... but also ...

I am a little sad tonight.

New patient, a young girl/lady, was filling in the new patient form and asked what 'alternative ' meant.  Except she couldn't even pronounce it correctly and called it 'alternate'.

She was quite nice, and her friend who had suggested out centre was also nice, but I find it very distressing when simple words are not understood.  I was heartened the friend gave a good explanation of 'alternative ' even if she was calling it 'alternate '.

I have had young people ask what midday or noon means.
I have had young persons ask what surname means.

George narrowly escaped adornment yesterday when he stopped by. His family, or someones family, were taking him for a walk (unleashed).

Odd

It is not a good year, so far, for people i know. One dead due to head injuries from a fall down stairs; another just diagnosed with breast cancer, and at the moment i am hoping nieces broken toe counts as something cause everything else seems to be fairly extreme.

Was covering someone elses shift at work Friday. She is an ex-hairdresser and always wears lots of makeup and good hair, so dressed up and did my hair and makeup, to be funny.

Startled at the reaction engendered by both public and workmates.
Can only conclude I must look a bit rough sometimes.

Believe there is speculation that perhaps I now have a boyfriend, lol.

Sweet

I don't know why, but this song has been teasing around the edges of my mind all week.
I never actually heard the full song before.  It was only a snippet on the radio.
So, today whilst at my sister-in-law's house scouring the job ads I thought to google it.
It's really rather sweet.

You Put Your Arms Around Me - Jens Lekman

It has much improved my mood :)

Well ... things are very different at the Centrelink office too.

Had my phone interview yesterday morning and was booked in at the Government Job Search Agency that afternoon.  I get to sign lots of documents.  And apparently after I get a job I have to forward them copies of my payslips for months?!?

She wasn't actually all that bad, it was just the gentle patronising tone that irritated me, and the lock of astonishment when I said I was 40.  I wonder how old she had thought I was?  She was rather giving me the impression I did not know how to tie up shoe-laces.

Attended Centrelink this morning and normally one arrives; ones name is taken; and one is told to sit down and wait until ones name is called.

Not now.  Now they have to make an appointment for me to come back because they only have a limited number of staff able to approve claims.  I've never had that happen before.  There was a line out the door and nearly around the corner of the building.  How many staff have they lost?  The poor cookies.

And since I am in the middle of a rant, WHY CAN'T I ACCESS MY SUBJECT LINE TO MAKE A HEADING????  WHERE HAS THE PUBLISH/SAVE BUTTON GONE????

11:38 am Centrelink dude was nice, but the place looks like a desert.  They just need a few tumbleweeds.  Another lineup out the door.  Stacks of other people waiting for their appointment, being subject to one of the morning shows whilst they wait.  That vacuum cleaner is starting to look very tempting to me.

Update

Blogger hates me at present, but I have not an appropriate level of interest to enable me to investigate why.

Have been spending obscene lengths of time in bed when I should be doing things.  Starting from tomorrow will beat myself with baseball bat (or should that be cricket bat since I am Australian?) to make myself move.

It's not exactly depression, just an overwhelming desire to retreat from the world.

That movie, the name of which I cannot remember at present by that guy from Talking Heads, whose name I also cannot currently remember, but wot had that guy who played the husband of Rosanne Barr in her television series, whose name I also cannot remember but was perhaps John something, in it and that featured a rich female character, whose name I do not remember, who had not left her bed for years, has been somewhat on my mind of late as rather a desirable idea.

Except her bedroom was all very pastel and frilly and not a place I would want to spend years in.

Ha!  David Byrne

A lovely movie.  Very scenic.  Lots of flat expanses with big horizons and pictures of doors.

w00t!

temp job starting monday
goes till 29 June
just in time for me to save up for my rego
plus all my underwear appears to be falling a part at once

am making up a shopping list
my head is all full of iwantz

I will miss watching my cats snooze but

Bummer dude

hum, well ... they said they would call this week to let people know who had the job, so i figure i ain't got it - not that i was really expecting to get a call - the interview didn't start out well for me

the lady interviewing started off sternly with the result in the testing and then said i was lucky to get an interview - which rattled me (i didn't do good on the literacy test - as previously mentioned i went back over it after i'd finished and screwed it up second-guessing myself - doh - but i had done very well at the actual typing of the court proceedings - in fact i had the impression i'd actually done the best at the actual court typing out of all the applicants)

so i think i screwed it up again after that

not to mention i can't seem to stop myself getting a bit watery-eyed when the subject of my last job comes up - instant stress reaction, though i don't actually burst into tears - i wore my glasses during the interview this time to try and cover it up, but they aren't tinted, so not sure how effective a cover it is

