Winning Ways

I have never won a thing in my life. In fact until a week ago I had never won a single game of Monoploy before. A few months ago BP, a petrol peddler (one of the nicer salary sucking giants), had a competition to win a Golf GTI.

Some background info is necessary. I drive a 1300 2005 Toyota Tazz, for those who don’t understand what that translates to, it means cheap and slow, but hey she’s my babe, and she’s got a great sound system. I have designs that I’m a pretty good driver, and I get pretty pissed off when I get cut off by those expensive car-driving arseholes and I can’t follow them and run them off the road because I just don’t have the fire power under the bonnet. Whew, glad I got that off my chest.

So anyway the opportunity to win a pretty fast car intrigued me and I only ever fill up at BP, I felt they owed me one. So I entered the competition, a few hundred times, I forget the actual number, but it was somewhere in the region of 450 handwritten entry forms. Ordinarily I would not have filled in so many, but the first time I pulled into the station and asked for one the attendant gave me about 70, so I figured this must be a sign. With all the vigor of a 5 year old on Christmas morning I filled in my first set of entry forms (this all happened during my unemployed days, so plenty of time while I ploughed through the Smallville series). On every form I would keep thinking this is the one, or I hope they pick this one because my handwriting is really neat on this one. All the while dreaming off how I would avenge all those slow car drivers who had been cut off, like a super hero, GTI Girl, they would call me. At the same time I was fending of carpal tunnel syndrome. I even had a distribution technique; I dropped off entries at every BP station in my area. If I happened to be in another area I would stop by drop some off and pick up a fresh load. If the entry forms were left out I would take a whole bunch, and would laugh with my inside voice and say SUCKERS!!

The hope!

The winner of this competition was to be announced last weekend. I didn’t get call…I can’t tell you how disappointed I am, 450 entries damn it. The least they could of done was give me a call or give me something a windscreen wiper! Anything! The thing that would piss me of even more would be if the winner eventually says that they only entered a few times. To be honest I would never admit it to BP the number of times I had entered. So my super hero dreams have been dashed, and to rub salt in the wound this idiot in a Ford Fiesta ST cut me off yesterday (almost sent me of the road without indicating) and then drove off into the distance. GRRRRR.

Things are looking up though I have won something from the Big Green. A lanyard (that I found out to my disappointment is a keyholder chain, see picture below) and this sad CD holder (it's the green man, and is only for the CD's who's cover you've lost).

Glass Shuddering Air Show

So this weekend was a long weekend, in fact the last one for a while. We all had grand schemes for it, all of which fell flat when Saturday rolled in. However this is not the main event of this post, this is:

On Sunday the extremely exciting air show was on in Ysterplat and Deeza, Dre and I went off to visit Nova at his newly purchased and newly built abode, which offered a view of the air show. On the way there we witnessed the aerial acrobatics of the fighter jets, all of this started to increase my expectations of how cool it would be to actually watch it instead of driving. Eventually we get there, and instead of first dispensing with the usual grand tour, I headed straight for the patio so I can watch said air show. Ordinarily this would not be a problem but add sunglasses and a glass patio door into the mix and things could get bloody. Anyways while running full tilt to the patio I hit the glass door and in my inside voice said: “splat”, while my nose was squashed. Now a few things run through your throbbing head when something like this happens:

• FUUUCKKK did anyone see or hear me; of course they did they are all in the same room as you donut.
  SPLAT
• FUUUCCCKKKKKK
• I want my mommy; I’m Indian this thought is natural.
• My personal fav, I think I broke my nose, and I’m going to be ugly and deformed.

The cavalry came too survey the scene with me saying, “I think I broke my nose”. I only said this because I saw my own blood, which turned out to be a cut I got from my sunglasses. Anyways after I stopped tearing (I did not cry! I saved that for my mom) the cavalry broke out into giggles. It was actually pretty funny. We have all received and forwarded video clips with people going splat but when you are the one going splat it really makes you feel for those people. So if you care anything for me at all spare a thought for those poor splat people the next time I forward you one of those videos, then you can laugh your ass of.

