two tickets please

im about to go to the movies, so expect the following:

• i will insist on going much earlier then is necessary to get tickets before the queue starts. the ticket person will give me a confused look and think im there for the earlier session
• i will clutch onto my ticket and check it every 5 minutes as if it were a replacement heart for my dying child
• i will not get popcorn at the same time, it might go cold, so ill queue up 10 mins before the movie starts to ensure its that the popcorn which has been there all day is as fresh as it can be. yes, i am aware that you can also buy your ticket at this time
  
• i will buy a large something combo out of fear that I could starve to death during the 90 minute movie, however if there is a collector something thats half the size and double the price i'll get that instead
• i will play time crisis and show RAT that i do indeed have, mad skills
• i will via a series of loud sighs express distaste for those people who will inevitably come in late, put their ass in my face as they excuse their ignorance while stepping on my feet

/fin

iBus

it's b/o o'clock and I'm on a bus. i cant identify where that pee smell is coming from. gogo public transport

/fin

i am your god

i think i am a superhero, possibly even a small time diety. here's proof:

i'd smite you with:

electricity. i have spent the last 3 weeks providing static shocks to a variety of people and metallic objects. people have become wary of shaking hands with me. oddly enough i can't seem to shock the one girl paranoid about it, is she the chosen one? i also know when a tv is on mute in the room, even if i cant see it - this may be related. also new pants, wooly socks and my sloppy footwork when walking may be related.

i know your secrets:

i dreamt last week that i met the mother of a colleague who i barely interact with. during this meeting she revealed she had ovarian cancer. although i was concerned that i might have to electrocute my colleague if she thought i was crazy, the next day she confirmed her mother has cancer, specifically ovarian and that they had found out last year. take that non-believers

i sense your pain:

one afternoon i overheard on the radio that a girl had been hit by a car, declared dead and then revived. I instantly knew who it was. granted i lived in a state with only half a million people, but those odds are still pretty awesome

i cannot be killed:

i once survived a near death experience. a falling tree snapped high tensile wire, causing it to whip past my neck so close it near burned my skin. this should have decapitated me, however the wire coiled just before hitting me. my uncle who was responsible for chopping down the tree in the first place must have prayed a little that night.

i'm prophetic

i've always had the sneaking suspiscion that im going to die of some brain related issue in my mid-30s, possibly a tumor. i'll be saying "i told you so" after i've ascended to a higher plane of existence

/fin

freaks & geeks

after last friday's visit to a popular restaurant with my staff it became very clear, years of talking to people over the phone has seriously retarded their social skills.

i arrive fashionably late to allow them to get work talk out of their system. i walk over to the table, one is texting and will continue to do so for the next 2 hours, one is staring in awe (possibly frightened by the lack of fluorescent lighting), one is regaling my padawan with tales of things they clearly haven't done in an attempt to dispel rumors of latent homosexuality. here we go.

work talk. awesome. buy round to show appreciation. nod. smile. fake laugh at work related humor. note that they cant help but treat me like the boss. is it possible they are dependent on a strict hierarchy to function? this is what i see before me
one grabs texter's wallet, sending coins flying everywhere in the restaurant. our 8 minutes without incident record was set. another arrives and expresses disappointment at having brought a drink on the way in rather then having me buy them one. this combined with previous incidents including "hey couldn't we celebrate their birthday when i get back from holidays so i can have cake?" and "if i'd known you were going to surprise and pay for us my partner and i would have stayed" causes me to publicly address her lack of tact and self centered behaviour in a playful manner. one down.

waiting on one more to arrive, latent has already ordered their meal and tactful isnt far behind. texter has sat at the end of the table away from everyone else and has divulged that he wanted to go to maccas instead as it was a good price. awe has not spoken and resembles a deer caught in headlights. late arrival walks in, time for the rest of the table to order while the other two eat their meals.

between mouthfuls latent has been talking about girlfriend #53. padawan and i begin to ask a series of questions about said girlfriend and ask to see a picture of her on his phone. nada, must have been deleted. mid-chew, tactful states loudly "we think she doesn't exist". latent proceeds to search through his iphone for a number, attempts to dial and says that he can't get through, else he would have put her on. i note to padawan that an iphone display switches off when you put it to your ear when its making a call, his stayed on. this is why im paid the big bucks.

before eating i test boss powers by declaring work talk punishable by death. conversation killer. wait the price of my steak is now the subject of discussion which naturally leads to questions about how much i get paid. inappropriate much? my internal monologue is interrupted with questions about where i live, including exact street name and number. pass. latent has narrowed it down to a small area that includes where i actually live. im scared now.

post meal, tactful has gone to look at the view, texter is cleaning his phone, awe is still in awe, latent is trying to get someone listen to his story and im conscious that people might want to go out for more drinks in yet another public place. i politely advise im going to head. cue everyone to leave as the lack of an alpha would cause widespread panic. i politely decline offers for a lift home and head in the opposite direction from where i need to go.

i need a career change.

