No sense of humour allowed in this workplace

In Cricketing Heaven (Devon)...

As I wearily finished up a week-long and rather complex session on [insert complex insurance concept here], my mind wandered to the coming weekend – the sites, sounds and smells of leather on wood await! 30 minutes to go.

I droned on, my clients struggling to stay conscious as their mind wandered to their own version of the perfect and now rapidly approaching weekend. 15 minutes to go.

As I wrapped up, the obligatory thank yous’ and handshakes were gratefully interrupted by the horn of the waiting taxi.

“Well that’s me, best of luck!”

“Thanks”

“Don’t worry, you won’t need it”

*cordial polite laughs*

The train grumbled out of Bristol parkway station, the aisles brimming with passengers like me unable to find a seat on the overcrowded train. Yet spirits were high, conversations jovial, it was the weekend! It wasn’t just any old weekend; in fact I was on my way to Exeter, to me an unheard of town on the south coast of England for my cricket club’s end of season tour.

Blessed with fantastic weather on the Saturday we trounced an under-strength Axminster Town CC, and in the gloom of the Sunday we bulldozed our way to victory over the hapless Farley CC.

As we downed our celebratory beers in the van back to London, our labours were amplified, and our journey grew epic, we had vanquished our enemies and returned home triumphant.

All photos can be found here:

Yoda

Ben (1) Diabetes (nil)

After a recent panic caused by a week long insatiable thirst I have decided that I am not in fact diabetic, just extra thirsty. Its probably the overload of air conditioning that I can't live with or without as things finally warm up over here in crazy town.

When I say warm up, I really mean its a bit warmer than it was in the winter. Most days of course I work so its not a problem, however considering my recent successful foray in to a cricket club, the weather has become that incy wincy bit more important, at least on the weekends. As Thursday rolls around I can't help browsing the BBC website for weather predictions for the coming weekend. I don't know why I bother, this is gloomy England after all.

So in search of better cricket playing weather, the bold decision has been made to sucker up to people with money to fund an all expenses paid trip to the Seychelles, for get this... cricket!! In case you don't realise the Seychelles are those little tiny islands somewhere off the coast of east Africa and the national Seychellean cricket team is apparently in need of opposition! I know I'm up for the job, but we'll have to wait and see how it all pans out.

Meanwhile back in the real world, work, office life, the daily grind, another day another dollar etc. etc. Work on the whole is going pretty well, the supply of free soft drinks in the staff fridge never appears to dwindle, there is always enough bar tab for a third pint at Friday drinks, and now there is almost enough people in the company to necessitate birthday cake every day for everyone. Everthing else that doesn't fit in to the soft drinks, beer, and cake category can be neatly summed up by Dilbert cartoons so there really isn't much else to say.

I hope you are all well, please send food parcels I'm desperate for some L&P, 2 minute noodles, and anything Watties.


Cheerio

The hot girl from work...

The weather has been rather cold and miserable lately, so it was with a nice surprise that I sat down on the loo at work in the morning, paper in hand, to discover that the seat was pleasantly warm. It was only near the end of my turgid visit that I pondered who it was that took the time to part with their hard earned body heat to increase my comfort? I smiled as I imagined the taut bottom of the hot girl from upstairs...

As I dried my hands meticulously using the fancy yet ecologically unsound paper towels, three things sprung to mind; this is a toilet, and a male toilet at that, AND I passed the office fat-guy on the way in... Watching the mirror curiously, I saw a young man's smile fade...

Working is like... so uncool man...

Void of positivity and enthusiasm lately, I decided to do some cliched soul searching. After going in to a zen like trance for what seemed like seconds I was able to extract myself from the lotus position and make lunch. While dipping my toast in to a particularly spicy bowl of vegetable soup possibly cooked by Chef from South Park; I found myself on a chilli induced "time travelling" dream sequence with a kind of "Ghost of Christmas past character". This character gave me the impression that I was conversing with the naked Indian and Jim Morrison from Wayne's World and for some reason there was a touch of the Grim Reaper from the 'Bill and Ted' movies thrown in to the mix

After wandering aimlessly over sand dunes for what seemed like seconds, I came across a water cooler and drank deeply. From behind me a voice told me that usually the answers I seek could easily be found by looking within myself and examining the root causes of my lack of enthusiasm and positivity using a series of Hollywood produced dream sequences. Only problem was that the voice was really busy lately with double bass lessons.

