New Year's Eve

Cheesy joke

Banter

Pretty early on in our relationship, Husband and I decided that we shouldn't banter between each other as it inevitably ends in an all-out cat fight. However, we often review this decision and have trial banter-weeks. It always ends badly.

Our most recent foray into couple bantering started off quite fun. Husband, intent on spicing up our maritals, asked me what I would like to be tied up with. I replied: "A good book." We chuckled a bit and carried on with our conversation. Unfortunately, this was the catalyst that resulted in a series of progressively snide remarks.

By the end of the day, exhausted by creating emotional walls to protect against the banter blows, Husband said to me: "That style suits you," as I had my sweater pulled over my face whilst getting changed. This was met with an icy silence and signalled the end of all conversation, banter or otherwise, for the next 24 hours (I can sulk, oh yes, I can sulk).

The fundamental problem with bantering with someone you know very well is that they know you very well too, and this is where the line between fun and insulting is not only crossed, but beaten back by a burning rhino that's really pissed about being on fire.

Disaster!

My awesome pen has run out! I've tried other pens, but the result is pretty dire (see my last post for confirmation). I now need to conjure the courage to fight the horrendous Christmas shoppers and buy a new awesome pen, or get really good at freehand work with MS Paint. In the meantime, the cartoons here will either be scarse, pretty crap or half-finished looking.

I need to save for a graphics tablet and all my awesome pen woes will be over!

Update - It's snowing. I'm not feeling the urge to fight the crowds for a pen, awesome or not. 

Based on a true story

Reasons to work from home

Since graduating, I have joined the throngs of the full-time employed. I gave myself a good few months to settle into a routine and come to terms with having a lot less spare time than I was used to.  And after a year of full time work, I don't much care for it.
I decided to come up with a few pro's and con's about working from home - you may not be able to do much about the full-time bit, but you can about your surroundings. Initially I considered moving my couch to my desk at work, but decided that would be a tad impractical and probably against a zillion safety regulations.

Pro's:
1. I'm socially inept
To me, this is the strongest reason to work from home. I don't know how I manage it (if I did I wouldn't be socially inept) but I always say either the wrong thing completely, or the right thing but to the wrong group. This always results in an awkwardness paralleled only by holding your husband's hand in the supermarket, only to find it isn't your husband at all, but some stranger you grabbed by the frozen veg.

 2. Personal development
This is touted so often in the office environment I doubt anyone even knows what it means anymore. It has nothing to do with nude photography. I checked.
What better way to develop your cultural understanding and knowledge than surfing the web at home? If it wasn't for home net-surfing, then I would never be aware of things like this, and frankly, I think I'm a better person for it.

 3. PJ days!
Seriously, who doesn't love the idea of lounging working in your PJ's on the couch? In fact, the PJ day shouldn't just be confined to those who work at home, we should campaign for PJ days at work, and discourage people from dressing up just for a web conference.

4. Avoiding the office coffee
I think this one explains itself:

5. No commute
The problem with working conventional hours is that so does 97% of the population (I totally made that figure up, but I bet it's high). This not only results in traffic jams and tardiness, but also a complete lack of identity, as the amorphous "we are one" being crawls its way to and from work. Depressing.

                                

Con's:

1. I'd become even more of a social recluse

The more time I'd spend at home, the more of my paltry social skills I'd lose. Eventually, I''d barely be able to form a coherent sound, let alone sentence and I'd be become known in my street as the crazy lady with all the dogs. Whilst technically correct, it isn't an impression I'd like to encourage.

2. Money
Once the novelty of working from home has passed, the reality would strike and I'd find more and more excuses to avoid working. The home environment is the worst place for procrastination - there is always something that needs cleaning, calls to make or personal development to catch up on.

3. The real PJ day
The reality of of the PJ day looks something like this:

Very little work is actually conducted during a proper PJ day, and the work that is done is probably crap because your mind is set to slob mode and nothing you do is going to achieve a standard that will actually get you paid.

                                

To summarize, whilst there are more reasons to work from home than not, none of them are likely to result in an income that could support my dogs in the lifestyle they have become accustomed to. Maybe if I actually thought of a viable idea rather than wait for one to fall in my lap...

Pensions

It's time to opt for our new benefit selections at work (i.e. pensions, medical insurance, cycle schemes etc.), so there have been several presentations put on to help us choose.

I toddled off to one this morning expecting the mysteries of fiscal savviness to be unravelled. Unfortunately, I have never been mathematically minded, so to me the description of the cycle scheme sounded something like this:

"The total cost is spread over the year and you pay the remaining 3% value dependant on the agreed depreciation rate of cottage cheese times the airing time of bamboo  flippety blippety doopy boop boop."

By the time you leave the presentation you're left feeling a little bit retarded, wondering how you were even considered competent enough to have your own bank account. The rest of the day is spent picturing your future old self wearing fingerless woolly gloves, eating cold beans out of a tin and unable to move under the weight of twenty threadbare blankets, cursing your younger self for investing in a bike instead of a pension.

Update

As it's been a few days since my last post, I thought I would check-in to let you know that I haven't forgotten or lost interest in this blog.

I am working on some posts, but they are taking more time than I anticipated (don't get excited, Lowrie they are not).

In the meantime, here's a picture of Tangent walking on his head.

