Mrs Ranty Pants

It may not be Monday but i've got my ranty-pants on today. Why? Because one of my colleagues is annoying me so much i'm trying desperately to control the urge to punch him in the head. Violent? Yea, maybe. A means to an end? Yep.

For the next two weeks i am working in my department by myself. Rather than this fill me with dread at being run entirely off my feet, i'm more worried about running out of things to do and spending my days fighting off boredom. You see, with our optometrist on leave, so are his patients - which leaves me with only paperwork and filing to catch up on. Not the most exciting of prospects, and the likely situation is that i will have finished playing catch ups this afternoon and be left with 4 more shifts and not very much to do.

So, knowing this, at 9am this morning, this particular colleague is over in my department, poking around, putting deliveries away. Ordinarily I might appreciate a bit of help, but in this circumstance he was being kind of unhelpful.

No worries though, it was only one thing. I thanked him and asked him to leave anything else for me to do. " Oh, dont you want me to come over here and give you a hand cleaning it out? " Umm... no, thanks, i can do it myself. It wont take that long. " Oh, but dont you need me to do some of your filing ? " Umm.... no thanks, i'm here by myself with no patients remember? " Yea, but how about i do some phone calls for you ? " Umm... seriously, no. I can do it by myself. ( Now get out of my department ).

So sure, that sounds pretty petty. And it is - but when its a person who is very rarely doing his own work, at his own desk, poking around your department playing 20 questions, its gets a bit much. As does his attitude to his own work when its there to be done - seeing that he was busy chit-chatting to someone ( and i mean chit-chatting, having a catch up, not actually doing business with them ) i answered his phone. I couldnt help with the callers query ( you know, seeing as its not my department ) and when i cleared my throat, did the whole " Umm, excuse me - this lady needs blahedy blah " you know what he says ? " I dont know. Cant help her " and turns back to his friend. How. Effing. Rude. Rude to me and rude to the caller. I had to jump back on the phone and tactfully explain that he wasnt sure of the answer and transfer her elsewhere.

When he finally finished his chat and his friend had left.... well copped an evil eye and a mouthful from me about how rude he was. I'm telling ya - he carries on like this for the rest of the fortnight he'll be headed for an early grave....

The Final Hurdle

Good.Bloody.Gravy.

I've had no trouble organising and planning my wedding over the last 9-ish months and now, with only 4 sleeps to go, we've got a potential problem in getting the money for our bar tab organised before Saturday. Four.Sleeps.People. Four sleeps - and it looks like i'm going to lose at least one of them worrying whether things will work out.

To the selfish, lazy, lying butthole ( who will not be named but you can figure it out if you know anything about wedding tradition and bar tabs... ) - pull your bloody finger out, stop making crap up because we dont bloody believe you, and try not let me or Mick down again. I said "try" but i dont think you'll be able to follow through on that one ( you know, as per usual ).

Otherwise you WILL be dealing with one stroppy bride come Saturday evening!

And Its All Gonna Come To A Head...

So... remember how i said i was beginning to have serious issues with the attitude of one of my co-workers? And how it wasnt just me having these issues, but everyone else in the office? Yea, well, today we get word ( whilst said worker has gone away for a conference ) that once he gets back we're all going to have a big meeting about how his attitude effects us and effects the efficiency of the office. Its all going to come out in the open and - although it wont be pretty - i'm glad about it.

Clearly if 4 people in the office all have the same problem with one particular person...well... that person IS the problem. No? Thing is, despit being a fully grown adult male, this guy will do one of three things when we get around to telling him how we feel:
a) he'll burst into tears
b) he'll call in sick for the next two or three days or
c) he'll give us all the cold shoulder for a week.
And therein lies part of the problem - aside from being lazy, he acts so much like a child - chucking little tantrums, spending his time reading chain emails, being all sooky and defensive when someone does criticse him - that at times its like working in the office with a 5 yr old. Its exhausting, both because the rest of us pick up the slack of the work he doesnt do, and we have to walk on eggshells to make sure he doesnt have a wobbly.

Watch out towards the end of next week for an update on how it all went - fingers crossed i get to work in a professional, civil, tantrum-free office by the end of the month!

Where Is The Young Mummy Love ?