The voice paused for what seemed like seconds allowing me to ponder how a mere voice could play the double bass without fingers, before I could come to a conclusion the voice simply said, "If you book them, they will come." I explained that this didn't really didn't help my situation so I asked the voice to clarify "God damn woman, I'll stop bein' all cryptic an' shit and tell you the god damn answer, didn't I just give you sweet lovin' five minutes ago?"

Confused, I continued to listen, and then in a loud and serious tone the following words of wisdom were issued from the lip less voice "If you quit your job, you will be happy". Genius!

I woke up lighted by the kindly glow of my old friend patiently and gently force feeding me pop culture full of characters and tag lines stronger and more poignant than anything the "real world" ever gave me. Pausing for what seemed like seconds, I hugged the TV.

So after a rather hectic, stressful, and ultimately depressing two and a half months in a job I didn't really like, I decided to cut my losses and re-join the hordes of anti-establishment TV-hugging hippies. My only complaint was that I didn't get to play twister with my movie-like dream sequence guy... but I guess that only happens in the movies.

Screw the stiff upper lip...

Its pessimism that will get you a long way in London...

I arrived in London, it was raining, my holiday was over and like an incontinent relative my bank account was experiencing serious leakage at a surprising rate. I needed money and I needed it fast.

I didn’t immediately discount selling my soul and or body until I realised that from the customers perspective, they would be getting what they payed for and I as far as I was concerned the only part of me for sale was my toe nails. After extensive market research the best price I could get was a pat on the back and a concerned look thrown in for free, they didn’t even want the toe nails.

As the toe nail business just wasn’t working out I decided that it was time to dust off the old CV and eminently adaptable cover letter or as I like to think of them “those trusty, ingenious, well constructed, adeptly presented, half truths on three bits of A4”. In my opinion CV’s are simply a whimsical art form, they have no realistic reflection on a persons skill, experience or ultimately what they are like to employ.

Either way, armed with my incredible and whimsical piece of art I was unstoppable and the phone was ringing off the hook. I had job interviews galore. I prefer to liken a job interview to a first date. Both parties make ego-centric conversation about themselves before deciding if they want to jump in to bed with each other but in this case there is no food and wine to occupy yourself during the awkward silences.

Within a week I had started working for “the man” and had ended up selling my body and soul after all, of course that depends on if you consider the soul anatomical or intangible which is a whole other conversation that I as an agnostic don’t want to get in to with the caped crusaders. Yes you, you know who you are you lewd naughty dirty devout belief in the absolute little so and so’s. Oh sorry did I question the validity of something you hold dear and make you feel guilty? I feel like masturbation, in the noun and verb senses of the word, oh my god quick hand me The Cloth.

I think I’m going to... sooo get fucked by Catholicism for that.

Yes mum, I am looking after myself...

After all the e-mails of concern over the previous entry, I guess I better follow it up pretty quickly with the recuperation part of the story.

After the horror of the food poisoning of the last week, I decided that I need some rest and relaxation. I thought to myself that it would need to be in a place that I felt comfortable just doing nothing, apart from home there was only one place that sprung to mind, that place was Selçuk, Turkey.

I stopped briefly in Çanakkale where I had enough time to consider another visit to the Gallipoli peninsula, but decided against it on the grounds that apart from seeing it a month beforehand, I was scared that it wouldn't live up to the first time I visited. I'll save a second visit for an ANZAC day sometime in the future.