obviously it is going to take a bit longer for my abraided nerves to get a grip on themselves
its tough being a chicken weiner nancy girl

my previous boss - the nice one who left before i did - rang to say he might have something coming up in the next couple of weeks, so i have my fingers crossed

he looked so happy and stressfree the last time i saw him

anyway, so i've kind of taken the last week off from looking for work whilst i was waiting to hear back from the court job

paid the last of my bills this fortnight so only had enough money for one meal a day for myself - eating lots of rice - lol

quite a few jobs advertised so back on the applicant wheel again tomorrow or monday

the cats continue happy and well-fed and pleased to have me at home

Wooliff-cat insisting I should pay attention to him again

I love dictionaries and spellcheck

ARGH!

I knew I should have studied before I went in for the transcribing test.  If I finish with enough time to check my work, I always start second guessing myself and thinking everything looks wrong.  I have just looked up some of the words I typed and realise that I had spelt them right originally, and then corrected it into something very wrong - and do you think I could remember how to spell illicit and renown?  No.  I had illicit right originally, but it looked wrong so I went with ellicit - I am such a doofus.

We were not allowed to use spell check.

And I ended up going with renouned instead of renown, even though I knew it was wrong - renown just wouldn't come for me at all.  I don't think I've even read that word in a long time.

I tried not to mutter (cursing my ignorance) as I typed, but I believe I couldn't stop myself giving the occasional 'oh what the heck' shrug.

Renown is not a word I would have expected in a court session, so study would have been redundant in that case anyway.

As will no doubt be plain from my blog,  punctuation, grammar and spelling are not my strong points.  I've also read a few too many things written with the intention of emphasising pronunciation and very nearly accidentally typed 'carn't' instead of 'can't'.

Still ... I had a nice time, which is not something one can say about testing for jobs usually, and I have other prospects, but this would have been an interesting job.  I can only hope that I get some of the audio-typing correct that the others did not.

Never mind.  If I get the job I interviewed for yesterday I will be driving an estimator around in a hummer and following him about at job sites taking notes, which would be fun too.

And if I don't get either of them, the nice manager from my last place of employment who left a month or so before me, said he might have something coming up soon.  It's nice to be wanted :)

move along people - nothing to see here

oh ah ... I am  begging my cats forgiveness for my slackness concerning their kitty litter whilst at same time cursing them ( or in this case her ) for leaping up onto my little notebookieishcomputerthingy when I was amidst online testing for a recruitment company, causing me to grab and chuck in a precipitice (sp?) manner, and thus her claw which had delicately and lightly landed and latched, snicked and lifted the letter "t" away, making my blogging life just that little bit more difficult, which indeed has nothing to do with my slack poopyscoping - i merely lack the will

my scooter blew a fuse at an inconvenient moment this week and I spent too much in that first initial first flush of money and now I am screwed, fuse or no - I really don't want to beg money from my mother, but may yet need to

my oldest and best beloved cat vomits if he is fed anything other than fancyfeast which is distributed in tiny little cans at a dollarish a pop which at twice a day, fourteen days, comes to twenty-eight dollars - if I am lucky

indeed the four yorkshireman sketch is close to my thoughts as I attempt to work out my fortnighly budget - pffft!

really I can't  help but thing I should just blow the whole thing and just buy champagne instead

I almost wish I smoked so that I could futilely puff away a weeks worth of food in an hour via a long cigarette holder

but would you not be offended if someone said I don't thing you'll have a problem fitting in, I think it is more of an issue of you focussing on the work - after pointed and laboured questions like, have you ever worked in an open plan office before?

apparently I talked too much at the interview, but isn't one supposed to talk at an interview?  Particularly if the person doing the interview doesn't actually ask you any questions?  What was I supposed to do?  I think it is because I've turned forty.  I am less nice than I used to be.  I wouldn't normally take offence, but in my last job I was working six and seven day weeks unpaid and ten hour days and even when I came back to work casual, after having resigned, had to point out to the person replacing me that it doesn't really work when updating the database if the person has written the wrong month down and hadn't she noticed?  because it doesn't really work if it is only september and you are dating stuff off as having been done in November.

still ... that is all behind me now and I need to get a grip (but still it seems like a very rude thing to say at an interview - it was just ordinary chitchat for heavensake - the ol' I like to be busy and daytime television is aweful - Xena is my high point of the day blah blah blah).

