T'eyla Minh

More moaning. Choir, this time. Other than to say I'm getting fed up of people picking and choosing which work they want to type as it's happened on no less than six separate occasions this week. The urge to kill is rising. ( Choir moaning under here. )

Blah blah moan moan.

Interestingly, in the midst of relating the Transcription Fail to Paul on Friday night, he asked me what I thought my nickname might be amongst my colleagues, if they were to adopt the same approach as me. At this juncture, I suspect it would be Moody. :P

I meant to do this last night but had lots of photographs to post on Facebook so didn't have time. :P (If you're interested, there are pictures up now of our trip to Dudley Zoo and the four days in Paris.)

I have two other things to update about in the meantime; tonight I will attempt to get some of the Fandom for February backlog under my belt just to get it out of the way. :P

( Recipe: Turkey Roulade Tapenade )

Now a minor, petty work annoyance, briefly mentioned on Twitter, in the form of ( Cake Rivalry )

After the Farmers / Arts Market, Paul and I headed into Birmingham for translucent's leaving drinks. We went to Las Iguanas first because I wanted Mexican food, where we made a headstart on cocktails before heading to Island Bar for the drinks in question.

Despite drinking about six or seven cocktails, I was actually surprisingly not drunk, just absolutely shattered. We left about ten-ish and managed to convince a taxi driver to cap the fare at £12.00 (bonus!). I think perhaps the highlight of the night was catching up with Clare as I haven't seen her since... wow, I was still at uni. Maybe about eight years? So that was lovely because she hasn't changed in the slightest. I tried to convince her to join CBC, also. ;)

On Sunday we mostly did nothing. I had a migraine kick in right as EastEnders started, which was a pain, but thankfully the Migraleve didn't mong me out so I was able to set the Wii up on our new wireless broadband (WOO!) without any fuss, then spent the evening after dinner catching up on overdue internet-related admin. :P I do still owe Eni some Thoughts, so I'll try and tackle those tonight. :)

I think that's about it. Hopefully updates will now be more forthcoming and regular, rather than every two weeks.

Well, it's been a while...

( Once again that quote from Scar is oddly appropriate... )

I know it's petty. Thankfully Forgetful has been off this week so I've not had to contend with her moody-arsed attitude. The IKEN thing is seriously pissing me off, though. If anyone had actually said anything then perhaps it might be okay, but the sense of being forgotten about is disconcerting and worrying.

I wasn't really in the mood for the gym yesterday and was quite stroppy about silly things like not being able to find a pair of 2kg dumb-bells and the step for the step-ups being too high, but the good thing about weights machines is you can imagine, for example, that you're crushing someone's head between your legs. :P Subsequently I wanted comfort food for dinner so we went to the chippy and ruined all the effort. And this morning I felt a bit sick so that just made it an even worse decision.

To make matters worse, there was a spider on my desk earlier. Only a little one. I squashed it under a Pret napkin and scraped it into my bin, and then spent the next hour or so feeling paranoid, with over-sensitive and tingly skin. Stupid phobia. I'm getting better at dealing with the actual bugs, in retrospect (I didn't shriek or ask for help), but the after-effects are the same as ever. I'm guessing they're a delayed reaction...

I might get some lunch from the food festival today... Just wish BCC had put it on for longer than ten days, the skinflints...

Last week was horribly stressful for no apparent reason, Friday especially so. I started writing a review of Black Swan, which we saw on Wednesday, but I couldn't finish it thanks to being busy and on reading it back it sounds horribly pretentious, so now I can't be bothered. In any case, it was a truly brilliant film and the highlight of my week.

( It can only get worse, unfortunately. )

The WPO's are meant to be moving to the 2nd floor this week. I am dreading this more than you can imagine, and still have seven weeks to get through before my leave in April. If things get exponentially worse I am seriously considering getting myself signed off with stress, if only to poke management into some kind of action - when the inevitable question is asked, I won't hesitate to say what's stressing me out.

On the plus side, we tried out the Wii Fit this weekend and it's knackering. Paul's Wii Fit Age came out as 51, mine was 31. ;) Also my centre of gravity is almost completely central, which was nice to know. We tried some of the balance games and some yoga stuff (half moon is painful!) and if the aches I am suffering today are any indication, it must be doing something. Also I weighed myself twice by moving the board to a different bit of carpet, and the weight came out the same both times, so at least I have some functional scales now - at least until I live somewhere with even floors.

On Sunday we went to my mum's for lunch - quail wrapped in Parma ham to start (mm, tastes like a slightly gamey chicken), followed by one of Jamie's 30-minute-meals, which took an hour. :P It was pork loin with catherine-wheel sausage, celeriac mash and a sauce made of smoked bacon, chicken livers, rosemary and cream. Amazing. I was a bit wary of the celeriac mash because my mum said it tasted like celery, but it was actually surprisingly nice... So that's something I can add to my list of potato alternatives, anyway.

(Oh, and on Saturday I decided to use up the muffins in the fridge by having eggs benedict - Paul poached the eggs and cooked the bacon and I made the Hollandaise sauce, which for a first attempt wasn't bad at all. Mmmm, lovely.)

We had a go on Wii Sports Resort (obviously) and demonstrated Mario Galaxy and Epic Mickey. In the morning we also swapped our duff second-hand controller for another one (which works this time), and also the duff DS game for another Wii game, which looks quite pretty. I will probably have a go at it tonight.

Anyway, that's about it. Work is poo and I'm trying to get through the day-to-day without killing anyone, and I don't think it's going to change... There is good stuff, but it's hard to focus on that when I'm constantly exhausted.

If I don't post for ages, that's why. The fandom meme will resume when I have the energy. It annoys me that I only lasted two weeks before giving up on it, and that's making me even less inclined to finish it, but yeah. We'll see.

So, today was annoying. I meant to leave at four; I left at six. That kind of annoying.

I was going to rant about it, but I don't have the energy any more. The only snark I can muster is the passive-aggressive message I left for Paul on the notice board in the kitchen* about the fact that he owes me three (underlined several times) rounds of washing up now. He had reduced it to two, but we have the gas man coming tomorrow and in my attempt to merely pile up the dirty dishes for Paul to do them tomorrow I was assaulted by a horrendous smell and decided to do it myself.

Anyway, the work annoying was the same annoying as it always is, revolving around Moany, Forgetful and Demanding, as per frigging usual. I might post about it tomorrow if I'm so inclined, but right now I just want CHIPS and SLEEP. Except CHIPS will entail actually having to move. Can someone email me some chips? Please?

