way of knowing the cause of the problem.

My personal favourite though has to be one that isn’t all that funny, but does have an element of ‘what the…’ about it.

Xxx has a personal illness. Returned from lunch and felt dizzy and had partial loss of sight. (brain tumour)*.

What the hell? IT'S PERSONAL!



* names have been deleted and slight editing of content has taken place.

Sex and Politics

I’ve always been told that you shouldn’t discuss money, sex or politics in polite conversation. However, a new political party in the great brown land of Australian is preposing to talk about sex and politics in the classroom.

How awesome is this…I wonder if they’ll get any votes?

Jumping Hoops

I’ve been at my new job with the department store for just over two weeks. I don’t like it very much as you may have seen. My views haven’t really changed much.

This morning the woman who sits in the seat opposite me and with whom I have spent countless hours in meetings with announced that her doctor had told her what was wrong with her.

Now, on my first day (two weeks and one day ago) she told me that her boyfriend was off sick from work and they thought he had chicken pox. That first week she was coughing and spluttering all over the shop with a ‘bit of a cough’, last week she was off for three afternoons and one whole day. She’s ‘so busy’ that she couldn’t stay away. She’d come in for the morning, cough all over us, and then leave in the afternoon.

She has whooping cough.

Why do people do that. If you are sick...stay at home and keep your highly contagious bacterial infections to yourself.

A Christmas Meme

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper with ribbons
2. Real tree or Artificial? neither, just being me, I do with a massive santa who sits in the corner
3. When do you put up the tree? Any day in december
4. When do you take the tree down? just after new year
5. Do you like eggnog? you mean snotnog?
6. Favourite gift received as a child? Archie
7. Hardest person to buy for? any bloke
8. Easiest person to buy for? any woman
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Nope
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Cards and a newsletter, which reminds me...
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? pipe glue
12. Favourite Christmas Movie's? the Sound of Music
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? when ithink about it or can afford too
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? yeap...
15. Favourite thing to eat at Christmas? fruit jellies
16. Lights on the tree? what tree?
17. Favourite Christmas song? Two Little Boys by Rolf Harris (I know it's not technically a christmas song)
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Christmas Day, at home to veg out, then travel.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Rudolf, Donna, Blitzen, harry, bob, cyril, albert and bob 2...ehh only a couple ;-)
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Fairy, Ohh Todd, you'll be missed
21. Open the presents Christmas morning or afternoon? Am I getting presents this year?
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Too weird having fake snow in teh window when it 35 degrees outside.
23. Favourite ornament theme or colour? Red and gold
24. Favourite for Christmas dinner/meal? champagne breakfast with scrabbled egg and salmon
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? to have no more money worries
26. Who is most likely to respond to this? Todd
27. Who is least likely to respond to this? Simone

ANTM 11-3

Racism and bigotry rose its head again this week. One of the girls claimed to be the 'ultimate white girl' after pushing Isis away from her in the hot tub. The coloured girls in the house decided to confront her about it. Tears were shed. Nothing more was said.

A touch of hooch and class had Jay admonishing and praising in equal measure.

Nikeysha was the second go home.

Slighty Bent

I read with interest today that there has been a rise in the amount of American parents naming their babies after the new President-elect. Thought you might be interested in the origin and meaning of his name.

The meaning of the name Barack : Blessed*
The origin of the name : African
Notes about the name : form of the Hebrew name Baruch

The meaning of the name Obama : Slighty bent*
The origin of the name : African
Notes about the name : From the rare Luo (Kenyan) name, meaning a baby born with a bent arm or leg or possibly a breech birth.

So, does this mean the leader of the free world will be led, from January 2009, by a blessed, slighty bent, African Jew? I know not, but given the generalised beliefs, feelings and thinking of the citizens there, I wouldn't have thought they'd be too happy about that, if they knew what you now know.

Personally, I think it's great, not having yet another old white guy in the slighty not round room. He can do it.

*Source: http://www.babynames.com/

Hunger

I find myself in a constant state of hunger. I can’t really explain why this would be so, because now that I’m working I had a massive fruit salad and big cup of tea for breakfast.