/fin

the tropics

its now been 5 long miserable days since returning to the real world. there are no dive in bars, alcohol with breakfast is frowned upon and there's a definite lack of backpackers willing to serve cheap mexican food. Overview:

there were no coconuts drinks. hollywood lies yet again

our accommodation was run by eric estrada who provided a full range of services, including picking up RAT's forgotten underwear and placing them in her bag.

the local pub reserves a large section of seats for a biker gang every sunday who may or may not turn up. i was inspired to stand up for the locals and win back seating rights through a 60's inspired surf-off, but i was on holidays after all.

my eyes appeared to have developed an odd immunity to the stinging power of seawater, possibly because im extremely blind. whilst this super-power could prove very handy (especially in the surf-off) i apparently freak out now when im swimming offshore, panic attack style and find myself confined to boats or within a short distance to the shallows. its great discovering new things about myself

responsibility #1: lead RAT (blinded by the after sun I put on) off the balcony through to the bathroom to wash her eyes. forgot what i was doing and about 5 steps in lead her into a table. this does not bode well for her trust in me

responsibility #2: ensure even coverage of sunscreen on RATs back. unrelated incident, at the end of day 1 she had an odd patch of non-sun burnt skin that looked like a hand print...

in a party town filled with 20 somethings, maccas was staffed with geriatrics rather then the standard voice-breaking pimple brigade

sat next to a blind guy at the dock. even though he needed a stick to hit us with to know we were there, he was going on the sunset cruise. this intrigued me.

had my fortune read by a tarot chick. oddly enough when i arrived she had gone home for the day and obviously couldn't read her own future very well.

my constant impression of Mr Roarke's "welcome to fantasy island" every 5 minutes whilst accurate, may have gotten annoying.

im not going to write more, less it become the blog version of watching someone else's slides.

/fin

super mega awesomeness

i'll write about the trip later when i have time and the sunburn fades, so look forward to me regaling tales of eric estrada the hotel owner, panic attacks while swimming offshore and my musings on the demise of the seafood pizza. in the interim:

thanks to good boyfriend me, RAT now owns a copy of Gears of War II and is currently debating if she should play this now or play wow instead. the latter wins tonight but its GOWII "all friday night".

if saturday is declared pron and steak day, marriage proposals are definitely on the cards

/fin

aloha

4 more sleeps and ill be lazing back on a tropical island, drinking something with lime out of a coconut and copulating every hour. if i could bring my barbecue with me, i'd never leave.

since it feels lame to do so, i haven't packed a thing and wont till the last minute in the event that it gets back to someone that i cant keep my cool. i have however purchased $500 worth of island shorts and shirts made of 100% cotton so i look like a casually dressed island fellow....whose blindingly white in shirts that still have the store tag on

a quick check of google maps between paragraphs has enlightened me to the fact that our accomodation is a costal town and that whilst visiting islands will occur, i may have gone overboard in my purchases and researching how to crack a coconut

travel thoughts thus far:

• is back fat back in fashion or should i pack a tee? is wetsuit material flattering?
• will work call because im important? as cool as my iphone is, the 5 minute battery life could be an issue. pack charger. no, i cant leave it. what if? exactly.
• should i get someone to log my wow account and do dailies? i'll have a heap of rested xp when i come back for the expansion. kickass.
  