Europe gets Spiced - Part 1

Ok, so I’m gonna dive straight into the trip to Europe.
It was great as I mentioned before. It went a little something like this:

We left CT on the 18th of August flew to Johannesburg (Jozzie), waited for our next flight to Spain for a few hours, from Spain we connected to Rome (or Romà). The entire journey to Rome took roughly 22 hours including sitting around in various airports waiting for our next flight, and walking (ok, some of it was on a travelator) about a 1km in Spain’s extremely large Baragas Airport (we had more adventures with this one when we were coming back home). There was no time difference in Spain and in Rome from SA. All those hours on the planes with recycled air were not fun.

Dre and I made a rookie mistake when we got our tickets for the flight from SA to Spain we got seats next to each other. On a 2-hour flight this is no problem but on a 9-hour IBERIA flight in economy class, two adults sitting next to each while others (the well travelled) are stretched out along 4 seats asleep is not fun. I was so glad when all that travelling was done but little did I know about what real travelling was.

But we made it to Rome, and so did our luggage (this was a huge fear, we even split our clothes before we left). Anyway, so there we are in a foreign country and not knowing where our hotel was. We eventually ended up paying 32 euros each (that’s a lot of South African Rand, in shoe speak it was about two good pairs) for a shuttle to our hotel. Before we got on to the shuttle we both were convinced we had over paid and that our hotel was probably down the road, but the hotel was a distance away from the airport. We got to the hotel showered and decided that we would try and buy a SIM card to call home and let our parents know that we were fine. We should have sorted out our International roaming; it would of made our ET phone home moments so much easier. We could not find a single Vodafone outlet that didn’t require us to walk 2km! So we settled for an Internet café, which was a fair distance away from our hotel anyway. The walk was not the problem but the sweltering heat was breaking me, we came from the middle of winter in CT (10 to 14°C) to 38°C. We had the first of many of the most expensive MacDonald’s meals we will ever have, more than 10 euros for 2 meals. We were so unadventurous in those first days and we realized now that if we had tried to find the subway we could of gone and spent all the time we wanted in the Vatican City. But now we know…

So our tour (a Trafalgar Tour) began on the 20th of August. Our Tour Director, Barry Amor (no seriously that’s his name), took great pains to warn us of Europe’s many pick pockets, which sent us into high alert. Always worrying about the safety of our passports. We purchased a little moneybag and were off on one of the optional tours with a local tour guide, for an evening walk through Rome (wasn’t really evening as there was no real darkness, the sun only went down at 21:00). The tour group were all english speaking: 4 other South Africans, Canadians, Americans, Australians and Malaysians. There were a few nice kids as well.

The first picture is of an old building that we walked past. We went to the Pantheon first, video camera in hand I think I shot almost every inch of the place; it is truly a very impressive. You can see the enterance in the rear, in the second photo. This is one of the obelisks (called the Macuteo) stolen from Egypt, it stands over a fountain by Filippo Barigioni.

Then we hit Piazza Navona to have a bite and see the Fountain of the Four rivers. The piazza was full of artists, tourists and café’s. Dre and I had gelate (ice-cream), it was divine and of course in the heat it started melting as soon as we left the store. Dre’s chocolate was all over the place. Best sorbet I ever tasted, mmmm yummy.

The third photo is the Fountain of the Four Rivers by Bernini, with an obelisk (Agonalis). The fountain is in front of the St. Agnes in Agony church. The tour guide told us that Bernini positioned the cowering sculpture of the Nile River showing it fearing that the facade of the church, done by his rival Borromini, would crumble on him. The first of the last two photo's is of a side fountain in the Piazza and the last is of some of the artwork that was on sale.

While I was gone...

So it has been a while since I last posted that rather sad blog. Tons of stuff has happened since then. In summary:

• I found a great flat. Wooden floors, a shower, great view, lots of light and within budget.
• I moved (very traumatic), the old flat was on the third floor with no elevator.
• Mom unpacked (she was incredible, SUPER MOM), she flew in special.
• Boyfriend gave HR my CV at the company (lets call it Green) he works for.
• I went on an interview at Green
• Started a DIY project involving an old cupboard.
• Watched most of Smallville and Desperate Housewives
• I went for Psychometric Testing for the job above (a mentally draining day)
• The boyfriend and I put the final touches to Europe plans
• Got offered the job at Green, the day before we left to Europe.
• Accepted job offer
• Went to Europe
• Had a great time. Mostly (had an incident with bed lice, and still itchy). You will know all details.
• Saw Spanish bullfighting. Toro! Toro! Ole! One of my favourite things.
• Came back from Europe.
• Had a day to relax.
• Started new job (on 10/08/2006).
• New job is very cool, learning lots of new stuff. Boss people actually work, very refreshing to see this. The people at Green use lots of acronyms (that they only know), when speaking to the newbie. But more on that in a later blog.
• Currently typing out this blog from new and very large computer screen at new job.
  