"So, here we are in Selçuk" I muttered as I exited the stuffy and sterile air conditioning of the bus. As before it was a beautiful sweltering day, and as before I wandered towards the ANZ Guesthouse where I knew I would meet Michael and Mehmet at the carpet shop. This time however the smiles and hand shakes (there is always handshakes in Turkey) were a reunion rather than a meeting, I was feeling better already.



I don't know how long I stayed, sure I could probably work it out, but to be honest I don't really want to know. I must have taken off my watch to have a shower one day and just forgot to put it back on. It was good to lose track of time.

Not to say that I didn't do anything at all, I had beach days, sleep in days, read a bad book days and... well that was about it, until Harry (the owner) asked me if I knew anything about computers. Before long I had redesigned the breakfast menu and received a free dinner for my trouble. Soon after it was my pleasure to attempt any odd job Harry or for that matter, anyone in town could offer.

The odd jobs ranged from simply correcting spelling or grammar to selling boat and bus tours. I was pretty much living for free for about 3 hours of work a day, which still left plenty of time for sleep-ins, books, and beach days.

Daniel worked around the corner and had been living "the lifestyle" for about six weeks longer than me. Being Kiwis, Otago Uni boys, and in the same situation we naturally hung out a bit. It was hilarious watching the Turks observe us as we chucked a Rugby ball around. Ever the triers, the Turks joined in but they simply could not match us in hand-eye coordination with an oval ball, this was round-ball country and we revelled in our superiority.

During a sleep-in day I was woken around mid-day by Daniel who had managed to find a pub in a nearby town with a Satellite dish that could possibly pick up Sky sport. This meant, he explained slowly to my sleepy brain that we could watch the Springboks play the All Blacks live in a few hours time. Of course I was interested, relative to the previous weeks this was an event, an occasion, a momentous spectacle worthy of beers! A trip to civilisation! What was I going to wear?

On arrival we were sorely disappointed to learn that there was a English Rugby League final on at the same time and there was only one decoder. A disappointed look between Daniel and myself passed between us as our dreams for a taste of home and a worthy occasion for beers disintegrated in to little pieces.

This did not stop the Turks however, as we all know the Turkish pride themselves on perfect customer service. Perfect customer service, as I am reliably informed by my previous profession is where a win/win situation takes place. This win/win situation came in the form of a quick call to the towns resident set-top-box hacker, a soldering iron, and a quick fiddle with the remote control. Suddenly everyone was happy. Beers were followed by beers which was followed by an All Black win.

Our revelry back in Selcuk that night was infectious, we combined the forces of three or four local hostels for a party back at my place on the rooftop terrace. Daniel and I proceeded to teach people from fifteen different countries the intricate nuances of Otago University's best export, and I know you know I'm talking about 'Circle of Death' right?

Waking the next afternoon with a pleasant hangover I decided it was time to move on.

Box Smashing...

Mission: Survive last day of work doing as little actual work as possible.

Disappointingly there were several casualties from the evening before and not everyone made it to work, still with talk revolving around smashing box – thanks Ruby, there wasn’t going to be much work done anyway. I'll eventually post the box-smashing video too.

Mission status: Success.

End of days...

It was much like the apocalypse I had always dreamed about. Let it be said that there’s nothing like going out in a blaze of glory, and the fires were burning hot for my last night out on the booze with my long suffering work-mates.

The crew convened at Wellington’s snobbiest drinking establishment soon after the conclusion of work at 12am. On arrival at Motel; not just drinks were bought, but whole bottles of drinks were bought, we were settling in for the long haul.

Over the course of three hours, unknown quantities of quality alcohol slipped easily down our thirsting gastroesophageal junctions to the point where bipedal locomotion, otherwise known as dancing took place.
Bridget [above] doing the robot.

While showing us her sexy dance moves poor Rachel slipped and hit the ground like a rock right in the middle of the dance floor splitting her chin a bit and actually fracturing bones, though she didn’t realise until the next day. At this point the night had reached that messy and scandalous stage so a taxi was promptly caught.