(I promise not to mention Xena at an interview ever again - cross my heart)

(fuck me, what would have happened if I'd mentione Dr Phil?!)

do you know ... i thought i had been angry at work before, but i realise now, that it was bollocks, and i knew not what office rage was

i have been so angry this week, that actually i couldn't work


I couldn't even think straight
I pick up a file and then i couldn't find it again.

it is completely and utterly silly


so I have not sent off a dramatic and self indulgent email, such as i would like too

I have not sworn and cursed at anybody in the same room
I am not present for the next week for a good and forewarned reason
and I am just not coming back

though actually I am still inclined to send an email

but
i struggle
any protest on my account is going to be brushed off as the ravings of an emotionaly unstable person who drinks too much coffee.  I would like to think that they ie. other management/important type people that i have encounted - would take a grain of salt with that but there is no way I can be sure of that.

what i really want to know is ... how does one go about applying for work when one doesn't feel comfortable giving a contact number/referee for ones last place of employment?

I do not put it past them to give me a not very good reference.  They have sold themselves on the idea that they tell the hard truths. 

Though the hard truth is that they are weak, petty and vindictive against anybody who disagrees with them.  Maybe it screws with their ideas of self worth or something?  I don't know.  I do not read minds.  Though  I do have a tricky and strong gift for static electricity and that is startlingly painful when the contact point is mid-point of a thumb-nail.

She was trying to make a big deal of the other guy taking a day of, and implying he was lazy and takes days off to be inconvenient.  Not sure how my report of doctors appointment for seizing child will figure in her 'issues' with people who have children and how it interferes with their work.  Fuck but she is a bitch.   I don't even like using the work bitch.  Fuck, lets call it like it is and call her a bleached cunt, hey?

However, other than that my delightful eldest niece has introduced me to Trock.  Timelord Rock.  A couple of the songs have been rather awesome.  I know not if I can ever be satisfied with anything else.  Do you suppose if I wrote to Glenn Richards and Dan Kelly they would have a go at writing a timelord rock song?

THIS isn't the song i meant but is also good

so ...

so ...  i didn't want to work the weekend but circumstances and the bullyface lady from down south with her sudden unconsulted two week deadline conspired against me

and yet

i was called into the office today by the queensland manager - who is here three days this week - to be lectured, LECTURED!!!!, that they really don't want people working overtime on the weekend -
only if its really necessary - and this is the bit that cooked my goose -  particularly not if you are babysitting all week and than working overtime on the weekend ... that's just not on

GO FUCK YOURSELF
is what i thought
what i am doing is tomorrow i am tidying my desk, collecting my stuff and going home ... never to darken the doorstep of their donger again

and good luck with that two week deadline

(though actually i found out today by asking the stakeholder that our lot were the ones to set the deadline in the first place)

if only the were a more painful oriface than the arse to tell them to shoooooove something sharp and jaggered up

never more have i wished i had the power to inflict boils upon others
may they get a nasty rash in the crack of their bums

I confess ... it wasn't the cheese

work is making me cross again and i am waking at 1 am and such and brooding and not going back to sleep until 4 or 5 or not at all

but didn't you quit? you might ask

yes.  yes i did.  but then i came back as a casual, cause there just isn't anybody else to do my job until the new managers start which is still over a month away.

that is hardly your fault, you might say

well no.  but its not nice to start a job with a big mess that you don't know how to do let along fix.  it seems mean.
i am assuming you quit for a reason though, right?  didn't you feel they were mean to you?
well yes.  they keep setting this stupid impossible deadlines and ignoring or not believing me when i tell them stuff ... like the other day!  we told them we don't get the things weekly that we are supposed to get weekly and that woman said, well they said they do.

so she was calling you a liar?

but she didn't say the word liar, you see.  obviously if called on this point pitying looks and questions regarding how much coffee i'd had to drink so far that day would be made.

that sounds like a subtle form of bully to me

yes but she doesn't mean it like that.  she is just thoughtless and tactless with weak people skills.  lacking in emotional intelligence if one wants to use buzz words

how do you know whats in her head?

i am usually pretty good with people and think she is basically a nice person.  she is just sure she is right ... and obviously must think i have trouble tying my own shoe laces and going to the toilet or something even though they insist i am great and they would like me to stay



i don't want to brood, but i do rather want to tell them to stuff it up their jumpers and I can't stop my brain rehearsing things i might potentially say

Melbourne Cup day and there is a horse called "The Verminator" which is awesome, hey?  not rated though.  poor the verminator

This is my weekend

So ... I have two computers I work on.  One is our companies the other is a clients. 