It’s 10.44am right now and I’m f*ckin’ starving!

My tummy is hollow, it’s gurgling and I really feel the need to eat a greasy bacon and egg sandwich.

Is it because I’m bored?

Train Trip

I was standing on the platform at Merrylands station this morning, waiting for the 7:31 to the City Circle listening to the melodic tones of Camille Saints-Saens, readying myself for the week ahead when the train rounded the corner.

I could see the driver that would take several hundred commuters including myself to destinations from West to East.

He was laughing merrily while talking on a hand-held mobile phone.

Suddenly I was feeling less calm.

New Job

My first three days back in employment have been entertaining. Actually maybe entertaining isn’t really the right word to describe my time so far working for one of the countries oldest department store.

Entertaining would imply I have experienced some of the following emotions or feelings; charm, cheer, delight, enjoyment, fun, pleasantness, relaxation, when in fact I’ve experienced more of these; disgust, awfulness, disagreement, horror, nausea, objection, outrage, repugnance and overall feelings of yuck!

It’s a culture thing I think, it’s just the old-fashioned 'Are You Being Served?' work environment/ethics that turns my stomach, and my hip into a pain centre.

So the first thing giving me a problem is the lack of flexibility of working hours. There is NO room for manoeuvre. You start at 8.30, have one hour for lunch and leave, not before 5.30. You can only leave early if you have prior permission from your manager. Anyone who actually knows me will know I’m not a morning person and the wake up time for this time schedule means my alarm is set for 0645. This is not good, I've already forgotton to put in earrings and clean my teeth. In previous roles I have had understanding managers that have realised I do not need to be treated like a child to get my work done. I do the hours, effectively but at a slighter later time. This has meant they haven’t seen me in before 9.30 unless I actually have a meeting to attend and if I am at an early meeting I'm not sat there like a zombie nursing a massive cup of caffine.

An unforseen problem with the start time is the travel issues. The trains at that time in the morning are chockers. I have had to stand on every trip so far, bar one. OK it sucks that the train system here is woefully under capacity, but for me having to stand on a moving train that lurches and stutters means footing can be lost and results is sudden and forceful pressure put on my hip. Today this showed itself in a shooting pain from my hip to my knee and through my groin, resulting in a limp that I haven’t had for over three years. Continuing to limp is the start of pain throughout my body and general extreme grumpiness. Lack of sleep will only compound this issue. By having flexible work hours I can get a seat and not have hip issues. Makes for an all round happier interaction for everyone involved.

Here's the other thing…a little scheme for head office staff so they can share the shop floor experience and see what the sales staff deal with on a day to day basis. It involves giving time as an information person standing at the top or bottom of escalators and assisting customer with enquiries. I’m sorry, but I know what shop staff goes through. I’ve done my time in retail and I left it because on a whole, customers are wankers and they are rarely right. I’ve been lucky so far and been ‘allocated’ weekday slots but weekends could be assigned. You’ll find me manning an escalator for the last three trading hours on Christmas Eve.

Don’t get me started on the no paper towels in the bathrooms or the not allowed on the shop floor during work hours or if your bag is bigger than a pea you have to leave it in an open area by the staff entrance or the no bins under desk policies…

All that said…the projects and people I’m going to be working with/on until I get the flock out of there, look like they could be interesting.

ANTM 11-2

It was the second episode this Tuesday, but I only got to see it tonight. I’m a little repulsed by the bigotry being shown towards the pre-op transsexual, Isis. She has earned her stripes in a photo shot depicting the lack of political privacy despite the nasty girls saying things like ‘the bright light may burn of those hairs’ and ‘you need to shave’.

The nastiest was kicked off in the first cut - Sharaun

Congratulations

Mr. and Mrs. Barack Obama made history yesterday by being elected the new President and First Lady of the free world. Well done to all those that didn’t throw their vote this year.

I was reading the Sydney Morning Herald’s letter pages earlier today and I liked what a couple of the contributors had to say, so i thought I'd share;

As a strong supporter of Barack Obama, there is just one thing I would like to say. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sarah Palin. - Keith Perkins Dubbo

I would hate to be a moose in Alaska. - David Graham Wahroonga