So lots of good things have happened since my last entry and apparently I missed all the bad things (3 of the coldest days in CT, stuff with the fam, and Deeza’s unfortunate car break in). It’s incredible how much you miss what’s familiar when you're in some new place.

Axed and new beginnings

Sorry for leaving you without any seasoning for so many weeks.

I was fired about 2 and a half weeks ago. Well actually I was constructively dismissed, which basically means I was forced to resign and all because I couldn’t get along with IT, even though I showed them hard evidence that we had made up and were playing nice.

The Boss Lady (who from hence forth will be called the Super Bitch), was very nasty. I think the hardest part was dealing with the betrayal carried out by the Super Bitch. As you know the 28^th of May was my bday and the Friday before Super Bitch came along with the work peeps and gave me my gift like she was my friend but she was plotting my demise for weeks. Basically she couldn’t handle the situation between IT and I, she asked me to resign and offered me 2 months salary if I went quietly. She tried to scare me and attacked my work (to force my resignation), I could so easily have stood and fought (I had CSI type evidence on my side) but I didn’t have the emotional strength. So I threatened them with legal action and they gave me 3 months salary and leave pay. But I did have my say I There were lots of tears but the boyfriend, family, friends, and work peeps have been really great and supportive.

I miss Fifi, Mo, and White Boy so much. They were much like my extended family. You get attached to people when your own family is not near. I still wake up at 6 sometimes but promptly roll over. I miss talking over my problems with Fifi, arguing with Mo and interrupting White Boy. Not having internet access is breaking me.

But I have been very busy these past few weeks. Looking for a flat to rent in CT is a nightmare. And I graduated; my parents were here from Durbs, with video camera in hand (it would help if they knew how to use it). I will put up a picture of me in all my finery soon. I saw a great flat today so hold thumbs that Deeza and I get it.

About to run out of access time. Till later.

Birthday Tea and Super Hero’s

Yet another fabulous weekend:

On Friday I watched Sleeping Beauty, the ballet, at the Artscape Opera House. This was my first time at a proper ballet (with all the sparkly costumes etc.), and I thought it was brilliant. To all those losers who I invited and didn’t come and left me to go on my own, you guys really missed out. The orchestra was great and the dancers were well…they can do impressive things like stand on their toes with one foot in the air. It was by far the most graceful thing I have seen. Naturally I was one of about 10 brown people that were there which felt a bit odd, but they (the non-brown people to be politically correct) were really nice telling me to move in closer from my seat at the edge of the row to ones closer to them. It really was a great experience and I’m looking forward to going to another ballet.

On Saturday I had KFC for the first time in months, and boy was it good. I have decreased my KFC consumption because I’m pretty sure that the Streetwise 2 Meal is solely responsible for the ten kg’s I can’t lose. In the evening my wonderful boyfriend took me out for dinner to this restaurant to celebrate the day before my birthday (the restaurant was not opened on Sunday, which was actually my birthday), and I had a great time trying to pickup yummy dumplings with smooth and shiny chopsticks. The food was a bit pricey but really tasty. The service wasn’t that great I’m pretty convinced that the waiter messed up my main meal order off Beef and Tofu and gave me just Tofu. I didn’t say anything about it to the waiter but it does erk me a bit now. But the Tofu was really good anyways. I must confession though that the KFC eaten at 14:00 may have ruined my appetite for dinner.

Sunday was by far the best, I went shopping and because it was my birthday Dre stayed at my side while I looked through about twenty racks (earning him 300 brownie points). After that Dre took me for High Tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel. What a great experience, cheese cake everywhere, chocolate éclairs, finger sandwiches, and great fruit salad. Very friendly staff! I thought I paced myself well, I went four rounds and the final blow was the cheese cake. To finish of a great day Dre and I watched X-Men 3, what a great movie, so sad that someone important had to die, it was almost as bad as when that really important character in Harry Potter was killed in book 6.