• heroes isnt on next week so i wont miss out. thank god, that would have bugged me all trip.
• if i dont shave and get a kickass tan, i could look like this guy:

/fin

engrish

god bless foreigners with a limited knowledge of the english language who are happy to give it a go. 30 something devout buddist lady came out with these gems today:

"I got a happy ending" after walking out of a meeting room with me where she thought she was in trouble

"I will swallow you" when organizing how she will get to the pub after work. follow perhaps?

these are stored away with the memory of her stating "you finally got someone in your team pregnant" in earshot of human resources. "someone in your team finally got pregnant" would have been far more accurate, but a good try nonetheless

and in other news today, the world financial crisis gets worse:

outraged. prepare for my first ever "when i was a kid" story. this is the bill for having my lawn mowed.

when i was kid 20 years ago this was a $2 job regardless of lawn size (and most lawns at the time were bigger then modern houses). here is my lawn, that bush is about waist height if that gives you a sense of scale.

this represents an increase of 2787.5% which is definitely not inline with inflation. im calling on the government to regulate these money hungry bastards. if they don't, i'll raise an army of younglings to put them out of business

in environmental news:

why the hell did i get a phone book delivered? does anyone use them anymore other then these guys?

heavily medicated

i am dying.

summer flu (or spring in this case) is the worst. it's nature's way of saying "remember how smug you were in winter when you didn't get the flu?"

after spending the last couple of days housebound and sounding like a crack-whore i went into the office determined to will myself better. soon after arriving i decided that coughing and passing out was an ineffective use of company time and went home for some manly recuperation time (RATs hot-chocolate with marshmallows with a side order of soap opera and Entertainment Tonight)

some pseudo-ephedrine induced moments on the way home:

realized that my breathing and walking changes significantly when i go past the blind guy who asks for donations. i firmly believe that he can recognize me with his other heightened senses and will ask me directly if he senses my presence. i would feel compelled to give money, so instead i have developed skills that would make a ninja jealous. yep, going to hell

coming up to a pedestrian crossing i noticed a policewoman stopping traffic as the lights were out. this immediately made me nervous as im conscious that i never use the lights and that i would be someone's bitch if i ever went to jail. when i arrived and was the only person who wanted to cross, she casually said "cross whenever you want". entrapment. thanks to my finely honed frogger skills i made it across and when i looked back to see if her weapon was drawn, all i could see was her asking a man my age to wait while she stopped traffic. the police force is against me.

this could be the energy drink combining with the pills causing me to see stuff, but as i type RAT's cockatiel is masturbating while mine watches from afar, clearly unimpressed. it's the first time i've seen him do this since last breeding season when he discovered it (and like most good men he proceeded to do it as much as physically possible). i feel uncomfortable and slightly dirty for watching

/fin

corporate folk

in large companies you'll always have at least the following 3 people on your payroll. this could be wacky coincidence, but im starting to think that governing bodies require companies hire a specific percentage as part of equal opportunity

knee jerk

responsible for decisions that are as quick (and dangerous) as lightning, knee jerk is typically a middle manager who appears to have miraculously defied the laws of natural selection. kj believes in exercising his keen instinct rather then asking informed questions and prefers wide-scale decrees based on the lowest common denominator. There may be a .000032% chance that your peer could bring a weapon to work, but thanks to daily cavity searches and quick thinking by kj, you're safe.

the bullet dodger

the bullet dodger is renown throughout the land for their inability to be fired, despite averaging 3 days at work last year and being involved in a scandal that rivaled watergate. to peers and subordinates, bd is as trustworthy as a Nigerian banking email but thanks to over-zealous workplace laws escapes prosecution time and time again.

deathbed

able to diagnose any illness by recalling when they had it last, deathbed will experience more cases of flu this year then a major hospital and will cite a good day's rest as the reason why they are out drinking that night. deathbed is kind enough to provide a courtesy cough when calling up sick and when returning to work for the first 20 minutes or so. thanks to quality medical professionals who worry about loosing an easy patient, deathbed will always have a valid medical certificate and may go as far as having a supply of flu tablets clearly visible on their desk for extra authenticity.

theres a lot more then this im sure, but white chocolate rocky road calleth.

/fin

3 things i dont get

"i love ale" is carved into my bus shelter. who would write this? do pirates catch public transport now?

since when is it's ok to wear crocs in public? i heard they are supposed to be uber-comfortable, but so are my oversized tracksuit pants that I bum around the house in. IN THE HOUSE, NOT OUTSIDE.

stretch piercings. most piercings don't bug me provided they are not on the naughty bits, but if these things go out of fashion, what the hell will you do with the holes? rent your body out as a miniature golf course?