Bridget and I were drunkenly snap-happy with the camera so after a bit of cropping I managed to get some good photos to share, why so many photos of Cory Bridget? ;-)

See the rest here.

Hasta la Vista Shane...

Well is was Shanes last week at the dreaded bank so on Wednesday night we thought we’d give him a hangover for Thursday, which incidentally happened to be his last day.

We started out at Shooters as it was student night and there were loads of cheap drinks going, not to mention pelvic thrusts.

We then “popped” over to Hope Bro’s for a few more drinks. I must say I do like Hope Bro’s upstairs, it’s comfortable and warm, “and they have a pool table too!” – thanks Garth. It basically has all the things that make a good place to drink.




Heng, Phil and I proceeded home via the trusty Co-op shuttles shuttle company, Phill was still attempting to pull off the odd pelvic thrust despite the limited confines of the van.

Laurens a Gum Specialist???

So young Lauren said she wanted to celebrate her new job, so we did. A few beers in Hataitai was followed by a few more at Basement, followed by the mother-load, i.e. the infamous BEER TOWER. This time we got photos.
Its so good, Guy can't even open his eyes when in its presence.

Its moments like these…

It was a rather restful weekend, punctuated by recurring medical problems, curry and celebrations. We’ll skip the recurring medical problems because I am of the firm belief that they only happen to old people and I am 23 years of age, i.e. not old.

So I guess that brings us to curry, Indian curry to be precise, Indian curry from Curry Village to be even more precise, in fact the Indian curry from Curry Village mentioned eariler on Valentines Day to be insanely precise. Right are you with me? You are? Good, let us continue. Guy invited us all out for dinner; the word “celebration” was bandied about a bit and as there were no obvious signs or reasons for a celebration, rumours and gossip flourished. A new job? A marriage? A change in sexual orientation?

Dave was the first to crack, as usual. Guy’s response was poetry in motion. He stands up and says that he has an announcement.

“I’m Gay”.

Silence.

“Oh ok” – Neil is never one for an uncomfortable silence

Conversation continues for a few more minutes and Guy makes another announcement, this time without any fanfare.

“I actually got a pay-rise, so not gay”.

Round of expected congratulations ensues… hilarious…

Like lambs to the slaughter...

Suitably suited up we filed up outside Wellington’s crappiest drinking establishment at precisely five past twelve, AM that is. Shooters on a Wednesday night has a large assortment of under priced drinks and under dressed students all doing their best headless chicken impressions on the dance floor. However we were not there to dance, no not at all, we had a clearly defined mission, get slaughtered.

As we were all bank people, not only do we look like money, we smell like it too, it comes from working with it albeit in electronic form all day. Since most of us have no social lives most of us actually have money to spend so this was the time to put ones money where ones mouth was, so to speak, or should it be, so to drink?. Fortunately this was no great struggle as a round of beer for seven people was only $21.

Suddenly we were everyone’s best friend, as typically one is inclined to believe when one is drunk, however in our case it was true, this is probably because Dave A decided that the way to make friends was buying them tequila. In my experience buying someone tequila is a good way to have ones first lesbian experience, but that’s another story altogether.

Four of five shots of tequila later, Heng swears I had seven but that seems impossible as I don’t appear to be a lesbian yet, we hit The Big Kumara where they have a half decent live band that plays songs that all drunk people can sing along to at a volume that no one can hear the drunk people singing. In all honesty it was great.

As for Thursday at work, Shane H summed it up with the words “I want to cry”. It appears that he’s good at summing stuff up.

The Wind Tunnel Faux Pas

Yes it was that time of the year again, Saturday night was the work awards evening. You may have guessed from the title that perhaps there were a few unwritten social rules that were broken... and you'd have guessed right.

You would think that surely by now, breaking those rules is so common-place at work functions across the country that someone is literally expected to commit the odd faux pas so that everyone can actually have fun and have something scandalous to talk about over the water cooler the next Monday morning! In my humble opinion, staff morale should hit new highs for months at the cost of a small decrease in productivity for a short time.