* I bought this notice board back in July with the intention of writing upon it the contents of the freezer / fridge. I got as far as putting the fridge's contents on it but we never actually sat down to note what was in the freezer. The entire purpose of this was so we actually could get organised and get stuff out for tea in advance, like we used to when we first moved in and weren't so bone idle / tired, but then the freezer was empty again so we didn't bother, etc, etc. I wiped it clean the other day because most of the fridge stuff had also changed / gone and, well, at least I used it for something...

commoncomitatus is forcing me to do one of those 30-day memes (and obviously picked the hardest subject possible, i.e. music) so I will start that when I've written down some possibilities and whittled them down. :P

In the meantime, here's an update of last week. ( Week of Sociability )

( Less Pleasant Colleague Stuff )

That's about it, really. We are currently levelling out at 48-hour turnaround on work, which is better than seven days as it was a couple of weeks ago. Despite doing three long days last week, leaving early on Monday and two long lunches effectively killed off any flex I might have gained (I only got 0.10 of an hour), so I need to make the effort this week. It does seem that no matter how hard I work to get through the typing, it just keeps on coming. I hope when Noor finally comes back from sick leave we'll be able to cope a bit better; KEH typists were helping out but were more trouble than they were worth, and couldn't access the matters on IKEN anyway, so I think they've given up now.

Anyway, I should really tackle said typing, I suppose.

Edit at 18.20: The afternoon did not exactly improve. I had intended on leaving work at 4.30, and picked up a longish piece of dictation at just before 4.00 to kill some time. It was 25 minutes in length and shouldn’t have taken as long as it did, except the fee earner in question has to spell everything every single time (not being content to spell, for example, the child’s name the first time and expecting us to be intelligent enough to remember it two seconds later…), which uses up precious minutes, and also being overly verbose. I disapprove of the phrase: “… has the ability to be able to…”. Calling the Department of Redundancy Department!

Anyway, I finished that at about 4.45 (I think) and was just filling out the receipt for it to take it upstairs, when Senior 1 tells me she’s put something in as urgent and it needs to go out that afternoon. Right. Okay. So I do that, and am in the process of printing it off when Senior 2 comes up to me and says he’s put an urgent in that also needs to go this afternoon and could I please do it. Having already been thwarted in my first attempt to go home early, I reacted possibly less politely than I should have done, but did it anyway.

You know what? This is getting a bit tedious now. I’m rather sick of being the only person around after 3.30pm to do any urgents that come in. Also I seem to have done nothing except urgents today, and there’s a lot of it because we’re still behind and people are panicking.

*grumps*

It’s all flex. I just have to keep telling myself that. And I have a week off in September. I will doubtless return to similar levels of chaos as last time, but that seems to be par for the course.

On the plus side, I did manage to find a halfway decent cardigan in Primark with very little hassle, for once. It’s one of those buttonless ones with the dangly tails at the front. I have several tops which are longer than my standard cardigans / hoodies so it will come in very useful…

I'm not going for it. I've spent the past couple of weeks in a state of fluctuation about it. Whilst at work I wanted to go for it; when at home I emphatically didn't. The difference between work-brain and home-brain, clearly. Anyway, my final decision has come about as a result of a conversation with Paul on Friday night (he thinks they might be doing something very sneaky as the job description is so vague and unspecific...), plus Thursday and Friday being absolutely frelling stupid...

( Details / moaning under the cut - very long )

So there you have it. As much as a pay rise would have been nice (and very much appreciated), it's not worth the hassle. The cut-off is Wednesday, and they're interviewing for it on 27th April whilst I'm on leave, so essentially it would be the same situation as last time where I'd be thrown into a job immediately on returning to work.

I should get my cost-of-living increase in this month's pay, and with any luck I will pass my PDR with flying colours and thus achieve my pay increment too. Which will be better than nothing, at any rate.

So, it's 2010. Thank frell for that. Good riddance to 2009 and all its associated crapness.

Apparently my last proper update was on 14th December. I will therefore try not to ramble on excessively as I update about Christmas...

( W/C 14th December )

( Christmas concert )

( W/C 21st December )

( CHRISTMAS! )

( New Year, etc )

And that brings us to yesterday. I overslept somewhat and didn't get up until midday... In the evening I cooked for Lisa and her new bloke, Pete, and we watched Feast and the onset of Celebrity BB before bed.

And today I'm back at work. Obviously. :)

I think that's more than enough. :P

Here's a bit more work humour for you, even though I know it's not funny outside of the office. I like to record these things for posterity... (Er, not verbatim because I can't quite remember it...)

( Cut because it's mostly for my own benefit. )

Anyway, even though it was somewhat inane, it brightened up my morning.

I was so tired this morning that I bought a croissant from Pret and then forgot about it until 10.20... (I got into work at 9.00). Not quite so nice after being zapped in the microwave for 45 seconds, unfortunately. I was hungry when I bought it, but was then concerned with drinking my coffee (mmmm, liquid sanity) and forgot it was there. Oh, well.

For some reason I couldn't get to sleep last night. We went to bed around 11.00 and Paul nodded off almost straight away, but it took me a couple of hours to nod off, despite being really tired beforehand. I had various bits of songs going around my head, which didn't help, starting with Sea Drift (the horrendously difficult thing we're doing for the November concert; even Adrian said that if he ever met Delius in a bar he'd hit him upside the head... :P) and then I think it was the Killers. Can't remember. Annoying, though.

( Work moaning )

*ahem* Sorry, just had to get that off my chest...

In other news, I've been trying to get a plain, black, v-neck t-shirt for work. I did have one, but it has gone AWOL in the flat, presumably to the same place as the big nail clippers and the metal tape measure. I swear we have Gremlins, or perhaps a particularly mischievous poltergeist... it's getting a bit silly now. (Having said that, I did find my bicarbonate of soda*, at the back of the cupboard behind the six-tonne bag of pasta...) Anyway, do you think I can find a black t-shirt? No, of course not. I've tried Primark, New Look, Peacocks and Store 21 (in Kings Heath) to no avail... next course of action is Matalan, but I don't really want to traipse that far just for a t-shirt - and I know full well that as soon as I buy one, the one I lost will miraculously reappear...

My new embroidery frame arrived this morning, so I'll put my ongoing / on-hiatus project onto that, as I transferred the Christmas decorations to the old one on Monday. Will post a photograph of the first completed one soon... I did realise last night, however, that I've measured my fabric partitions wrong and divided it into eight segments, and there are 10 decorations. Bugger. Thankfully, some of them are narrow, so I might be able to rectify it...