/fin

life's important questions

let me start off by stating that i don't intend to be ignorant or uncaring. these questions come from a place of genuine wonder and awe for the world around me.

if someone has a lazy eye, which eye do you look at? in a training session today one of the attendees seated opposite had a lazy left eye that was constantly pointed in my direction, regardless of any head movement. it was like a one eyed mona-lisa staring me down which begged the question - should i act as if she is watching me even when the good eye is pointing away? is she actively focusing on me or is it akin to peripheral vision?

so i turn to ask jeeves, only to find out he's going by the name of ask these days (someone got a little full of himself)

question: should i act like the lazy eye can see me?
result: the lazy eye syndrome. anyone know how to cure it?

we'd all like a cure jeeves, but that doesnt help me here and now. dont answer a question with a question, this is not ask confucius

if i accidentally hit myself in the cobblers at work and other people are in the room, is it ok to acknowledge the severe pain im going through if there are females present? sure its fine when other men are in the room, but is it appropriate to share when the fairer sex is wondering why I look like im about to pass out and refusing to talk?

question: is it ok to tell women i hit myself in the nuts?
result: is it ok to occasionally hit your girlfriend?

again not kosher to answer a question with a question, but more disturbing is that jeeves thinks its ok to take your pain out on loved ones. not cool jeeves, not cool

/fin

get onboard

im all for the planet, its a tops place (and as my t-shirt says, its where i keep all my stuff) but im not satisfied that the government is doing enough to make it a little bit easier for those of us that like to wash our hair and don't own any tie-dyed clothing. i feel somewhat justified in not voting now.

public transport is a great idea but we need some laws passed to ensure a civil time is had by all. listen up hippies:

• passengers may not smell like b/o unless its after 5pm. passengers found to be smelling like a bum just peed in their armpits early morning on a monday will not be permitted travel. after 5pm, b/o is permitted however for the comfort of other passengers please keep your arms at your sides at all times.
• all mobile phones are to be switched off at all times. passengers are reminded that talking loudly on your phone makes you look like a wanker and is as socially acceptable as a fart in church
• passengers on the isle are required to acknowledge a window seat passenger's civil right to freedom and allow them to exit the vehicle upon request.
• passengers found to be using a $100 note for a $2.50 fare will be subject to on the spot fines totaling $97.50. Debating the "im not a bank" rule will result in summary execution
• failure to count and prepare the 300 small coins required for the fare prior to boarding will result in a transit officer using the change in question to fill a sock which will be used to bludgeon the offender repeatedly

/fin

friday on my mind

every time the man-wife goes away i loose the outlet for my sadistic tendencies and as a result, others tend to suffer in his place. it's now been 1 week and i'm happy to say, i've only caused one person to temporarily loose their self confidence and question their role-fit. my peers have recognized my efforts in keeping this to a minimum and I was rewarded with a sausage & egg mcmuffin. nice pays off.

which reminds me, i haven't mention the ideas club.

the absence of estrogen often results in men failing to observe significant relationship milestones and from "proactively" thinking of things to do on the weekend that demonstrate their desire to be with their significant other. whilst the former can be addressed thanks to calendar reminders and setting passwords to key dates, the latter is often neglected. last week while sowing seeds of doubt into man-wife's relationship with his GF, i came up with the idea that men in the office could pool our ideas together and make a subscription based website which emails out 1 random idea every week, complete with a list of instructions on how to make a weekend with the missus a hit. site rules would require every member to submit at least 1 idea that they've either had (or stolen) and used with success (this is measured by continuation of relationship and associated benefits). this is so going to my good ideas file.

back to this week, work have realized that I have managed to go the better part of the year with minimal additional training. since maintaining the illusion of support is very important, i was assigned a course which i should have done 3 years ago. the course included a diverse mix of people including:

• guy who described his major concern at present was the loss of a 90 million dollar deal last week (yes that does sting a little, i asked how exactly that felt) and discussed a deal he closed worth $52 million like you or I would talk about the weather
• girl who cited not having a headset to make calls as her major concern and talked (for a good 30 minutes) as if she were a walkman with low batteries.

a great networking opportunity.

classroom training reminds me of school. as such, i revert to rebellious teen who doesn't like to participate in group activities that are designed to demonstrate simple concepts and tend to giggle at everything that can be remotely linked to something sexual. this process is not made easier by the female version of me sitting adjacent whispering "scrotum" at random times throughout the day. training material that included conversation such as "it's going to be hard" and "i think you'll enjoy it more if it rigid" were the source of much amusement. at one point mid-lecture when i was contemplating severing a major artery with the leftover spork from lunch, female me whispers "i need to pee really bad but we can't leave". i'm saved. i spent the next 30 minutes slowly pouring water from a bottle into a cup until she cracked and excused herself. the trainer, Heir Pashmina, expressed her disapproval with the classic over the glasses glare, interpreted "selecting one person at random" as "one of you two" for every exercise or question over the 3 days and is probably still typing a report card to send to my parents at this very moment.

i did however get the opportunity to pick the training that i'll attend next year. 2 out of 3 require an all expense paid trip somewhere and 3/3 are known to end days with a drinking session.

booyah.