Thanks to all my friends for remembering the day that god and my mother blessed this world with me and to Dre for making this a great birthday weekend. I truly do live a charmed life. Ok, so maybe my weekends are charmed, but they give me something to look forward to when I roll out of bed into the freezing morning at 6am and get ready for another miserable day at the office. Oh, almost forgot thanks Mom and Dave for the beautiful flowers.

A Good Game.

As promised a mildly funny story:

Last week, literally minutes before the kick-off for the Champions League Final between Barcelona and Arsenel, I was multitasking my way (speeding down the stairs, listening to voice-mail, talking with Dezza who witnessed the entire thing) to Nova’s house to watch said game. I slipped on the manically wet and smooth stairs, and bounced down three steps on my tail bone. You would think that my ever expanding bottom would have cushioned the fall, but for some reason the fat that I had been packing on for months malfunctioned. This makes me wonder what the point of eating so much is when it does not work for you. While bouncing my ass down the stairs my phone was knock out of my hand and fell 1 floor. Like a typical slave to technology the first thing I asked for when I could think past the blinding pain in my bottom was where is my phone. Now I must give a shout out to Sony Ericsson for making such a durable phone that after this violent fall only sustained minor injuries (20 or so scratches), and was still functional after I switched it on. Dezza being the gentlemen that he is picked me (and my phone) up and swore to never mention this to anyone. I turned to go back to our flat (to nurse my aching rear) before I realised that he was going to watch sport and drink beer with two other guys and that a funny story about Spice falling down the stairs would fit in perfectly. I turned and walked on (actually hobbled) to Nova’s house to make sure that my good name would not be blemished by this scandal. True to his word Dezza never said a word, and I stood for the first 15 minutes of the first half before a caved and gingerly lowered my bottom into a beanbag. I was wearing my favourite shoes when this happened and I maintain that it was the bubble gum that caused this and not the fact that these shoes have little to no grip when wet. A week and bit after, my ass still hurts, I think I bruised my tail bone (not if that is possible, need to check that with Dr. D).

Incidentally on that same night Barcelona beat Arsenal 2-1, and it was a really good game.

The end is here.

So yesterday, was not the one of the greatest days in my history (ask Dre & Dezza)! I wrote IT a response yesterday and sent it. My mail was filled with criticism. I basically had my say, called him out about not being prompted and mentioned the incident. I sent it off just before I left, so I wasn’t around when he read it. To his credit he wrote a pretty decent email back. I’ve decided to that this one was good enough. I’m not going to post the emails because I’m tired of the three people that read this blog bitching about not respecting ITS privacy. But I will tell you that he accepted all the criticism and said that he will try and change. He was not at work today so I can’t tell you if the mood in the office has changed. To those of you who said that I should of just accepted the first apology, and what more do I want from him. What I wanted was honesty and in this last email I got that.

In my next blog entry there will be a stale and mildly funny story. Oh go and check out Fifi's new ad at Cape Weddings, they grow up so fast one day a cute little ballerina the next day swinging around a pole.

Gourmet Escape Codes

Yet another good weekend to help me forget the miserable feeling I had on Friday. Watched 2 episodes of CSI Miami on Friday evening, with the boyfriend (who from henceforth will be called Dre, as requested).

On Saturday went to the travel agent to make arrangements for my trip with Dre to Europe. It’s going to cost an arm and maybe a lung but I think it’s going to be amazing. Of course planning is a mission.

We then went and watched this movie, I must admit that I was a bit disappointed. It didn’t pace as well as the book, maybe I was expecting too much. If you just want to watch a decent movie then it really isn’t so bad. Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon was a bit disappointing. Audrey Tatou was her fabulous self, but her character in the movie didn’t seem as independent as the one in the book.

Played some poker, well Dre played and I watch Prison Break and Chris Rock (Teee heee heee). Till really late.

On Sunday, went to a sale bought a new pair of boots only to find out last night while trying them on at home that the left leg is a size 5 and the right is a 4, gonna have to return them L, it was the last pair so someone is walking around with a left size 4 and a right 5. Then we went to the Good Food and Wine Festival at the CTICC. Ate lots of stuff. There were tons of cool exciting food items. The best thing I tried out was some organic dark chocolate, just the right level of bitter, and hint of sweetness. Although I work in Stellenbosch (a.k.a. wine Capital of SA) I don’t really like wine, so I guess the wine displays were wasted on me. I did get a cool glass, though.