It should be simple to run a report from our database with times worked on a job and fill it in onto the clients.  Sadly it is not. 

There were some new things we haven't billed before which the person entering the times and equipment didn't understand what should and should not be included and then we had a temp working at the office checking to see if that matched the timesheets and then filling it in on the clients database for us because we were somewhat behind and they said it would make my life easier. 

So now I am going back over our database and comparing times to the timesheets and correcting our database and then going back over the clients database to see what was entered and correcting that. 

To complicate matters I can't delete anything from the clients database and can only enter 13 records of time at a time, the total hours of which then have to equal a line on a different tab and than save that and start the next 13. 

What makes this time especially tricky is that what was entered on the first record should have been broken down into normal time, time and a half and double time.  So I have to change the line on the first record of 3.  Make sure the total hours worked for that record equal the line on the other tab and then find space on the third record to enter the time and a half and double time and then update the total hours worked on the line on the other tab for that record and then since there are a few of these but not all of them, I have to save that record, just to be on the safe side and then I have to go back through the three tiered classification system to bring that record up again to do the next one I may come across, because if I try to just edit a second time the whole database comes up with a run time error and shutsdown.

Six hours yesterday and I am having trouble making myself start today.

I am looking at it and it's like my brain is saying 'why don't you just go squat on a piece of land in the middle of nowhere and grow your own food instead.  you could have chickens.  and goats.  goats would be cool.  you know you want a goat.' 

One Hour Later

ARGH
and of course we have both subcontractors and employees working, who work different hours at normal time and of course the ones who normally only work 8 hour days have been working 10 hours days with overtime being billable but the person entering the timesheets didn't realise and I have already completed three weeks of this and only just noticed they don't have their overtime entered for their 10 hour days during the week - bugger bugger bugger

Aye Currumba

So ... I gave notice yesterday  - but for 2 September.

I want to try and get up to date and leave a nice organised desk for the next person (and to save up for the period of unemployment that is undoubtedly going to follow). 

Was hoping to let it slide for a while without any announcements, but HRish person is participating in charity bike ride and dropping in to office tomorrow and they want to do an exit interview.

My nerves are a bit worn and I keep suddenly crying without warning, so I'd really rather not have an exit interview right now.  I hate crying publicly.  It is humiliating.  And I look dreadful.  All snotty and red blood shot eyes. 

Lady who was demoted is going to go spare and newbie trial manager is going to be unhappy - which will make me unhappy because he is quite lovely. 

Lady who was demoted's 'that's not my job anymore' does not quite seem to be garnering the attention she appears to want - but she is not letting this stop her.

morning

... and saturday doth roll round again and I am number one on google search for "dribbling panic"

I am at work again

I feel like I'm miming against a strong wind
there is a sense of urgency and I'm really working it
but I just can't care much

did I admit I need to eat humble pie regarding the woman from down south?
she was helpful when she was here
but more importantly she didn't get in the way
she did indeed fly like an eagle
I tried not to be a turkey

demoted lady started off well this week and then deteriated into a major pain in the arse and then seemed to be pulling back out of it again yesterday - she is fantasising conspiracies on the part of mature trainee who has been placed in her job - i wish people would stop casually asking 'how are you?' in greeting because she tells you

I have my fingers crossed for next week

I used to write bad poetry for amusement value
type out little bits from books I wanted to share
and take photos for this blog

I feel like I've turned into some eating shitting automaton
2011 has not been a good year
I am determined to do something nice for myself next year

in the meantime I shall keep buying tickets int he RSL Art Union
just because I like looking at the pictures of the houses
and thinking about what I would do if I won them
which I won't
of course
but I apear to need assistance to fantasise lately
cause my brain is like a desert
like desscicated coconut
I can hear the 'shrrushhhhhhhhhhshhurshhh' when i tilt my head

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I would like to say the stress and strain of upheavals at work have left me mad, bad and dangerous to know, but mostly I am just a bit sad.

And nervous.  Very nervous.

Someone was demoted and someone promoted and there are only three admin staff in the place, so its all close and personal.  There was weeping.

Resulting in an inability in me to sleep properly, culminated in me accidentially playing a computer game until 4:16 am Sunday morning, but which has had the happy result of causing me to dream about the computer game, rather than lay awake thinking about work.

Lady at the shop I buy my lunch from says her record for computer gaming was a recreational drug assisted three days.

Heck, I've only actually stayed awake all night twice in my forty years and I was trying to nod along knowingly.  I really must do some wicked things at some point.

But I slept better anyway

Sunday and I am torn between trying to do more work or tidying up?
A quandry.