/fin

care bears share

tuesday is my favourite day of the week. not for the cheaper pizza (which i've just ordered) and not because heroes comes out (which i'll watch sans pizza). its the day i make a difference

but first a slice of psych

if you give a hoot about personality profiling im an INTJ or Mastermind if you follow Keirsey (who doesn't?). We account for less then 1% of the world's population and do not feel bound by established rules and procedures, traditional authority does not impress us, nor do slogans or catchwords. As such, challenging the status quo is my status quo, if you try to manage me with authority we'll end up discussing your shortcomings and catchwords or slogans translate to "distractionfrommyproductandorservicenotspeakingforitself". We tend to come across as uncaring due to our biting sarcasm (im sure you knew this already dumbass) and natural tendency to distance ourselves from people (it helps to take in all your flaws and pass judgment with a wide angle lens). most importantly, we like to hang out in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead.

after watching management promote turnips who were intent on damaging everything in their path, i decided to take an active role in succession planning and gather together a group of induhviduals that were capable of wiping their own asses and hadn't been damaged beyond repair. At the time this was an opportunity to build my very own clone army that would take down the existing inefficient manager population and eventually thrust me into a high-level position that would require minimal effort for maximum pay. a solid plan.

i had what i wanted, an audience who were appreciating a bullshit free environment and were attentive to everything i could imprint on them. as i downloaded my agenda in weekly installments, something unprecedented happened.

they were displaying independant thought. my direction was evident, but the ideas were their own. i was able to witness what accountability and ownership looked like in others for the first time. i realized two important things:

• these people are rare and must be supported at all costs.
• the inner care-bear inside me had awoken at the sound of competence.

im finding myself wanting to spend more and time with these people. i followup with them individually to see how they are tracking and when they come to me for advice or to let me know how they went with some advice im all ears. im going out of my way for people and it's not part of the plan. sarcasm has been replaced by obi-wan like wisdom, i'm sharing flaws and im enjoying it.

27 years later im learning to give a rats. go me.

one small step for man

on a man scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being jodi foster and 10 being 300's king leonidis, i'd normally rate about a 3 or a 4. i don't follow sport, but i do feign an interest if in the presence of other men as this seems to be a key talking point. i have no knowledge of cars but could find the dipstick in a pinch and will recycle comment's i've memorized from the last awkward car-talk moment. i drink beer (now) but generally it's imported and never from a can. i have minimal manual abilities, i can change a light bulb and last year i fixed a blocked sink after 4 days (thanks to howstuffworks i can now tell you the basic principles of how they operate and have a selection of tools available for the job)

recent event's in my life have caused me to re-evaluate my rating for the better

• i brought a 4 burner bbq with side cooker. i built it myself in an impressive 4 hours. when i cook meat, i am hunter/gatherer and the feeling is akin to killing a saber tooth tiger bare-handed. if anyone knows how to refill a gas bottle, please tell me before i make a knob of myself at the service station.
• i left the seat up recently. when i noticed this i beamed with pride and refused to put it down until later that afternoon
  
• my presence was requested at a recent staff-firing in case things got violent. she left with little fuss
• i couldn't remember my GFs eye color. i'm not proud of it, but forgetting important details is a sign of manly man
• i purchased a business shirt with cuff-links. while some may say this could result in a point deduction, the cuff-links look like screws and i look powerful. patrick bateman wore them, and you'd have to say he's manly....or he'd kill you
• the hulk surfaced in me when i heard that GF's colleague had made a declaration of love at her a week after meeting me. hollow threats were made and he can expect harder then normal handshakes and a raised eyebrow when i see him next
  
• after seeing a friend's macho display of pushing the drunk man out of his face on the weekend, i puffed my chest up, barry-whited my voice and appealed for reason. if i remember correctly, i distinctly positioned myself slightly between this threat and GF. protect the clan

of course this rating is pure speculation, i'll need to wait for the next Cosmo survey to see how i officially score