I'm sure I had another thing to post about, but I've forgotten it... probably for the best, as this is quite long enough already.

Over and out.


* Here's a handy tip from the ever-resourceful Kim and Aggie, which works wonders. If you have a blocked drain, pour down half a cup of bicarb, half a cup of salt, and half a cup of white vinegar. This part is quite fun for the chemical reaction, though the fumes are a bit rank (unless you like vinegar...) Leave it five minutes and then pour through with boiling water. I didn't think this would work but it's actually unblocked our bath (as much as it's possible to do) and it's draining at a reasonable pace now. So, forget Mr Muscle, go for the all-natural solution. :) I wish I'd known this when our kitchen sink was blocked rather than attempting to kill myself with chlorine gas...

Things are looking up today, as Paul has an interview this afternoon (at 1.00pm) for a job at Auchinleck House on Broad Street. His agency rang yesterday to let him know. I'm crossing all my fingers and toes and would ask everyone else nicely to do the same.

I hadn't even been at work an hour this morning when my chair decided to break. I wasn't even doing anything! Just sitting there happily typing away when the left front corner of it suddenly dropped a couple of inches. It's been quite wobbly for a while, admittedly, but yeah. I'm not taking any chances. I borrowed a spare chair (Adults Team use it to sit by the filing cabinet, it would seem) and have since been brought a different and somewhat more comfortable spare from downstairs. There might be a brand new one in the innings if it's approved, as they need to order another one for someone else.

( Some brief work annoyance. )

The other annoying thing was trying to order food last night. Firstly we tried one of the many new southern-fried chicken places which sprang up in Kings Heath in the wake of KFC. We attempted to order from them shortly after they'd first opened, only to have their phone ring through to voicemail; assuming that was just an early opening glitch, we tried again last night - same result. So we won't be trying them again.

Then we tried another chip shop which had put a leaflet through the door advertising free delivery (we are lazy, you see), only to have them tell us they don't deliver. Er... okay then.

Eventually we went back to our usual delivering chippy, which we probably should have used in the first place. That or gotten off our backsides and walked ten minutes down the road. ;)

I got soaked on the way to work this morning. Was that the summer, then?

It still amuses me how much Britain panics when we have any extreme of weather; I mean, we had a proper extended heatwave in 2006 (i.e. that one which made me ill) and then we get one in 2009 for about two weeks and the warnings start being issued by the Met Office. ;)

Which reminds me, I think I forgot to mention that we caught the majority of Michael Moore's Sicko the other week. Conclusion? Move to France. They have things good over there.

Nowt else to report, except that I'm hungry and about to have my lunch...

Edit, 16.23: Paul thinks the interview went well; they'll let him know tomorrow.

In other news, we're going to try out the new griddle pan tonight on some steaks. I should not be so excited about this. :)

I swear to God, the next person who decides it's so very hilarious to laugh at me in a sarcastic manner, when I'm struggling through the downpour in stupid shoes and with wet feet, from the comfort and dry of their nice warm car... that person is going to get an umbrella to the face. I'm just saying. (At least nobody used me as target practice today.)

The first layer of Alison's bithday picnic cake is in the oven cooking happily away, and I've washed up all the utensils to make the second one. I should really buy another 20cm cake tin. I shall take a photograph of the limey lime cake of limey doooooom when it's all finished. My lime cake is even lime-coloured. Almost, anyway.

Nothing else to report.

People trying to book their easter / summer leave already has resulted in a massive fuss over nothing.

Last week various people were wandering around checking with the WPO team so they could try and book leave. People have deposits to pay on caravans and holiday cottages which are only available certain times, fair enough. Except unfortunately our line manager is off sick and has been since before Christmas, and apparently nobody is allowed to authorise our leave in her absence.

Actually, it's because they're trying to book EASTER and SUMMER leave, which are notoriously difficult times. Because if it were actually the case that no-one can authorise leave, I wouldn't have come in this morning to discover I can't have the week off in February that I wanted because someone snuck two flex days in when I wasn't looking, thus taking the amount of people off up to three. It's partially my own fault for waiting until this week to book it, but still quite annoying.

As it transpires, I've now had to book it from 9th to 13th March instead, which means that for the entire of March our team is going to be one typist down. Noor is off the first, third and fourth weeks of the month (in the same boat as having lots of leave to use up), and me the second. Hopefully it won't be too horrendously busy and/or stressful, but still, I'd rather not have had to book it off then, as I'd rather have it in February.

It also buggers up the plan I had, which was to book the Sunset Boulevard tickets for 13th February and then have a week off after that (although it was dependent on Paul being able to get the leave also). I need to book the tickets before the end of January to get a special half-price offer, also, so I'd rather the leave situation be sorted first.

The thing which irritates me more, though, is that they're bloody moaning in the first place. I know it must be frustrating when there's only a certain time period in which you can book your precious holiday cottage, but for God's sake, at least you can afford one. I would take whatever days I could damn well get if I could even afford a long sodding weekend somewhere, let alone a whole week. My last proper holiday (by which I mean the hot country, lying on a beach kind) was back when I went to Crete. Annual holidays (even twice a year, in some cases) are a privilege, not a right.

Although if it's this bloody stressful to try and get the time off, it's probably just as well I'm not going anywhere.


In other news, the road through Kings Heath was open and running freely this morning, despite being closed all day yesterday. I imagine they had no choice but to re-open it, or it would cause absolute chaos. Things were bad enough on Saturday, though possibly my experience was somewhat exacerbated by going in and out of Birmingham three times over the course of the day...

Also, I appear to have lost another two pounds, though it's admittedly difficult to tell with our cheap scales. I should really get some digital ones.

Despite bemoaning my failure to keep resolutions, I have a few vaguely achievable plans for this year.

( Which I'm sure you don't care about... )

Gah, it's quiet here today. Just had an email to say our manager is back in tomorrow and will sort the leave out as a matter of urgency, thank goodness. I'm just waiting until it all blows over when it comes to Easter, quite frankly...

I forgot to mention the Rude Woman I encountered in Somerfield over the weekend. She was in front of me in the queue (whilst Paul was getting a lottery ticket at the cigarette counter) and had balanced her basket precariously on the end of the checkout.

She took a heavy item (which was counter-balancing the entire thing) out of one corner of the basket, as a result of which the rest of it started to succumb to gravity. So, being a helpful sort, I reached out to stop it from falling off the checkout and smashing her box of eggs.

Did I receive a 'thank you' for this noble gesture?

Of course I didn't. Merely a silent scowl and her grabbing the basket to put it more firmly on the checkout. How DARE I touch her precious shopping, lest I befoul it with my strange hands!