It’s a pity that not all faux pas are created equal. Imitating your manager’s patented “wind tunnel” hair style is funny when the joke is kept to the right people. Likewise the office hot-chick wearing tiny hot-pants to the “black-tie” dinner is certainly funny. Mores the pity that she was inevitably asked to leave; fortunately the picturesque image of those hot pants walking up stairs will certainly live on in memory! Mmm… ahhhh… um anyway, I digress, what was my point again? Oh yes, getting violently drunk and abusing people is certainly not funny and will live on in memory but in a strongly negative way, and that was what the odd person did, not that it ruined the night for me or anything but I know certain people that will never ever get promoted because of their behaviour in social situations.

In conclusion, no, I didn’t win any awards, but the food was great the drinks were on the house and I got away with my drunken faux pas because; while I drink to excess, I also know where my limit is. Yes I pulled off the “wind tunnel” joke successfully for the second year in a row, but kept it to the right people. Yes I danced with my manager, but at a safe one metre distance. Yes I tried to order drinks off another manager that I hadn’t met yet thinking he was one of the waiting staff, but was thankfully rescued by a colleague. Yes I got a hold of someone’s video camera and zoomed in on the ample bosom on display, but I didn’t film myself. Yes I thought about doing things with colleagues that involved a party in the orifice and I’m invited, but I remembered what they look like without the beer goggles.

This ladies and Gentlemen is my lesson on how to enjoy your self at a work function and not get fired, have a nice day.

There is no such thing as a free lunch...

Economics himself once told me that…

The theory of supply and demand describes how prices vary as a result of a balance between product availability at each price (supply) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand).

If I was to supply a product that you need and you could not pay for it because you spent all your money worshiping a false idol you have several options.

Option one – Exercise your choice as a consumer. “Yeah I’m going elsewhere” – Did I mention that its all the same whereever you go? “Well whats option two then?”.

Option two – YOU ARE FUCKED SO DO WHAT I SAY. “But that’s not fair I'm telling God” – don’t start with me buddy, I may aswell be God to you, its not a good idea to piss me off.

Option three – Argue with me until you are red in the face. “Yeah that’s what I’ll do that will get me somewhere” – I told you not to start with me.

Option four – Eventually run out of things to say as your argument hits a brick wall. Realise that you got yourself in to this and it is your own fault, lesson learned? “Fuck you asshole, where’s your christmas spirit?” – I’m not Christian, have a lovely evening Sir, goodbye.

And if you’re still with me you’ll realise that I’m trying to say choose option one even if it hurts, make the world a better place.

Back to work...

It was back to the grind today and it was as busy as your mum. All the corporate monkeys insisted on wishing me a happy new year, it was fun seeing the dejected looks on their faces when they heard my rather lacklustre “Thanks” instead of a cheery “Happy New Year” in return… I love being a cynical bastard!

Speaking of bastards, the wind was blowing like forty of them– as my old man would say. The taxi home barely got above 70km/h on the motorway.

Heres the latest fuck-wit story to come out of work lately:

F-Wit: (In an irate voice) “Hi I just received a call and the caller said they were from the bank, the guy knew everything about my credit card, I just wanted to check if it really was from you guys cause it sounded dodgy” *fair enough I think*

Me: “Sure (I security check him, he passes, I look in to it) yeah it looks like we called you because we were concerned about some out of character transactions on your credit card and it looks like you confirmed that they were your transacti… (he cuts me off)

F-wit: “But how do I know you’re from the bank”

Me: “You called us”

F-Wit: (with a "I'm smarter than you" attitude) “But how do I know if the number I dialled is really the bank?”

Me: “Where did you get the number from?”

F-wit: “Well it’s on my credit card”

(There is silence, as I put him on mute and make a sound like a constipated old man with a low IQ – the corporate monkeys look up and stare)

Me: (overly polite) “Do you have any further questions Sir?”

(Silence)

F-Wit: “Fuck you smart ass” (hangs up)