Dining

I don’t like eating at my desk. There I said it.

I like being able to get away from my desk for a moment or 30. Eat my lunch in peace, away from the bright lights of the overhead florescence and noise of ringing phones.

Recent studies have shown that desks are actually more unhygienic that toilets. This is likely because they simply aren’t cleaned as often but no less of a worry.

I’m hot desking again today and the first thing I had to do was get out the surface cleaner and cloth. I swear there was a pube, font and centre. Within minutes of sitting down I had a dirty hand heal. I went search of the cleaner.

Now the desk smells like a gents loo…why do office cleaning product always smell like that?

Anyway, I digress.

Where do you eat lunch?

In the office that I currently reside I, there is a small galley kitchen but no where to sit and eat. There’s a meeting room but if there’s someone in there having a meeting, you are left with no choice but to eat at your desk.

Today someone was having a lunch meeting. First, that’s just rude to schedule a meeting over lunch and not provide lunch, second I had to eat at the smelly boy loo desk.

So while I was scoffing my baked potato with Chicken korma I decided to look up the rules about such things.

Apart from saying that a separate dining area needs to be provided were 10 or more people would be dining at once, I’m pretty sure on a floor of 70+ staff, 10 or so would be having lunch at the same time, it also states:

# separated from the work process

I think this is key. Eating at your desk would not be considered separate for the work process.

Just goes to show my desire to get out is valid and should be continued. I’m going for a walk.



http://www.ohsrep.org.au/faqs/workplace-and-amenities/dining-facilities-what-must-employers-provide/index.cfm

Just when you thought...

…it was safe to go back into the water.

The other day a surfer was attacked and killed off the coast off the Western Australian coast by a great white shark about 180km north of Perth.

Shock horror. Yes, it’s a nasty thing to happen and those that were on the beach when it happened, it would have been partially horrible thing to witness.

Family and friends are devastated by the accident. They have my sympathy because losing a loved one is awful and has a profound effect on the rest of your life.

The authorities are now combing the water for the offending creature so they can kill it so it doesn’t kill anyone else.

I have a solution to this. Don’t kill the shark for doing what sharks do, eat things in the water. Stop people going in the water or let them go in the water and let Darwinism take its course. It think it called the natural order of things. I stay out of the ocean. I understand they are many things in it that can move quicker than me through water and would, if given the chance, could kill me. Not just sharks, but jelly fish, snakes and fish with spines that have toxins that can cause heart failure in minutes.

How many sharks will they kill in the search for the ‘maneater’?

Why do sharks now feel the need to attack humans? Is it because they look like seals? It could be. Is it because the fisherman are denuding the water of natural prey, fish? Maybe. Are we just hearing about more attacks because of the internet and social media?

I really don’t think killing off white pointer sharks is the solution to this issue. Killing the sharks will only leave the oceans devoid of predators and every environment needs predators to keep a balance.

Is the next step to bring back capital punishment for killers. Are we going to bring back lynch mobs and dispense with the court system? Hang ‘em high from a branch.

That’s what we’re doing to the sharks. I understand we can’t have a trial for a shark, lack of a speech centre in the brain and need to keep water flowing over the gills being an issue. But why punish an animal for simply surviving.

I find the imbalance between human and animal rights disturbing.

We need to think about what we’re doing. Wake up and see that it isn’t all about us, humans. Animals deserve a lot more respect and the rights to do what they need to do to survive.



http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/surfer-taken-by-shark-north-of-perth/story-e6frg13u-1226425990874

Bad for you?

I’ve been thinking about exercise lately. Yes, thinking about it.

Those of you that know me, know my philosophy that ‘exercise is bad for you’. This is born of knowing no one that partakes on a regular basis that hasn’t sustained an injury from it and my own experience of having to having my hip reconstructed at the age of 18 because of my love and vast abilities at hockey, field, not ice.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not a complete couch potato. I walk, a lot. I dig the garden. I cycle on occasion, but not so much since my cycle buddy went missing.

I’d like to use the stairs more often, but despite having to travel between levels 3 and 2 a lot when at work, I am forced to use the lift due the fire doors being closed off except for an emergency.

With recent studies showing too much sitting is likely to end your life earlier, I would have thought offices would be encouraging the use of stairs between floors. No, they would like us to inconvenience our fellow office dwellers by making us go one floor in the lift.

Considering I’m more than 40% likely to die in the next three years because I spend more than eight hours a day sitting, I’d like to use the stairs a bit more.

Let me break it down…
Car to station: 10 minutes
Train trip: 45 minutes
Desk time: 8 hours (that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it)
Train trip: 45 minutes
Station to car: 10 minutes
Telly watching and evening computer time: 2+ hours

That adds up to far too much sitting. A bit scary really and no wonder I have the fitness of a 80 year old.

How about exercise for the day, I know it isn’t nearly as much.

From car to station x 2 : 10 minute walk
From station to office x 2 : 5 minutes including 35 steps
Lunch time stroll/walk: 50 minutes

At the weekend, maybe a few hours of walking in total. I do plenty of standing too. I stand when I do my music practice and I stand to cook. I also stand at the photocopier/printer waiting for my latest masterpiece to pop out.

So, I do my 150 minutes of exercise and more per week which increases my chances a bit, but the odds still aren’t great. I repeat, I think I’d like to use the stairs at the office more.