She was quite well-dressed and buying organic veg, not even remotely chavvy or anything like that, and I would say she was in her 30s (though I'm not good at age-guessing). Absolutely no excuse except sheer bad manners. Snooty cow.

Next time I'll let her basket fall on the floor, eggs and all.

After that, she then proceeded to take bloody ages about packing her stuff, putting her purse away and getting out of the way, as long as it took for all of my stuff to be scanned, which meant I was then also holding up the line packing my shopping.


Can anyone think of a reasonable explanation as to why I've been HUNGRY for three days straight? Like, literally. An hour or so after eating, I'm just starving again. It's really very odd. And in direct comparison to last week, when I was barely hungry at all...

My body is weird.


I posted the fourth and final chapter of the PotC fic last night, having finally managed to end it. *points in a vague FFN-type direction* Now I must get back to that bloody UB fic before it disappears for good.

Tonight I will compile memories to post on phanwank...

So, it was quite good. Not as good, I expect, as the London production, but enjoyable nonetheless. The special effects were pretty awesome. :) It's completely different from the film in that several bits are in different places and there are extra characters. I have no idea how it relates to the original book, though. Even the familiar songs sound unfamiliar because of the way they're arranged. Feed the Birds is still my favourite...

I was confused about where I'd booked our seats, as it turns out, because I thought they were in the stalls and in fact they were in the circle. Quite far back, but the view was okay. I'm not used to being that high up and not being able to see people's faces properly. Thank goodness those tickets only ended up being £20, though, as I think if I'd paid full price for them I would have been a bit pissed off.

Thanks for putting it on right in time for the summer holidays, Birmingham. Srsly. I really wanted to spend good money on tickets to have to strain to hear the entire thing over chattering parents and screaming children. *rolls eyes*

On that note, people and parents of Birmingham, please note the following:

1. When the music starts and the lights go down, that is a cue to STFU. It does not mean "start talking louder to hear each other over the inconvenient orchestra" and nor does it mean "slowly dwindle to silence after about five minutes". It means "be quiet now". Thank you.

2. Please do not fill your children full of sugar when they have to sit through just under three hours of theatre. Whilst it may shut them up temporarily and stop them whinging, it only means they will become hyperactive and jump up and down. Occasionally telling them "shh" every few minutes is not good enough either.

3. Also, seat-kicking is entirely unacceptable in any situation and I have no idea why you haven't yet drilled this into your little brats yet. (Thankfully, we were initially in the wrong row and hence moved away from the seat-kickers.)

4. If your child is too young to communicate in any other way than crying or screaming, they are too young to go to the theatre. Full stop.

Having said that, one small child did provide a moment of amusement at the start. The first thing on stage is a man emerging from a chimney. Said small child shouted "HELLO!" at him. :)

At the same time, though... it's not a pantomime. I'm all for taking your kids to pantos, and I'm all for providing cultural input via the theatre... but please, for the love of anything, teach them the difference between pantomime and musical theatre. When they grow up and go to Rocky Horror they can shout out all they like, but until that point, shut them up. KTHX.

We did go to Pizza Express for dinner, also, though it transpired the voucher had in fact expired on 7th August. I checked the bloody thing loads of times, too, and still got it wrong. It only came to about £10.00 a head anyway... Paul had a Four Seasons pizza and I had a chicken pasta dish containing musrooms, red onion and lots of cheese, with pesto, which was absolutely gorgeous...

Oh, and I forgot to mention - I bought some red pepper pesto houmous from Somerfield the other and it is MANNA FROM HEAVEN, not to mention moreish. (Also, turns out I like chickpeas.)

That will do for now. Tonight we're having some of the pork in a stir fry, and attempting to watch Dan: In Real Life before the end of the night so we can get the DVDs back to Blockbuster in time... I must also edit chapter 1 and post chapter 2 of the PotC fic...

A lovely weekend, all told. The weather has been gorgeous, I've managed to get two large loads of washing done and engaged in non-energetic activities despite the heat...

Mind you, Friday was kind of annoying. I did intend to write about it at the time, but in the end chose not to because most of the annoyances were petty little things (including a ridiculous Air Conditioning Drama at work, Sandra being completely useless again and my having to go and chase her - as a little test later on when I was bored, I copy-typed [and tidied up, putting in paragraphs] what she'd taken about five hours to do, and did so in 30 minutes...) which simply weren't worth worrying about.

( Friday and Saturday )

Sunday was equally unproductive. After Eastenders Paul and I went for a walk in the sunshine, up to Highbury park and through it, then up to Kings Heath park and back that way. In the evening we watched Brazil whilst wilting from the heat, and then went to bed.

Hello, summer! :)

Mind you, when we had that heatwave two years ago, it was about this hot in early June and then kept getting warmer, so this is actually a lot better. This is NORMAL. And our office has air conditioning, so hopefully I won't get ill again...

( Slight TMI, possibly )

Now I just need to Lose Some Weight. And also buy some better scales. I cannot have put on half a stone since I last checked. I just can't. If that's true, I was overweight a stone-and-a-half ago. :(

Aaanyway. That's enough of that. Over and out.

(PS: Note to self - check cinema times for new X-Files movie and post to Facebook for those going...)

So far it hasn't been too bad. I didn't really want to get up this morning due to a late night (we watched Pan's Labyrinth until 11.15) but now I'm in and full of caffeine it's okay. Apparently there was a bit of a kerfuffle last week because the fee earners were panicking and Sandra was being useless, as usual, and also Heather has left so she was finishing everything up before leaving, but other than that it doesn't appear to have been too bad without me. I had to trawl through 115 mostly pointless emails this morning (only three of them were remotely relevant) and somehow managed to do exactly 36.5 hours before I went on leave, so haven't gained any more flex. Meh.

I have become addicted to "Patchworkz" on shockwave.com (it finally works!) which is very mouse-intensive and has given me RSI in my right thumb. I think my mouse is on the way out anyway, so I'll probably plug in the one that came with the new PC. It's a normal type of mouse but at least it's optical.

Still working through putting music on the hard drive. 2.5GB used so far up to F with some exclusions. Some of the CD information online is weirdly wrong. Like, on the De-Lovely soundtrack the information for track 7 is missing, so track 19 (the last one) just... ends up with no name. It's weird. I like the artwork function, though. It's funky, if a little temperamental. So far I'm not hating Vista, also (apart from some backwards-compatibility issues) which is a definite improvement on XP. So much so I haven't even felt the need to turn it into Win 98. ;)

I also ordered the new Alanis album (Flavo[u]rs of Entanglement) which arrived on Saturday. I'm really liking it so far. I think my favourite track is "Not For Us" although the lyrics of the final track (I suck at names) are also striking a chord. On the second bonus CD (I bought the deluxe edition) I also really like "On the Tequila", which disguises itself as a bouncy summer-type song but maintains Alanis's trademark cynicism. I'll post some lyrics later.