Much thanks to a super hero of note my best friend Dr.D, who helped me get some perspective on the IT situation. I have decided to continue as before, ignoring him. I cannot accept his apology as it was forced, but I will concede that it was an apology. I’m still not sure if I want to send him an email reply. I will post the email I would like to send tomorrow. Back to doing what I actually get paid for.

What to do?

I’m having a bit of a moral dilemma. I got this email yesterday afternoon from IT (this was after I had gone home):

As you know, about three weeks ago [the Boss Lady] spoke with me about certain parts of my behaviour affecting everyone in the office. She had a list of specific things that she mentioned to me that were upsetting, disturbing or annoying to the four people around me.

Since then I have apologised to [White Boy], [FiFi] and [Mo] about these things and asked that they let me know in the future if I do these things, as they’re obviously happening subconsciously since I’m not intentionally trying to upset anyone.

I am 100% fault for not apologising to you after the long weekend when we all got back. I intended to after speaking with [the Boss Lady] but I chose rather to just try not to upset you (stop tapping my feet, thinking out loud) rather than apologise. I hoped this would work, but in retrospect I have not been fair. I’m writing this e-mail not because I was prompted to by anyone, but because you deserve an apology. I understand why you would want to change our transport arrangements because of it and I’m sorry that happened if that’s the reason.

I have never meant to upset you from the beginning and I’m not sure whether this e-mail will upset you more since I’m not doing this in person (I hope it won’t). I’m not doing this in person because I don’t know whether it will end well if we spoke. I hope this is the better option and that afterwards we can speak about it if you still want to.

You were very kind to me from the beginning of my work here and I want you to know I’m grateful to you for it. Please accept my apology and let me know if we can talk about it. I hope we can start over.

Firstly I’m not sure if this is sincere, but FiFi says she thinks it is. That bit about not being prompted to apologise is a load of crap, he has already admitted that the Boss Lady told him that he was bothering us (I think that qualifies as a prompt, see 1st paragraph). My birthday is coming up and the Boss Lady asked what arrangements have been made, the team usually buy a gift and go for lunch. FiFi told her that I didn’t want him contributing and that I didn’t want him at the lunch. The Boss Lady was very disappointed with this and FiFi said she spoke to IT again and asked if he had spoken to me.

Why apologise to everyone but me? Surely he must know that we talk to each other, and that I would know that he had spoken to them. As you can tell I’m still very upset about all of this. I’m not sure if I should believe this and bury the hatchet or ignore this email completely and continue as before, or call him out on the inaccuracies. The sceptic in me keeps seeing all the problems in this email. I’ll be honest I cannot be objective in this regard; my hatred is actually blinding me. I really wish the adult in me would come out say: “well let’s give him a shot”. I know I don’t have to be friends with him but for the sake of my sanity perhaps I should speak to him. This all is coming on the back of me reaching the stage where I’ve gotten so good at ignoring him that I don’t see him when I walk past him. Any suggestions?

I really hate being censored, so to the persons who asked me not to include this email, you know what I’m like...

ARRGH!!!

The good feeling that I carried from the weekend did not make the journey into today and so I shall continue Friday’s rant about IT.

About three weeks ago we (the team) had our PA’s, in which I laid my feelings about IT out. I spent a sizable chunk of my time with the Boss Lady telling her about why I was unhappy at work. She said that she noticed that my personality had changed since Jan, no shit Sherlock, I wonder what could have happened in Jan. So eventually IT has his PA and she tells him that he needed to sort his shit out with the rest of the team. He decides to speak to each member of the team individually (I think it was a divide and conquer strategy), while I was away on vacation. When I get back, I hear about their discussions with IT and how he was so sorry (BLAH, BLAH), and so I’m expecting him to talk to me. It is now the third week and he has yet to speak too me. Here I am thinking he is going to apologise, and I had planed a whole speech about what I was going to say. It was along the lines of “I don’t accept your apology because you are only apologising because the boss asked you to…” I was clearly not planning to rollover and play nice, but I never got my shot.