/fin

fate and the man-wife

today started with a great idea and ended with a can of salmon to the head. fate is a cruel mistress with an odd sense of humor. i'm pretty certain it wasn't justice, she's blind and i'm very quiet

before i begin it's important that i explain the relationship i share with the manager who works opposite me. he will be henceforth referred to as my man-wife as we spend the large majority of our waking hours together. whilst there remains some speculation about who owns the wife and husband title, it's my blog so i say who's who. my position as man-husband is further strengthened by:

• the team recently organizing Father's Day lunch and a true gift of love, a Nerf set.
• the team planning a mother's day lunch for him. by them I mean that I'm leading the campaign and since he missed out of Father's Day its the next best choice
• his "happy to help, let me wipe that off with my hanky" approach vs my "learn to wipe your own ass, you're an adult now and I'll teach you to be one" style
  

like most of my relationships, the inner sadist kicks in and tells me that i should routinely poke the other person with a stick to test their limits. rational me (a wallflower compared to the other versions of me) will often highlight the potential drawbacks of such actions, ranging from a lifetime of loneliness to a being beaten to death with a toaster. despite these obvious disadvantages, i cannot for the life of me stop this behavior. previously, these moment's with my man-wife have been limited to snappy 1 liners at his expense, attacking his masculinity and the occasional thought provoking discussion designed to make him think his girlfriend should be cheating on him because he's a bad person. he is my Dwight Schrute and i am a sick version of Jim Halpert. due to increased boredom and lack of opportunities to channel my powers for good, i've recently upped the ante somewhat.

today's prank involved:

• thought provoking discussion several weeks ago about how he interacts with another manager
• a series of followup chats asking "how did that go?" every time they had spoke with each other
• him including that manager as in his out of office forward
• letting other manager in on the plan, using "its Friday and you're bored" as my key negotiation tactic
• sending and email to man-wife about this manager stating that he was right all along about her and that it was hard to believe
• oscar winning performance when i "realize" in front of man-wife that email has been forwarded
• oscar winning performance when other manager realizes "betrayal"
• bribing our manager with leftovers to pull man-wife into a room and "tear him a new one". an important step as prior abuse causes man-wife to believe that i'm manipulating things around him for my own sick entertainment. he knows me well
• directing a dependent to alert man-wife to the "fight" that was currently going on in one of the meeting rooms

i wish i planned my life this well.

we let him in on the joke after he had worked 2 hours overtime trying to repair the situation. as i laughed about it at him later, the can of salmon which he was casually tossing in the air rebounded off the roof, hitting me in the head with sufficient force to leave a lasting mark and killer headache. as i write this blog and my memory returns, it occurs to me that we have unusually high ceilings, that the last toss in the air was more of a hard throw and that man-wife did seem to step out of the way very early on in the throw.

it would appear that fate is innocent and that my next man-wife prank involves framing him for a crime that carries a prison sentence.

/fin

obey the red man

as i sat at my desk eating my breakfast and pondering if taking sleep-ezy pills at 6:30am would result in a relaxing day, it occurred to me that putting effort into planning a lazy day was somewhat ironic. the plan looked something like this:

• conduct a coaching session with a dependent with sufficient self awareness to identify their own development needs so i could sit and nod.
• insert cup of tea and kitchen chat
  
• clean my desk. as a guy, this means piling up paperwork, putting everything at 90 degree angles and wiping down the empty desk space which is roughly the size of a post-it
• insert cup of tea and kitchen chat
• sit back during afternoon meeting and watch the construction going on outside

a brilliant plan that still gave the impression that i'm working hard for the money.

this plan was ruined by dependents crying "hey i cant login to....". being part of a multi-national we of course have our own tech support team available 24 hours. fortunately for support, dependent's don't call them directly using the numbers plastered all over the place as this would require independent thought. instead, they relay error messages such as

• you cant login. check your supervisor
• the server cannot be used
• the server you are using cannot be used
• verification filed

all of which are extremely helpful albeit not endorsed by the manufacturer. although we were potentially losing millions of dollars i carried myself with an air of confidence and calmness, so much so that people were able to ask me useful questions such as "hey did you get a chance to read that email I sent 1.3 seconds ago about getting some time off in 2014?"