So - i want to talk about the whole mummy sisterhood thing again ( apologies to those readers of mine who arent actually mothers - you're probably sick of hearing about it by now ). Seems like the whole sisterhood doesnt exactly extend past the " Baby Boomer " generation, or at least it hasnt in my experience. Let me explain:

My mothers group gets together on a Thursday morning, around 10am. We go to a cafe ( one that had enough to room to accomodate at least 10 women and, thusly, 10 prams ) and have a bit of a coffee and much conversation. Some of it is trivial - " Did you see such-an-such a movie ? " - but, of course, much of it revolves around our babies and our mothering experiences. Its nice to be able to share with other new mums, women that havent been through it before and have just as little clue as i do. We arent overly raucous however when your in a group of 10 or more sometimes you do have to speak up a little so that you can be heard across, or down, the table. This hasnt been a problem before - at 10am on a Thursday morning most cafes around here are pretty empty ( which is why our prams fit! ) or very quiet at the least. Not yesterday, however - yesterday we got asked to stop talking.

We had two babies having their " half birthday " ( ie. they were 6 months old ) so we had a little cake for them. Their mothers, naturally, were trying to figure out which of the bubs was actually older so started along the lines of " Oh, i went into labour the day before but he didnt arrive until.... ". Now, mind you, we didnt go into intimate, gory details - we may at some point, but thus far the sharing of labour stories hasnt much gone past what drugs we used and how long it all went. So, anyhoo, yesterday we're trying to figure out who was born first..... and one of the mums said " Man, my water broke then wooosh...and it was all on! ". Thats almost word for word mind you - no more, no less. Then, from a table behind us we hear - " Umm, ladies, thats enough ! ". We all look over and this old lady, sitting with another old lady and old man, goes " Really - i've been there and done that and now i'm trying to enjoy my morning tea ". What the?!?

Seriously - nothing more shocking then " my water broke... " and this old bird was asking us, politely, to shut up. How freaking rude! We have every right to gather and discuss that type of thing, and we have every right to en joy that type of discussion with OUR morning tea. Lord, nobody mentioned vaginas, or stitches, or dialation or anything vaguely " rude".... just water breaking and what time contractions started. I'd hate to see what her reaction would have been had one of us had to pop a boob out to feed our child - she might have had a bloody fit! Just because she wouldnt have had the same kind of group for support and advice in her day, or had the chance to discuss birth stories or bodily changes with anyone ( not even her mother and/or sister ) doesnt mean we shouldnt be able to. She should be proud, and happy, that women of the generation she would have raised worked hard to allow us the f reedom to break taboos. But no - she just wanted us to stop our conversation so she could enjoy a cup of tea.

So boo hoo to you, you old bag! Perhaps next time when you see a gathering of young women with babies and prams you'll be smart enough to figure out its a mothers group - and you can bugger off somewhere else for your precious morning tea!

How bout you go screw yourself ?

This post is basically a bit of a gripe.... i just dont get why people have to be rude. And by rude i mean disrespectful and arrogant. For lack of a better, more refined term, it really pisses me off.
It really, really annoys me when its in a professional environment. I work in retail ( basically ) but i'm not talking about clients or customers ( or can refer to my old blog for a relevant post on that subject ). No, i'm talking about other people who i had assumed to be professionals. Evidently i was wrong.
See, i had sent a pair of spectacles back to a manufacturer for warranty. I wont delve into the full story, but basically a customer had come to me to have lenses fitted into a frame she had bought elsewhere - on holidays, in an outlet whose name she couldnt recall - and it broke whilst in my shop awaiting fitting. The brekage was clearly a warranty problem and although it wasnt my original stock, i owe to my customer to get her a new one. So i ring this company and explain the situation, how it was not bought from me and the customer could not return to the original place of purchase A) because it was in another state and B) because she couldnt remember the name of the shop. Long story short, they sent me a new frame and i sent the old broken one back for credit.
Now, i get a call on Tuesday from one the sales girls at this company telling me i wouldnt get credit on this frame, despite what i had explained on the phone first time around. I say to her that i'm a little busy but i would like to speak to someone about the situation - can i call them back? Yep, fine , no worries. Now this phone call was at 4:30pm, and my store closes at 5pm.
Wednesday morning i get a very kurt letter in the mail from this companies director, saying not only will i not be getting credit, but i " had no right nor authority " to undertake any warranty jobs on behalf of my customer. WTF ? If your frame breaks through no fault of the customer, you legally have to replace it.
Anyhoo, the letter did it for me. Not only was it kurt and vaguely rude, but it said that i needed written authority to undertake warranty repairs if i was not an authorised stockist of their frames. So i ring back, like i said i would and who do i get to speak to ? The managing director. You would think that someone of such high standing in a company would have some manners towards people who are potential customers but no.... rude, arrogant, prick. Basically, this guy ( i'm not going to use the word gentleman ) refused to listen to anything i had to say and tried to shout me down. If there is one thing i can not stand, its condescension - i am not stupid, i am not deaf, and i am not yours to trample on just because i am a woman. DO NOT TALK DOWN TO ME.

It will only serve tomake me angry, have me hang up in your ear and rubbish your company to everyone i can think of. None of which you really want.