I really should get home to hang out some washing at some point too, else next week I shall have to come to work wrapped up in a sheet.

But the office looks like a bomb's hit it and I think we are supposed to be suffering our yearly internal audit next week in addition to the blonde terror.

God.  I've only been here nine months.  I said at the interview I was happy to work hard, but I wanted a nice quiet job which I didn't have to stress about out side of work hours. hahahahahahahahahahahaahhahaahah

Smallest violin in the world

A poor nights sleep and a weekend of work before the bully from down south arrives and my brain presents me with endless scenarios most of which end in me cowardly telling my boss I'm sick and can't come in for the rest of the week - lol - I am such an internal drama queen. 

sigh - next week will be heinous. 

She will barge in like a blonde bull.  Tell us how crap we are.  Make a slap-dash hurried job of it, whilst telling us we do everything wrong.  Dumping the labourious shit bits on me.  Imply I am slow and incompetent because the labourious shit bits take me so long.  Perhaps tell me she can't see the point in me being employed here again -  and then when it is rejected I shall be blamed.  Which is what happened last time. 

She talks a good game though.  Tough and authoritive.  I can see in her head she sees herself as nononsense and efficient, cutting through red tape and streamlining outdated fussy incompetence.  Flying like an eagle surrounded by turkeys.

She works hard.  Under control she would be a nice person.  Probably.  She will slave for the week she is here, in an atmosphere that is less than welcoming.

*cough cough*
oh deary me
*cough cough*
I think I am experiencing flu-like symptoms
*cough cough*

I do apologise that his has just become a place for me to whinge about my job and I am not blogging this for sympathy and poor babies.  I just need to vent and I find writing cathartic. 

Pinning thoughts to my blog with words helps stops them from running around endlessly in my head. 

It's like an endless pinball game in my head sometimes.

Love schmove

The lady I work with is possibly in love and at the very least excessively happy and filled with vim and vigour which has resulted in her talking CONSTANTLY.

I quite like self absorbed people under normal circumstances.  I have never been much good at small talk and someone happy to talk about themselves takes the burden of conversation off me, but she is also blessed with an abundance of energy, possibly something to do with the gurana, fish oil and other vitamins she is downing - but she is a hyper active person anyway and will wake at 2 in the morning and unable to get back to sleep does not go have a warm bath and a glass of milk, but instead get up and clean her house - she talked for eight hours straight yesterday even though I had the "don't interrupt me I need to concentrate" headphones on.  I am going to go deaf if I have to keep upping the volume on the walkman.

Flogging my best of Warren Zevon cd at present.  Have come to really really like the second half of the french inhaler even though I don't really like the first half.  You said you were an actress, yes I believe you are, I thought you'd be a star, so I drank up all the money, yes I drank up all the money with these phoneys in this hollywood bar, with these friends of mine in this hollywood bar"

Sooky Rant

trauma and strife
work transitioning from laid back private business style to big business
still allowed to check your stuff on the net

but being stricter about times

I usually work through my lunch and do my banking when I think of it
curses
I have no sense of timing
I shall have to set a timer and reminder notes for myself
as we have been requested to keep it to between 12 and 1 pm

i generally come in early and read my private emails and the exploding dog cartoon whilst sorting through all the work stuff that takes so long to print since we got the new printer that isn't properly connected up to the network yet - one can read and file at the same time - damnit 

Well, I suppose on the plus side I may as well sleep in, ey?

one always gets a few extra hour of work from the field guys who never see office staff under usual circumstances because they are gone by the time we arrive anyway - one day I timed it and I gained three hours of extra work just because I turned up early (i was trying to get ahead of my backlog hahahahahahaha)


it's really just that I hate other people scheduling me

DON'T SCHEDULE ME MAN

I'm, like, a free spirit, yeah?
like, totally
and I like to eat my lunch at 11 o'clock too
SO THERE!!!!
*blows raspberry*

 you're not the boss of me

(well actually you are and you should give me a payrise)
these are not the droids you are looking for and give madcatlady a payrise
*waves hands mysteriously significantly like a mystical alien Delvene Delaney*



(Delvene Delaney was an australian gameshow wavey/gesturey lady)
(wiki says she was co-host!?!?)

Do you suppose asking to look at the internet outside of 12 and 1 because of personal inadequacies would be acceptable?

wanders away muttering I really really have to get my internet connected at home again

My attempt at a mystical alien Delvene Delaney

P.S.  Essentially what I am saying is I  guess I am back to blogging once a week on a Saturday *sigh*