Last night I made a sausage casserole from scratch. So here's a recipe, mostly stolen from a google search and modified. I cooked it using the rescued crock pot which was originally under the leaky sink. (I soaked it twice in warm soapy water, before you ask. :P)

( Recipe: Sausage Casserole )

Mm. I like making things from scratch and eliminating the need for jars. I have so far managed to stop buying bolognese sauce and now 'Sausage Tonight' type things. Must learn to make curry. Also 'Chicken Tonight' sauces, as they can't be that difficult to recreate.

Oh, incidentally? The shepherd's pie I cooked for my grandmother was totally delicious, thank you very much, although I served far too much of it. I should really stop praising my own cooking so much, but I'm so used to things going horribly wrong like when I was at school that it constantly surprises me that I can actually cook these days, when I've really only learnt properly the past couple of years or so. The key is confidence, experimentation and basic knowledge.

I have my PDR at some point when Marie's finished with Ann, so should probably get this posted. Longest entry in a while... you can tell I'm back at work. :P

That was quite pleasant.

Due to the nice weather on Satuday we decided to go out for the day. This was after an excursion to the butcher to stock up on meat (and also goose fat as it was better value that Somerfield), and to pick up some plug unblocker and washing liquid. There seems to be an epidemic of supermarkets no longer diong their own brand of washing liquid... I'm not paying £4.50 for a bottle of Persil when I can get two massive bottles of Somerfield's own for £4.00. It does the job.

The bath is now draining smoothly, thankfully. Our pipes are set up stupidly but I suspect it's because of having converted the house into flats. There is obviously a down-pipe from the bathroom as it has always been a bathroom, but subsequently the kitchen and bathroom sinks also join the same pipe from the bath so when you drain either of them it comes up into the bath. Nice. Anyway, I poured Mr Muscle down all three plugholes and have also now flushed it in both directions, which seems to have dislodged whatever was in there. Loooovely. (The downside is that the bathroom smells RANK when you pour dishwater down the kitchen sink. Obviously.)

After that, anyway, we wandered down to the Nature Centre at Cannon Hill Park as neither of us had been for years. A lot of the animals are either not there or being moved so some of the displays were empty, but it was pleasant nonetheless. Otters are cute, but I've always thought so... and so are meerkats, for that matter. :)

We had a bit of a wander around the park and the funfair (Paul won a snake on the hook-a-duck, which was SO EXPENSIVE. Gah.), and we were going to have a go in one of the rowing boats, except two selfish men decided to take the last two, thus scuppering our plans. So we wandered over to the other boating lake to go in a pedelo, except they were closing in three minutes. Bah.

I managed to navigate us back to Moseley on the 1 (which we waited ages for; clearly spoiled with the 50 these days) and we played half an hour of pool (which came to a grand total of £2.00) in Rileys. My brain was not willing to cooperate by that point...

Of the evening we watched the finales of I'd Do Anything (my hatred for the general public has increased. Jessie was CLEARLY the superior candidate...) and Britain's Got Talent (hatred for public somewhat declining, although meh to Escala* not even being in the top three...) and not much else...

Sunday was the usual, with the added excitement of a fox wandering into our back garden for a nap. No, really. It was totally surreal. He stayed there for about 15 minutes and then wandered off again through the fence. There are some photographs on Paul's phone which need to be uploaded. For a moment I was worried he'd just come into our garden to die, as he was very still. Very bizarre.

Also, we started watching Jack and the Beanstalk last night on Sci-Fi. Whilst it is very much appreciated that they're showing these mini-series, it would be better if they weren't trying to cram each one into three weeks instead of their allotted six. Tin Man was hard enough to follow without there being just under two hours of it each week, and Jack is almost as bad...

I think that's everything. Foxy pictures coming later...

*Okay. I am convinced that Escala once released an album and I can quite distinctly remember them playing their 'signature' tune a few years back on some talent show or another. This is about 5-6 years ago now. I also have it in my brain from somewhere that at least one of them went to my school - specifically the violin player. From a quick google search, I am informed that her name is Izzy Johnstone, and her age would place her either the year below me or two years below, depending on when her birthday is. Can any Old Edwardians remember her? She's horribly familiar and it's driving me mad...

(In this picture she's the one on the far left...)

Okay, so the weather today has been nothing short of lovely, which was very much appreciated. Subsequently, the kitchen window has been open all day. Just before sitting down to get on the 'puter, I got Paul to shut said window and happened to be gazing around the kitchen.

Only to find, sitting on the wall over the cooker, a daddylonglegs.

GAH.

For Christ's sake, it's not even summer yet! Why are the bugs out? And why do they always pick my living space to invade? GAH.

I now have insect-paranoia. It might be dead, but I've shut the kitchen door nonetheless....

Aside from that portion of horribleness, today's been mostly sedate. I got up this morning to go down to the post depot to pick up my perfume from ebay (note to self: leave feedback for seller), but having woken up with a headache I was a little out of sorts until at least 3.00pm. I got halfway to the depot before realising I needed to draw money out to pay the customs charge, so had to walk back again, and then forgot to get Paul's cigarettes when I was in Sainsbury's later.

So, haven't really done very much. Listened to music and done my puzzle book and put up a new washing line and that's it.

Last night we were at Paul's niece (Jade's) 16th birthday party at some random working men's club in Stirchley - or at least the function room upstairs. Her parents spared no expense (apparently it cost just under a grand!) and the whole affair was very impressive, if a little depressing... I mean, we were in the Old Fogies corner all night, surrounded by nubile young things with boundless energy, whilst I could barely keep my eyes open and just watching them was exhausting. I can still remember my 16th birthday party. It was a Hallowe'en party and had four guests, only two of whom stayed overnight. I didn't have that many friends.

Also met Paul's dad, which was an interesting experience given everything he's told me about him.

So, aside from feeling frelling ancient all night, I was also reminded of my own teenage years and how vastly different they were. My own life, in fact. I can hardly begrudge a 16-year-old when I was that age 10 years ago (meh...) but still, you know... kind of difficult to avoid comparing.

Also, if that's what 16-year-olds are wearing these days, it's no wonder half of them are pregnant. Jesus.