after hours of online chats with the 20 odd people it takes to fix anything, taking calls from people who wanted to ask the same question they had asked seconds before in the online chat, the problem was solved and my lazy day could begin.

after a quick run around to obtain kudos for saving the day, i decided to take a trip to the pharmacy to reassure myself that taking a pill is a good substitute to regular exercise and eating right. as i stood at the lights considering if i'd actually taken any life-saving vitamins in the last 6 months, a contender for Father of the Year appeared alongside. as i passed judgment on this leather-faced stranger and his child which bore an odd resemblance to dakota fanning, he proceeded to yell abuse at a woman driving past who was smoking in her car with a child in the front seat.

as i watched him cross the road through traffic with his child in tow despite the little red man's insistence, i couldn't help but notice the cigarette in his other hand and the smell of beer that followed him. winner.

/fin

kodak moments

for the last 9 month's I've survived on a diet of VHS rips of the x-files and a host of shows that would normally fill the lucrative 11:30PM onwards time slot thanks to greedy writers wanting a larger cut.

all that changed tonight when our torren....tv's were graced with an eclipse, an emo-hero and the soothing sounds of a indian voice over.

the memory of this moment has now been added to the list of 2008 moments that I'll compile in my mind-montage, complete with acoustic guitar soundtrack:

• being frisked for stubbie holders by my best friend's new husband at their wedding
• a disturbing series of recurring dreams involving the end of the world, broadcast in HD with 5.1 channel surround sound. most disturbing was my colleague and I watching our girlfriend's die and my first reaction was to get annoyed that at Armageddon I was still spending more time with him then her.
• convincing GF to sign up a mmorpg account for "just the trial period"
• watching GF upgrade said account to a full version (thus proving my awesome-ness)
• building a bbq in less then a day without serious injury or anything that would require skin to be removed from my butt and grafted to my face
• hitting 150+ successive notes in guitar hero iii. this may or may not have been on easy mode playing pat benetar
  
• explaining to a dependent (staff member) that he does not have a cervix

/fin

hi I'm ____________

Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of Italy's wealth went to 20% of the people. I'm guessing he was part of the 80% that didn't get paid.

in 1941 Dr Joseph "Duran" Juran took this principle and applied it to quality issues, stating 80% of a problem is caused by 20% of the causes.

today, middle managers such as myself are ruled by this principle

• 80% of their time is spent with 20% of the company's idiots
• 20% of their time is spent doing the remaining 80% of their workload
• 80% of their waking day is spent either at work or on the way to work
• 20% of their waking day is spent emotionally eating or taking some form of legalized drug to numb the pain
  

80/20 rules my life.

hi I'm pareto.

by day I'm a late 20's something call centre team leader working for a large multi-national company whose reputation with the public is somewhere between minky whale hunters and parking inspectors. if you thought finance company, you'd be correct.

between swimming in our Scrooge Mc'Duck-esque vault and finding farmers to foreclose on, my duties include:

• counseling. "pregnant again?"
  
• tech support. "shut up and reboot"
  
• coaching. "try not to screw up so much"
  
• recognition. "see that trained chimp over there"
• rewarding. "have a banana"
  
• mentoring. "wearing pants is a good step forward"
  
• reporting. "here's an excel spreadsheet"
• project management. "who's not here today?"
• time management. "I'd love to attend a meeting on water cooler safety"
  

at night i return home to my modest 2 bedroom rented house to ponder why the most expensive thing i own is l-shaped and rhymes with "ouch". it is here where i entertain my partner with Stories of Stupid People (TM) that I've encountered and compare against her Stories of Stupid People: Public Sector (TM). the main difference here is that they pay more money for the people we fire, then can't get rid of them for fear of discrimination. "lazy tosser" is now a medical condition and must be treated with paid leave and light duties.

after a moment of silence for the death of our social lives, we log in to a mmorpg and spend the night unleashing our fury killing 30x something or collecting 10x something for several hours. whilst we are shunned for our failure to understand Chuck Norris inspired humor; the fact that our bed-time is a full hour later then theirs makes us gods amongst men.

rule number 1 of a modern day relationship:

couples who raid together stay together

this blog is cheaper than a therapist and helps me believe that I've contributed something to the world other then the pie sandwich concept. back off, it's my idea.

ดูข้อมูลส่วนตัวทั้งหมดของฉัน took the URL I wanted. When I learn what language that's in I'll babel fish him a strongly worded letter that loses all context when translated requesting he release it to me.

/fin