Last Thursday things came to a head, when the elevator doors closed on me as we were leaving the building (the whole team was there), everyone else was worried about me being hurt but that fucken bitch was laughing. I know that I should have expected this, but it really pissed me off. I don’t think I mentioned this but I travelled to work with him and White Boy (because we save on petrol that way). So for the entire drive home I’m trying desperately to pretend that he does not exist, but he keeps on tapping his keys so I turn up the music and he just taps louder. I get home really miserable and the boyfriend phones and I tell him about what has happened, and we get into a fight about IT (I won’t go into details). Now this upsets me further because now I see that he has been really affecting my personal life. I made a decision that in order to maintain a level of sanity I’ve got to have some time between work and home when I don’t have to be around him. So I sent him this email:

After much consideration (didn’t really take me that long) I'm afraid that our traveling arrangement no longer suits me and as a result I have decided to terminate the arrangement and drive in on my own. I have already sent [White Boy] an email similar to this and he has decided that he would prefer to travel with me as we have similar timetables after work. As this coming week is the beginning of a new cycle for the lift club, it will make no financial difference to any of us if it is terminated starting this coming Monday (15/05/2006).

He never emailed back or mentioned it to White Boy or me (well I don’t talk him at all). I thought he would of emailed back with an ok or something. Thank goodness for read receipts or I would have never know that he had read it. I am happy to report that I no longer start my day on a bad note or end it that way. Which makes for a much happier Spice.
Original art work contributed by White Boy.

Memoirs of a Steamy Picasso

I had a really great weekend, which made me forget why I was so angry on Friday. I would like to keep that feeling for today at least, so I’m not going to continue my bitch about IT, but I’ll tell you about my cool weekend.

Friday - Dezza sent out an email invite for the movies. The boyfriend and I accepted and we were going to meet him at Canal Walk, turns out plans had changed and the venue had changed (Thanks, Dezza!!), with no time too catch up with the rest, the boyfriend and I went ahead and watched “Memoirs of a Geisha”. Not really his type of movie (romance/period piece), but he was a sport, I don’t think he fell asleep once. I on the other hand I completely enjoyed it, I like the whole oriental thing, the colours, veiled looks and flattering eye lashes. If you like sweeping romances then I recommend this movie. Don’t get me wrong I do enjoy my skop, skit and donder movies…

On Saturday we watched a decent soccer match. Ok so Liverpool fans will say that it was an amazing match that won them the FA Cup. I will admit that Stevie G’s goal was brilliant. In the evening we had dinner with a bunch of cool people at Marimba’s at the ICC. It was nice to meet new people, so I must thank Nova for organising this event.

Most of Sunday was spent trying out my new steam cleaner that the boyfriend bought for me. I wanted it because I saw it an info-mercial, he did not buy it to stop me from shopping and get me cleaning, like he thinks. But its such a cool toy, I can steam my clothes on the hanger (no more running around in the morning), defrost the fridge in 7 minutes and sanitise the stove really quickly, not that it was ever my hearts desire to sanitise the stove before I got the steamer, but I can and in the end that’s all that matters. Needless to say I spent many hours messing around with it. The actually reason for the purchase was to get rid of some mildew in the bathroom that was eating away at the back of my mind, not sure if I got around to that (it’s all a blur of steam).

I did take a break to see an exhibition for Picasso and Africa at the Iziko National Gallery. It was not mind blowing, maybe because we missed the tour and some of the stuff that was on display were probably rough sketches. But there was a side exhibition for Indian artists, which was really good.

There I said it!!! I Hate You!!!!

I’ve had it!!! I hate the little fucker!!! In fact I’m willing to pay top dollar to watch someone torture him. I speak of IT (the irritating turd at the office). I know the rest of the team will agree with what I’m about to say.

My dad used to tell me that I should never use the word hate for someone that I don’t like. But dad I’ll really hate him, and I’m sure that the use of this word is relevant.

But first let me set the stage for this bit of bitching. I know that most all of my friends and my long-suffering boyfriend have heard this bitch 12 million times but I don’t care. I want the world to know what a colossal ass this person is so that if anyone ever had the misfortune of coming across him and they have a rifle at hand they can shoot first and ask questions later.

IT started working at our fine establishment on the 2nd of Jan (so I’ve been putting up with his shit for 4 and a bit months now). He is the single most annoying person I have ever (I mean EVER) met. He is arrogant, he taps, he talks to himself, he drinks water from these noisy bottles (they make this fucking awful sucking sound), he rolls around the office (he has actually rolled into another room) and he is over paid and under worked (earns far more than I do but we do the same work, ok, so IT has more qualifications than I do but he does earn more than what the market is paying). He requires spoon-feeding for simple tasks and then still manages to fuck up. He gets 38 days of study leave (some of which I’m pretty sure he used to test drive cars) above his normal leave and he also gets certain religious holidays off (this one is for FiFi). He has the social skills of a serial killer. I goggled him and he is admittedly really intelligent, but that is no excuse for being a prat.