There were a couple of random amusements, though: Patrick (nephew) having a power nap for all of ten minutes before suddenly finding energy from somewhere again, and Paul deciding to inhale helium. Which really shouldn't have been so funny, but totally was. :)

Today we were hoping to catch Grindhouse at the Electric (which has finally redeemed itself for that reason) except because we only found out about it yesterday, naturally it was all sold out. There is apparently a showing at the Odeon on a Tuesday in May, which obviously rules itself out because of choir commitments, or it'll be on at stupid o'clock in the afternoon when most people have to work (these things always are, I find). Pretty annoying that we have to wait for a tour to see the films as they were intended thanks to a bunch of dumb Americans, but apparently there's going to be a 6-DVD set when it's released. It's especially annoying because I wouldn't ordinarily see either of the films individually and only want to see it because of the double-bill concept and the fake trailers, so, yeah - thanks, USA, for ruining that for us. You suck big donkey balls.

Anyway, this was meant to be a short entry. I am overly cranky thanks to suffering with a headache all day. I shall now sign this off.

...and about 25 more years, and I could be Norma Desmond.



(Sorry about the blurriness; I couldn't be bothered to mess with the digital camera so I used the webcam.  It could do with a bit of exercise anyway. :P)

There was going to be a longish rant here about idiots in cars who think it's funny/cute to beep their horn at you.  But since having a shower has mellowed me out, it'll be slightly shorter.

I was beeped at whilst walking up the main road after work earlier.  This is annoying at the best of times, since my instinct is to look and then realise they're beeping at someone else entirely - except this time, I was confronted by some idiot gawping at me and waving.  No, I didn't know them.  I was wearing tight-ish jeans (not by choice; my arse has expanded) and was the only female on the pavement, but that's no excuse.  The male argument at this point would be "You should be flattered" - screw that, thank you very much.  My argument is that blokes who beep their car horns at women on the street should have said car horns wired into their privates so they get a similar shock when they decide to beep at said women.  Negative conditioning and all that.

Because, y'see, when I've just left work, am listening to my MP3-er and am also tired and grumpy, when I get a sudden shock like a loud noise, my first instinct is to lash out and kill things.  In which case, the idiot waving at me should be very glad he was safely behind the protective body of the car, and that he wasn't stuck in traffic.

Also annoying was the fact that I had to wait for the next train because the 5.35ish, peak time train from Snow Hill to Stourbridge Junction was two carriages long, so by the time it'd even left bloody Snow Hill it was rammed.  I suspect it may also have been late, as the next one turned up a lot sooner than I was expecting.  That one wasn't much better, either, being only three carriages long, but that one carriage makes a hell of a difference.  Whose bright bloody idea was that, anyway?  Yes, encourage people to use public transport, but make sure it's unreliable, uncomfortable, and generally unpredictable before you do so.  I wish I was that clever.  Really.

Er, yes.  Despite this, all is now well in the world, as we're having exotic-sounding sausages and mash for tea (some of them have cheese in!) and if I'm not exhausted tomorrow I'll be going to see butterflyburn's band, Sinistra, at Scruffy Murphy's tomorrow.  In which case, I apologise in advance if I don't make it...

Message end.

I realise of late that my journal is entirely comprising write-ups of increasingly similar weekends, but, well, I don't do anything.  In which case, I apologise for the tedium.

And in true form, here's another one.

On Friday, Paul was meant to be seeing some old friends for drinks, so I stayed in and... didn't do very much, as I recall.  I don't even remember what I did, but it probably involved sitting on my arse in front of the computer.  Oh, that was it, I downloaded Luxor (because the online version consitently refuses to load) and played that, with a break in between to watch My Name Is Earl - which I really enjoyed, for some reason.  The series has the potential to go on forever - assuming, that is, that it doesn't get axed in its prime, like all good American shows these days.

America - kindly stop being stupid, so the TV execs can stop cancelling all the intelligent shows.  Thank you.*

Er, yes.  Saturday morning, my mother and I traversed to West Bromwich to buy plumbing bits for the new sink, and various other things.  I got some Nytol that I'll try tonight to see if it works.  I'm currently stuffing myself full of various different pills and tablets... though admittedly, most of them are herbal.  ( Possibly TMI. )

  Nytol is also herbal so shouldn't do any damage to me.  I love the instructions, though.  "Overdose: No cases known.  Users may become over-sedated." :D

Anyway, after that, we had lunch (egg mayonnaise + crispy bacon rolls... mmm) and settled down to watch The Corpse Bride, because my mum hadn't seen it and I was in a bad mood when i saw it at the cinema.  We got interrupted twice by phone calls - both off David - but eventually watched the whole thing.  I think I appreciated the prettiness a lot more this time around, at least.  I'll watch the extras at another time.  We were playing around with the stereo settings on David's DVD player and settled on "Hall", which makes it all echoey like you're in a concert hall. :D

After that we did our own thing for a bit, and I packed a bag to go to Paul's.  This is when things started getting annoying.

He was in Moseley having drinks with Mike, Laura and some others, and I'd already said I didn't want to have a drink or go to the pub.  Eventually I told him 'maybe' to shut him up.  I phoned him just as I was about to leave the house (about 6.00ish) and he said he'd meet me in Moseley.  I've only been to Moseley on my own on the bus about twice, and that was months ago, so I wasn't entirely enamoured with this prospect.  First he said they'd all gone to O'Neill's for food and I didn't have a clue where that was and wasn't in the mood to try and find it, so I asked him just to go home so I'd meet him there - if only to save myself going into Birmingham and out again, since I could get off the 126 at Bearwood and get the 11, as normal.

No, he said he'd meet me in Moseley, mostly because he wanted to convince me to have drinks, even though I was adamant that when I got there I'd just drag his ass back to Stirchley anyway.

So, I got to town, got on the 50, and phoned him to say I was on the way.  At which point, he tells me that he's in Kings bloody Heath and I should meet him at his house.  Luckily enough, the 50 hadn't pulled off yet, so I got off it and headed off to the 35 stop on Corporation Street.

I got on a 47, as it transpired, and texted him to say so.  He rang me when he got home and said that his mate Alex was also coming around for some reason (which I also wasn't pleased about, but that's neither here nor there) and I refused to tell him why I was annoyed over the phone.

I finally got there - running into Alex as he was leaving, luckily enough - and spent the next 15 minutes shouting at Paul.  Which was probably slightly unfair, but I'd just been all the way into bloody Birmingham and back again for no reason, and after he'd refused to take up my suggestion of going home, he then did exactly that.  Apparently, that was Alex's fault, as he'd phoned him while he was still in Moseley and made him go home.  But nevertheless, I was cold and hungry and tired, and I needed to vent.  Also, he was very slightly drunk, which didn't help matters.

