Why won't you open your tender little heart?

I got a strange gift for my birthday from a supplier *scandal*

I open the GIANT box, thinking it would be chocolate, only to find a perspex box. With a strange stuffed creature (for want of a better word) named 'Chuck' holding a Chupa Chup inside.

After some conjecture, I finally find out what 'Chuck' is. And I am amused.

Beating 'The Man'

WOOT!!!

I got a letter from the State Debt Recovery Office yesterday (that was scary initally let me tell you) - I beat the man!!

No fine - YAY!!!

Now repeat my mantra 'Take your ticket with you, you idiot'

The Storm Tropper Incident

Oh no.. not this kind.
The kind with far less ACTUAL power.

I had an 'incident' with a Sydney CityRail transit officer recently. I am always in possesion of a valid ticket, I buy tickets, like all the time - get it?


Why does Murphy's twisted and sick law dictate that the very day I change my jacket for casual Friday, happens to be the very day I leave it in my normal trench coat pocket and a proliferation transit officers decend upon Parramatta station.

So, panic-stricken I cast a look around and bunny hop in behind someone else, making a beeline to donate to the Salvation Army (an elaborate distraction and something I true to do when I see him.)

'Excuse me Miss, may I see your ticket?'

... Rats, the gig is up. I can't think of any plausible lie, grit my teeth and tell the truth.

I walk away with a $200 fine BUT FINGERS CROSSED that when reviewed I get off!

To make matters worse, I forgot the Salvo man too!

Taboo Talk

Now I know that we don't talk about this in polite society but who pretends to be polite?

As I work in a large building with several different companies on the one floor, we share a bathroom with the others on our floor.

There is a guy on our floor we call 'Newspaper Man' who is so named for his unwavering attention to his newspaper at all times of his bathroom use, and as I have been told I mean all times, he completes his whole business with one hand and both eyes on his newspaper.
It became so intreging to us all that our GM could not help himself and had to ask him if he 'had to read the newspaper so much as part of his job' - thinking perhaps he was studying the stock market or capital gains interest rates, but he gave a rather airy 'Oh, um, not really' response.

The bathrooms in my building are also secured, and you have to enter a code to get into them, and unlock it on the way out. Which is bloody annoying, and numerous people mostly leave it ajar and it drives me insane when people just let it slam shut - even if they can see someone at the basin. It's maddening.

Personally I think that non-private bathrooms should be more like Supre stores. No not crammed to the rafters with racks and people, but playing music so that we can't hear everyone's everything.

Life as a Stripper

So fear not, I have not changed professions or anything.

What I mean here is, a danger I have encountered in my deepest engrained behaviour, stripping off to go to the toilet... before I'm in the cubicle.
I'm used to doing this at home, and at my previous job. But the perils occurs, when working in a large office block where the bathroom is shared by several other offices and dozens of unknown people (because stripping off in front of my co-workers is ok? lol)

I obviously don't mean pulling my pants round to my ankles, but untucking my shirt or even unbutton my pants... WARNING WARNING!

I can't help it! Must become more vigilant, I haven't been sprung yet BUT it can't be too far off surely.

Cure worse than the malady?

I've recently had a spate of unfortunate health issues.

At the commencement of my new job, I got a cold. Plowing through my new job sneezing and coughing, and taking over the counter psudoephedrine based products to lessen my pain. Codral and it's ilk have a funny affect on me, I get jumpy when people approach me and end up hanging onto the ceiling like a cartoon cat.
For two weeks, I persisted with the coughing and fevers at 2pm, jumping around like a paranoid junkie before I bit the bullet and saw the doctor.
It ended up I had a chest infection, which he prescribed a short course of strong antibiotics for which left me feeling nauseous (and poor as they were OVER TWENTY DOLLARS) and eventually during the end of the course left me with another unpleasant result of taking antibiotics... if you know what I mean.

SO! Four weeks into my new job and I am healthy, cashed up and jazzed to have a night out on the town with a girlfriend.
After careful budgeting, we stay in the city, go shopping, have dinner then make our way through five nightclubs drinking cocktails and generally making merry.
Leaving the last night club in the wee hours of the morning, we were making our way through the giant throng and my five inch heel makes contact with an invisible four inch hole.
This (at the time) relatively pain free event goes mostly unnoticed until several hours of walking the next day where my foot swells to the size of a football and I cannot walk on it without violent pain.
Kindly my boss insists I go over to the doctor, where she tells me I have probably 'just fractured' the little bones on the bottom of my foot and tells me to get crutches to rest the injury and revisit on Wednesday if it still hurts on Wednesday for an xray.
SO becrutched I hobble back to the office. As it turns out, I am massively rubbish at using crutches (surprise, I think not).
Not only am I still putting weight on my foot, my arms hurt from hauling myself around.
And I am paying $65 for the privilege.

Life as a Newbie

Being new has it's lerks and perks.
A perk seems to be merrily slinking off to the bathroom because you have recently increased your water consumption exponentially.
Also you can happily give wide eyed answers to questions because you genuinely do not know the answer, as a result of being new, as opposed to playing dumb.
And because you are new you can easily spend time catching up on the odd email, because nobody quite trusts you enough to do something major.

Today marked a complete week at my new job.
Lets just say that my predecessor seems to have been unliked... well fairly furiously.
Listening to my employers qualms about GBM (Guy Before Me), I feel confident that I will probably not suffer the same pitfalls as him.
He seemed to have strange work ethics, and while he was being guided worked well until someone looked the other way and it all fell to pieces so I am fairly confident that (at this stage at least) I won't get the arse the way he did.
Yesterday I was doing a GBM clean up, getting rid of some of the stuff littering his desk and decided to clean out my sent emails when I came across personal emails from him to his partner about work/family/money concerns, nothing earth shattering.
Of course. These. Should. NOT. Be. Read.
I should have deleted them, and I did immediately but as I was permanently deleting things I couldn't help but have a little kibitz on his life. Very bad I know.
(DISCLAIMER; I DIDN'T READ ALL OF THE OVER 100 EMAILS THERE WERE)
BOY did he like to email. And tell his partner how much he loved her.
Sweet but seven emails in one day to that effect... too much. And time consuming because most of them had word file attachments.
The phrase "I don't know what GBM did but..." I guess I know the answer.

Oh and yes, I am a snoop.
Sweet but nine emails in one day to that effect? Too much me thinks.