Work Christmas Meeting

Work has announced that the company christmas meeting is in a couple of weeks. The format is usually quite formal in the morning with the customary meetings, followed by lunch and a disco for the afternoon. Sounds all rather jolly. However, as the meeting is 'compulsary for everyone unless you have pre-arranged holiday booked,' this to me just sounds like 'There is a company meeting, and you will have fun or face a discipinary.'

The meetings and lunch sounds fine to me, but I am dreading the disco part. This is primarily because watching me dance is like witnessing a horrific epileptic fit, and there's nothing you can do about it except maybe shove a sock in my mouth to stop me swallowing my own tongue.

 My only hope is that my complete lack of kinaesthesia may influence future company meetings, and spare other people the embarrassment that is the 'work do.'

Bathroom melodrama - contains nudity

After spending a relaxing Sunday walking the dogs and generally doing nothing I didn't want to, I decided to take a warm bath before settling on the couch with Husband to watch Avatar.

I spent a while sloshing about in that sedate way that defines the Sunday Bath, then unplugged the plug and got out. I heard a Glomp gloop gloop noise that didn't quite sound right, and noticed that it was emanating from the stand-in shower, and not the bath. On closer inspection, I saw that a mini-fountain was slowing building from the shower's plug-hole and my old bath water (complete with leg-hair stubble) was beginning to fill the base of the shower.

Being the resourceful person I am, I stood watching dumbly for a few seconds before yelling for Husband. By the time Husband had appeared on the scene I had gathered enough wits and had heroically abandoned my towel whilst replacing the bath plug.  Husband, having been summoned to the bathroom and confronted by a naked wife, looked momentarily hopeful until I indicated toward the shower.

Husband removed the bath plug to assess the situation and decided that a plunger was needed. He fled downstairs to retrieve said plunger. In his absence, there was still a steady flow of water coming up the shower plug-hole, which by now was perilously close to the rim. I grabbed the bathroom bin and began bailing the water out of the shower into the bath and continued in this fashion until Husband's return.

I was quite pleased with my show of initiative until Husband pointed out that perhaps putting the water back into the bath wasn't really that helpful. Conceding the point, I redirected my bailing efforts towards the toilet.

The plunger, alas, was no match for whatever was blocking the system, so we continued bailing the water out until it posed no threat to the bathroom carpet (quite why anyone would carpet a bathroom I don't know!). 

I decided that siphoning the last of the water in the shower cubicle would be a good idea - I think I was trying to compensate for my earlier lack of wisdom, so grabbed the siphon we use for the fish tank and lay with my face pressed into the floor to get the water movement. At this point, I had an image of what I must have looked like; naked, flat out on the  floor with a clear tube running out of my mouth like some drunk sophomore getting their stomach pumped.

Having averted the major flooding issue, we decided to leave the rest for the letting agent to sort out the next day and so returned downstairs to watch Avatar.

Nature Guidebook: How to spot a dog-person

Why I shouldn't be allowed to talk to people.

The latest development craze at work is having another colleague watch you work, or shadow you. So, Publisher asks me if I would mind having another member of the team shodow me. The conversation went something like this:

Publisher: Do you mind being shadowed by the new team member?
 Me: Not at all.
Publisher: Ok, so when would be a good time for you?
Me: Next week?

Refinements of timings are discussed.

Publisher: So, how long do you think it will take?
Me: Oh, not long, it's kinda boring.

Realising that I had inadvertantly called Publisher's idea of shadowing stupid, I then proceeded to mumble something along the lines of meaning that I meant it would be boring for the new team member. Unfortunately, this came out as calling the new team member boring.

This is how I managed to insult Publisher's idea, and simultaneously alienate my colleagues in one short conversaion, and why I shouldn't be allowed to talk to people.

I wasn't asked for coffee at break-time.

Gripe

The dangerous spiral of boredom

Today started pretty innocuously, much the same as any other. And there lay the problem.  As the day progressed I developed a terrible sense of boredom. It was ok at first. Whilst I worked monotonously away, my brain tucked itself away and occupied itself reading magazines, planning blog posts and generally keeping itself out of trouble.

Unfortunately, my brain soon lost interest in it's solo pursuits and suddenly became aware of how under-used it currently was. An annoying nagging began chomping at my ears and demands for proper use filled my senses.

The clock ticked slowly and heavily toward home-time, but by now my brain had reached a state of hyper-boredom rivelled only by the confined jitterings of a five year old on a long car-drive.

By the time I was leaving work I was trying to placate my brain with promises of enthralling activity when I got home - exciting trips to the local rock-climbing wall; riotous socials with friends; finally teaching myself Mandarin... (ok, maybe the last one isn't that exciting).

The thing about boredom, the ironic thing, is that when you do have free time you're so drained by sheer boredom, that you spend your evening slobbed out on the couch watching crappy soaps and starting to merge into the upholstery like some half-human half-Ikea creature.

This is the problem with boredom. It's a perpetual cycle. After a full, dull day vegetating at your desk you go home and continue vegetating there, instead of looking for more exciting careers.  Before you know it you start finding it amusing when people describe their feelings followed by '.com' (for example, 'I'm bored.com') as your own sense of creativity is a shrivelled raisin of a memory.

I don't know why I'm attracted to boring jobs (I should probably stop applying for them, that would help), but I suspect it's from a deep-rooted fear of actually getting a Proper Job with Responsibility.

Collie Wobbles