After that, the weekend was far more pleasant.  Saturday night was spent watching television.  We moved the Freeview box upstairs to finish watching The 100 Greatest Actors (at least until no. 46) in bed.

Sunday was spent in a similarly laid back fashion, watching EastEnders (woo, the drama!). I got bored early in the evening, so we trekked off into town to go to the Yard of Ale to play their ItBox.  Hex Factor is bloody brilliant, if frustrating, and the Ant & Dec game also seems to pay out well.  We got more games out of it than our money's worth, anyway.

The original plan was to get food in town, but we spent so long gambling our my money away that we lost track of time.  The minimarket on Pershore Road was shut (because it was Sunday, duh) so we had pork chops and cheesy mash for tea, at about 10.45 in the evening.  Then we watched Scary Movie 3 on video, and went to bed.

Today was the usual level of tedious.  Tomorrow night I will work on the application form, as well as asking Natasha if I can put her down as a reference, since it's a typist position and she'll be the best person to give a good reference for me - she's done it completely off her own bat before now when I first threatened to leave/when they were threatening to get rid of the temps, so I'm sure she'll be glad to.  Plus Tina H, of course, who is currently off sick so I'll have to drop her an email to warn her, again, that someone might be phoning/writing for a reference.

On Wednesday we're staying at Paul's brother's house, as they're on holiday for two weeks, so that'll be nice.

This ended up rather longer than I intended.  I think I'll use up my final minutes of Luxor before bed...

*No offence to any Americans on my f-list - you're on there because you're not stupid. :)

Okay, this is getting a bit silly, now.

On Monday, I brought in a box of biscuits to work, as I think I mentioned. I intended to bring them in before Christmas, but didn't at the time because everyone had bought us biscuits/chocolates and it would've been silly. So I left it a bit, and forgot about them until my mum dragged them from the top of the fridge.

The date on them is 10th February 2006. So, yes, they're a month out of date. But they taste absolutely fine and they're still marginally crunchy, and they're mis-shapen to begin with, which is why they were cheap.

So, anyway, all week A Certain Colleague has been bitching about the fact that the biscuits are out of date. I'd swear she's convinced I'm trying to poison them all. She even tried to put me off cooking cakes for Liz H's leaving do, and as it transpired, the cakes were very much enjoyed by everyone (just like the Christmas cake I made, which was eaten by the majority of CM3...)

This first started on... Tuesday, I think. Natasha had a biscuit, asked who brought them in (I think; I wasn't paying attention) and was halfway through eating it when Sandra mentioned that they were "a month out of date". Natasha didn't seem to mind, as the biscuits taste fine.

I've been eating them all week, and I'm not dead yet. At least as far as I can tell...

The Faga Continued on Wednesday when Sandra, under a lot of stress and convinced she was making herself ill, said "Ooh, I think I'll eat a load of those stale biscuits and make myself sick." Charming. Except for the fact that they're not even stale! They're a little bit softer than they should be, but they're not stale, they're not mouldy, and they're not going to frelling kill her.

And today, it continued even further. Cynthia had take-away Chinese for dinner last night and is feeling a bit queasy/gassy as a result. "You never know," suggested Sandra, "it might've been a month out of date."

Okay. Point taken, already. The biscuits are out of date. Big fat hairy deal. They're more likely to get eaten at work, and until Sandra noticed the use by date on the box, they were being eaten with no qualms whatsoever.

I don't think anyone's eating them now. Whatever. All the more biscuits for me.

I woke up today with sunlight pouring into my room for the first time in ages. Winter sunlight, more white than bright, but sunlight nonetheless. Unfortunately, it's far too cold to even entertain the notion that it might be nearly Spring. Bored of Winter now. Want heat, please.

Anyway, I scribbled my dream down last night and will type it up later. I took my posters downstairs this morning with all good intentions of bringing them in, and then managed to leave them on the kitchen table. Hurrah. Also completely forgot to a) take my SJW and b) put my other one in my lunchbox. I am rubbish.

I also have no work to do, so I'm hoping someone comes in to give me something at some point, though it's looking unlikely.

Quite looking forward to my flex day on Friday. Long weekend, yay!

Anyway, I have nothing more of interest to say, and there probably won't be any photos or anything remotely exciting until the computer's upgraded because I'm trying not to save anything to my hard drive that'll only get deleted again. Not that there was anything remotely exciting here to begin with, but anyway...

New icon, woo.

Tomorrow, Paul and I are going to the Yard of Ale to win lots of money from their ITBox. We got quite a bit out of it on Christmas Eve, too. This will mean, of course, braving the Bloody Football, although the Yard doesn't have a big screen, per se, so I'm hoping it won't be too bad.

( Ranting about football under here. )

Having suitably annoyed you all, I shall now disappear, with my loathing for football still intact, before you all stone me or something.

Sometimes, I honestly wonder how people get to be managers...  You'd think it would involve some level of people skills, right?

Tina R doesn't seem to possess any.  She can flip from being sane and pleasant to angry, ranting and terrifying at the drop of a hat, then switch right back again to apologise if you happened to get the brunt of her rage.  She's demanding and stubborn and impatient and fails to understand the phrase "she's on the other line at the moment".  And she also sends emails last thing on a Friday afternoon (at 3.45) that send the entire office into a tizzy.

( The email )

So, yeah.  I sense a team meeting may be coming very shortly.

I think what pisses me off the most about this is that we weren't even consulted and didn't know the Tinas were even having a meeting.  Having expressly stated my workload is currently huge and I can't do any more cover, they go and assign me more work to do for bloody GCH, when the ideal solution would be to get another typist there, rather than dumping it all in my hands because I'm efficient.  There are limits to my efficiency; I'm only human, FFS, and they'll be the first to complain when I'm drowning and need help.  And then who are they going to turn to?

This Asylum Team typing thing also has repurcussions for Cynthia, because she's refusing to distribute them, and rightly so.  They're not our cases, and she has enough to do considering she's only part time.

It also seems like they haven't taken into account that I don't drive and am reliant on either getting a lift or using public transport, and to get to GCH would involve at least two buses in and out of the city centre.  Or they have and, as stated, Maxine is coming over to LAO.  Which I really don't want, because if she's as snarky in person as she was via email I'm just going to refuse to type for her.  I sent her a polite email back last time explaining that our Chairs do things slightly differently and frelling apologising because she made me feel so guilty about it, and she replied, grudgingly, saying I was right.  Quite frankly, I don't need that kind of hassle going on when I've already got Sandra to contend with.