You’re probably thinking but that does not qualify for hatred status but there is more, oh yes there is.

We took a month of the above before we reach the edge. Why did we wait a month, well everyone takes about a month to find their groove, make friends and play nice, we gave him that much. We asked the Boss Lady what we should do; she suggested that we tell him in a “joking fashion” that he was irritating the shit out of us. So after much consultation with the boyfriend, we struck upon a plan. As the talking to himself was the most annoying (at the time) we decided to attack that directly and let the correction of the other stuff follow shortly. So the next morning when he started talking to himself I asked if he was talking to me, and he said no that he was talking to himself. Then I said: “I want you to think about what you just said”. Everyone laughed including him and he stopped doing it for a while. Fifi was so happy she said that she was gonna buy the boyfriend chocolates for coming up with the plan. After lunch he started talking to himself again. I called him from my line (we play pranks on each other all the time) and I said: “so you're not on the phone but talking to yourself again.” Everyone else laughed but he went off. He said that if I didn't have anything constructive to say that I should l not bother him cause he's very busy (which I will add is a load of bull because 5 minutes after that he was reading emails and sending them to us). Needless to say I took offence to this and the general atmosphere in the office went from hopeful and cheery to the environment of doom and gloom that it now is…more on Monday.

Office Peeps and a White Boy Quote

I work with a great bunch of people, well with the exception of one (but that bit of bitching is for another blog). They are:

• White Boy, who thinks he’s my boss, but is actually my fellow Spanish learner, travel buddy, cubicle neighbour, almanac of all things to do with access, single and looking, and he’s an actuary (which makes him prime property in my books, once again a test will have to be passed, but it won’t be as hard as Dezza’s because…well he’s white and easy) Send all CV’s to me and include a picture;
  
• Mo, who torments me daily, but is actually a nice guy;
  
• FiFi, a fellow sufferer, she’s over worked and under paid, but she’s a super hottie and excellent pole dance instructor (check out her website here), and knows everything about word and excel;
  
• The Boss Lady, who sometimes is the villain of the piece but she occasionally gives us Friday afternoons off which makes her a special person in my eyes; and last and definitely least
  
• IT / Weasel / Asshole / Tool / Donut / Idiot / Fuck Head /…well you get the picture. I really hate his fool.
  

Anyway, I thought I should intro them as they may feature in this blog. Almost all of them chose what they would like to be called.

Now, to this blogs feature presentation. Yesterday White Boy and I were on our way to the basement, when we walked past the desk of a recently fired secretary. Now her name is…well its really funny, and leaves me wondering if parents actually think about the teasing possibilities attached to a name. Her name is Eurea (pronounced Ew-rea, I think). The possibilities are endless. This is what White Boy had to say:“I wonder who they’ll get to replace Euera. Maybe they’ll get a man named Eurine.” Yes, I know it’s a Friday afternoon kinda funny but that’s the White Boy for you.

Birthday Salutations

Happy Birthday to my favourite flat mate, Dezza. Any fine females willing to go through a stringent test to date this stud (and super nice guy), please send all applications to me.

One day I will find you!!

To the evil bastard who discarded their chewed bubble gum in my path, only to have me walk in it, although now it looks like I danced and did a pirouette in it and then ran through gravel coating the underside of my shoe with stones. It was my favourite pair of shoes, damn it. I quite simply wish serious lockjaw on you. If I had the resources that they do on CSI I would extract your DNA from the bubble gum, find you and torment you for the rest of your natural life. But I don’t have those resources. I will bid my time and wait until I win the lottery, then your evil ass is mine.

I tried, in vain, for 6.5 minutes (ok, so not really a long time) to remove it, but that shit is bonded to my shoe. I googled "ways to remove bubble gum from shoes", and all I got was use peanut butter. I don't keep peanut butter at my desk (although I do have golden syrup, I wonder if that will work). Maybe I could ask the office peeps if anyone brought peanut butter for lunch and then smear the sandwich under my shoe (hmmm).

In the end my therapist would say: "that sort of anger could not merely come from having bubble gum under your shoe, what's really the problem here?" I’m feuding with the mommy.