Or… I need a dog that forces me outside. Or as noted in previous posts, a different form of employment ;-)

How does your sitting to exercise ratio stack up?


http://news.yahoo.com/too-much-sitting-kill-study-suggests-200408243.html

On a lighter note

In the four weeks since I procured and commenced my recorder playing career I have mastered a few tunes, including but not exclusively:

Hot Cross Buns
Mary Had a Little Lamb
When The Saints Come Marching In
Snail

Now that my Tenor Recorder has arrived I’m working on Amazing Grace, and the cats have stopped leaving the room in disgust when I start practice.

Lennox

There is a dog called Lennox in Belfast, Ireland, with a noose around his neck.

He’s been living like that for two years. In a kennel after being ripped away from his family for simply looking like a Pitball Terrier. His registration papers, issued by the same council that did the impounding, say he’s a Bull Dog. He has done nothing to cause the community concern. There was no reason for his detention or death sentence.

News on Twitter, Facebook and other media sites have been saying for the last week that he’s due to be killed tonight. That’s every night for the last week. They also say that his family have been told they are not allowed to visit him in his final hours and his ashes will be posted to them. We don't know the details of what's happening currently, but you can be sure the basics are true.

We had a similar case recently in Melbourne, Australia. Luckily, that dog was returned to his owners after an investigation.

Both of these stories have occurred because of one thing. Breed Specific Legislation.

Frankly it’s rubbish.

How can you punish an animal based purely the misfortune of it's birth.

Do we punish people born into poor, bad neighbourhoods purely because their heritage tells us they are likely to commit crime. No, we wait until they do, if they do. If they do, then they get imprisoned. Why can't we extend the same courtesy to dogs?

Throughout my life I've seen different breeds come under fire. Dobermans, Rottweilers, German Shepherds and now PitBulls.

Any dog has the ability to be vicious. One of the scariest dogs I ever met was a Pomeranian. Cute and fluffy to look at, but if you got within a five feet radius of his ‘territory’ and that was whereever he happened to be, he’d latch on and only let go if you poured water down his nose holes. Sounds cruel, but that dog did damage. I wouldn’t go near it, or Santa as he was named. The owner would say, ‘Oh, never mind dear, he’s just being protective.’

That dog lived to be 16 years old with his owner defending his name, the whole neighbourhood wanted him gone, he was a menace and proved it many times. I was lucky enough not to be scared for life. He was a Pom, how dangerous could a Pom be? He never did, but I’m pretty sure if a toddler had ever wandered into his range, he could have done fatal damage.

Of course, the council wasn’t interested. We had a vendetta against a harmless, yappy, little fluffball according to them. You can bet your butt if it had been something bigger, they’d have been around like a shot.

I have friends that have bull breeds. My friends are calm, loving and most of all, leaders of their packs. The dogs are smoochy, friendly and well behaved with other dogs and humans alike.

If we need to stop anything, it’s stupid owners that don’t know how to treat dogs to get the best from them.

BSL doesn’t work, it’s a faulty system that punishes arbitrarily. Think about what you're doing governments and councils of the world.

Most of all though, I'd like to say, if he isn’t dead already, let Lennox go!





Update: 23.58pm Lennox has been put to sleep in Belfast http://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/news/news.asp?id=3109

Wasted

Will I look back on my life when on my deathbed and think, ‘Did I waste my life?’

I know it seems like a grim thing to think about, but seeing as we are here for such a short time I believe it something we should all reflect on, regularly.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last few days while I’ve been sick. I can’t pin my feelings of lethargy, upset tummy, sniffy nose and vertigo on any one thing, but I honestly think I’m sick of doing something that leaves me unfulfilled.

Yes I know I do lots of things outside work hours that should keep me entertained and my mind off the hours of boredom and thumb twiddling, but I can’t help but shake the feeling those long, eight hours are the ones taking a toll on my body that cannot be reversed with a few short hours crochet, speech writing, recorder playing and stand up comedy.

Is it unreasonable to expect a level of enjoyment and satisfaction from your job? I don’t think so. Surely a happy employee is a constructive employee.

How do I correct this imbalance in my life without sending myself broke?

I have no idea, given my current plans/dreams are likely to end in disappointment.

At the moment I’m hoping that the publisher that requested to see my partially written manuscript wants the rest and pays me a small advance to finish it and then it goes on to be an international success. Because I know it’s written better that Fifty Shades of Grey, after all, it as nothing to do with Twilight, so it must be. Right?

Or I’ll suddenly become an in demand Civil Celebrant. I know that isn’t going to happen. Either people aren’t dying or getting married or they have no idea I exist (despite advertisments) or don’t care.

What if I were to win the lottery; would we still be friends?

Maybe, my stand-up will become popular and I’ll soon be making pod-casts and making appearances on TV panel and radio shows with my quick wit and amusing insights into popular culture.

I’m a realist; I know there is no overnight solution. But I fear my current health levels require something fairly rapid.

At this stage I’m left looking for a job in my current line of employment that may satisfy my need to be productive. I just want to be busy. I need to be occupied. It keeps my mind and body focused and gives it a reason to want to get out of bed in the morning, because currently, if asked the opening question, my answer would assuredly be, 'Yes'.