We definitely all need to get together and discuss this.  Tina H hasn't phoned us up or anything since Friday, so she knows she's going to get her ears bitten off the next time she sees us...

In other, unrelated annoyances, I'd left my phone off silent today and received a text message while it was in my bag.  My phone makes a slightly comedic "Boooing" noise when it gets a text and it's fairly loud.  The message came through and both Amanda and Sandra looked up, giving me filthy looks.  Which I wouldn't be annoyed about if everyone else didn't leave their phones on the loudest bloody setting all day, especially Cynthia and Amanda, who get texts and phonecalls all day on their mobiles.  So that was rather irritating.

I'm also bloody exhausted because it took me an hour and a half to get home.  I missed my first train by about 30 seconds and the next one was delayed by 5 minutes or so, then I was waiting 30 minutes for a 258 so didn't get back until 7.00, having left 11.5 hours earlier this morning and having been at work since 8.30.  Seriously, if I don't gain some flex out of this week I'm going to hurt people.

Aaanyway.  I'm going to have a bath in a bit and then snuggle up in bed with my embroidery.  Or perhaps try and turn my little inspiration from Friday night into something recognisable.

Today was mostly tedious, with a smattering of annoying, and a periodic bout of randomness.

Tedious: I've had nothing to do all day except one tape, one letter and one distribution.  I would email Tina for more work, but the last time I did that she brought over Sparkbrook's LAC distribution backlog and I'm not prepared to do that again in a hurry, plus it'll take her a week to find me anything and by then I'll probably be bogged down in my own work again.  So instead I'll just quietly sit it out.

Annoying: I have been instructed by Sandra to keep a record of everything I'm typing so that in the event I'm off sick or on leave, they can all see, at a glance, whether or not I've typed something.  Possibly this is because someone rang up to enquire about some minutes and, rather than asking if I'd done them, Sandra decided she wanted something she could actually see.  I think Tina's in on this as well, though, so I'm slightly less annoyed about it, and it gave me ample chance to procrastinate whilst making a pretty table to tell them what I've typed, when and who it was for.  Hurrah.  I've even saved it on the shared directory and emailed everyone with instructions how to get to it, so there's no excuse.

Obviously, it's not enough that a) the actual things I've typed are saved on my computer, and with a little click of the mouse I can tell you when it was typed by comparison to when the Conference was and b) my memory retention is actually that good and I can pretty much remember which minutes I've typed and who for, especially if they've been having reviews since the year dot.  No, in the very rare even that I'm skiving off sick or on leave, they want reassurance that they can find a record of my typing.  I'm really starting to feel like nobody trusts me.

On the plus side, Amanda and I both still need to get our ID badges sorted out and they only do them on Mondays, so she's asked that I phone up to book us both in one Monday morning, so we can go into town and stay there to have a pub lunch.  I like the way she thinks. :D

Randomness: Someone - a mother, as usual - rang up today for Cynthia, but as she was photocopying, admin put her through to Amanda.  She was ringing up to complain about a letter that Cynthia had sent out, saying that it was "a pack of lies" and that the grammar and spelling were terrible.  It transpired she was talking about the covering letter that goes with the LAC minutes when they're distributed, which is, well, a basic covering letter... Cynthia's name just happened to be on the bottom of it, and even though it says in fairly large print and simply-worded sentences to take any and all issues up with the Social Worker, most of the time these people don't get on with their worker and want to talk to someone else, so they leap on the first other name they can find.  Which is what happened today.

The minutes, incidentally, are by no stretch of the imagination spelled or punctuated poorly.  I know this, because I was the one who typed them, from Natasha's audio, which, whilst sometimes incoherent due to the length of it (she's very very thorough...), I had tidied up whilst typing.  The bloody cheek. :P

---

I have a new phone!  *squee*  It's pink and shiny and sparkly and very unashamedly girly.  And as of 9.00 it'll be fully charged and ready to play with. :D  Whilst in Virgin and waiting for the phone counter woman to come back, I also did a bit of CD shopping and came out with:

~ Katie Melua's second album, Piece By Piece
~ Green Day's American Idiot, as I've loved all of their latest singles and have heard quite good things about the album
~ the first 1/4 of Paul's birthday/Christmas present.  He knows about three of the things already - two of them by request and the third after consultation - so I need to get something else as a surprise... bloody men being impossble to buy for *mutters*

Anyway, I'll listen to both of those when I'm less likely to get interrupted and not too tired to enjoy them.  I'm more awake today (as the length/quality of this entry proves) but not awake enough, and the awful bus journey home has sapped my enthusiasm somewhat.  I'd forgotten how bad it was trying to get home from Birmingham in rush hour traffic; it's bad enough from halfway down Hagley Road,  and that cuts out at least 30 minutes of traffic.  Insane.

WHY ARE PEOPLE INCAPABLE OF FINDING OUT INFORMATION FOR THEMSELVES???

Because it's easier to blame the lowly typist, that's why.


Situation: today, there is a COnference taking place at 12.30 in Tipton. Last week, the Social Worker rang up to inform us of the address, which I wrote down, in full. House number, street, area. Since I can't change diaries (that's a personal choice in case I mess anything up, since everyone's so quick to blame me...) and can only read them, I leave the address with Sandra, who is on duty, so she can update the Chair's diary with the address.

So Sandra, in her infinite time-saving wisdom, only puts the street name and the area, not the house number. In my weekly note-shredding, I destroy the piece of paper I took the message on, presuming that all of the information would've been transferred to the electronic diary.

So, on Friday, Paul Burge asks me what the house number is for the conference. This morning, Sandra asks me the same thing and demands I contact the Social Worker (after finding out who that Social Worker is, of course) to find out the house number.

So I look on CareFirst to find out the Social Worker, which takes all of thirty seconds (maybe longer; the database is slow and irritating) and phone her, but she's not answering. After a bit more poking around on CareFirst I find the house number. The entire thing takes about two minutes, all told.

The plus side is, when I am similarly demanded to tell Paul this inforamtion, it's me who gets the praise.

But honestly, when will people learn to think for themselves? Everyone's been using CareFirst a lot longer than I have, but just because they've changed the layout recently (and made it easier, I might add) it's scared everyone into non-usability.

MEH.

(And then, of course, I have to rearrange the filing cabinet again, an immensely complicated task which is explained to me twice, just in case I didn't understand it the first time...)