Yay

Thought it was about time for a post-Christmas update, mainly because in ten minutes Kristy will stick her head up and go “You haven’t done a blog in ages!” (Kristy, do some work.)

Yay for being back at work! (But not really.) It is cold and annoying, but it’s a familiar kind of cold and annoying.

Our department somehow shares air conditioning with the equipment management department, who spend all day running round throwing eftpos machines at each other (or something) and so need to have the aircon at an inhumanly cold level so they don’t get too hot and, I don’t know, explode. This means that we poor salespeople, sitting here motionless at our desks for 8 hours a day, are constantly in Arctic temperatures and have to wear our jackets inside, in the summer. Our previous boss tried to stop us complaining by saying “See, in the winter it’s warmer than outside, and in the summer it’s cooler than outside, so it’s always comfortable!” Freak.

I had a nice Christmas. Did you have a nice Christmas? I went to Nelson and did pretty much nothing for four days except eat and drink and read and smoke and sit in the sun. Interestingly enough (depending on your definition of interesting), I have done nothing but vomit since returning to Wellington. I think I have an allergy. It is lucky that I am moving. (Moving Countdown: (not the supermarket, although when I think about what a mission that would be it makes me feel a lot better about moving house – imagine moving into Countdown, how much would that rock – no, actually, the Warehouse would be way better because you could sleep in the Manchester section – they should combine the two and lease it out – anyway!) Moving Countdown has 5 days to go. Have abandoned ‘get organised, find movers, neatly pack and label boxes’ plan and am now going with ‘throw out everything inessential, forget to book ferry until last minute, sleep in and have to run to taxi stand whilst digging through pockets in the frantic hope of finding enough change to make it to the ferry terminal’ plan, which if we’re being honest was always the more likely plan anyway.)

Someone’s phone rang before, startling us all, and she answered it with a cheery “Thank God, it’s not work-related!” Which I think sums up how all of us are feeling about work today.

I am trying to think of places to go and buy a coffee. Why do cafes get to close from Dec 24 to about Jan 5? Why do I not get to close?

Oh go away, boss, I am trying to slack off and you are interrupting me. Leave me in peace to finish my in-depth analysis of why my love life is comparable to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. (They both failed miserably, in case you were wondering. No-one’s written an overture about my love life yet, but then it is early days.)

DANCE THE ROBOT WITH US
WE SAID, DANCE THE ROBOT
NOT LIKE THAT
IS THAT REALLY HOW WE LOOK WHEN WE DANCE
HOW EMBARRASSING
beep whirr beep

Yawn.

Yes, life is exciting. Yes, I am moving cities and getting a new job and bought a great pair of red boots the other day on sale but I am still really bored. I suspect it’s work, which is slowing down hugely coming up to Christmas. I have about 20 things to do today (normally I have about 80), and none of them are things that I particularly want to do or have any interest in doing. Sadly, this is my job (for another three weeks, anyway) and so the things have to be done, but…I am bored.

Obviously.

As per usual, lunch is going to be the highlight of my day – am going to nice Asian place (same one as last week) with three work friends (same ones as last week). Every time I go there, I think “Ooh, today I’m going to have something different, not the teriyaki squid,” and toss up between about five menu options and irritate the rest of the table by vocalising every swing of my indecision. Then the waitress (am not being sexist, they don’t seem to have any boy wait staff), who inevitably has horrible bitten-to-the-quick nails with chipped polish (pet hate), comes over and says “Are you ready to order,” and everyone else is and I am not and so I panic and shout “Squid! Teriyaki squid!” and then spend the next twenty minutes being annoyed with myself for not branching out. Then the squid arrives and it is as delicious as ever, and I am reassured. This is exactly the same behaviour I exhibit every time I go out for brunch (“Hmm, pancakes…but then they also have smoked salmon on potato cakes…” “Are you ready to-” “Eggs Benedict! Eggs Benedict!”) and every time I go to Subway (“Hmm, maybe I would like the Steak and Cheese sub today, or maybe…” “What would you-” “Gah! Chicken fillet on white with Swiss cheese and just lettuce and olives and ranch and honey mustard dressing and a little bit of salt and pepper! Fresh!”). But not today, no sir – today I will make a foray into the culinary jungle. (“Teriyaki squid!”)

Had a dream last night that a Christchurch-based friend and I were madly in love and also kind of guerrilla fighters attempting to overcome an army of machine insects. We fought off these glowing insect Transformer-esque monsters in a video-game setting (as you do - very nuclear sunrise) and then went to a black-tie ball and danced for hours. Seriously, we rocked. Reality is boring. Was thinking of emailing Christchurch friend and telling them about this but a) other people’s dreams are boring, even when you’re in them and b) am pretty sure they’d take it the wrong way and actually try to become futuristic robo-vigilante love interest. This would be a little inappropriate, although interesting.

Wow, the nail on my left hand little finger sure has got long. As have my toenails. I should really cut them.

My workmate Kristy wanted to be mentioned in this post I believe – sorry, Kristy, to give the toenails higher billing than you, but they are pretty freakin’ long (and gross). Kristy has just walked past and said “Am I in it?” (Stop nagging me, bitch.) She knows I’m writing a post because about ten minutes ago she emailed me and said, ‘You know what you should write another blog’ (or something like that, I deleted the email), and I replied all like ‘Oh do you know what I am doing right now.’ Obviously we are joined at the mind. Kristy is going to have to help me order something different at lunch today. I hope she is prepared for this.

Moving update: moving all my stuff via moving company is a lot cheaper than I thought, only about $200. When I remember the name of the moving company, I will pimp it. Whatever that means.

I'm Bilingual

I am wearing a blue wig, taping a strap to an inflatable guitar, and trying to sell online credit card processing to the First Church of Wicca and Heathens in New Zealand.

We have the Christmas party this evening, and everyone (myself included) is over-excited and has pretty much stopped working already. (George: "I am going to compile a spreadsheet of the ugliest people I can find on Google.") It is ten past two. (My Boss, if you're reading this, I am totally kidding and also right about to call Paul from Thingy Automotive that I forgot to call yesterday.) Luckily the few stray and completely unwelcome customers who do call in have no way of knowing that while we’re all sitting here giving sales spiels, we’re hitting each other with guitars and, in some cases, wearing leather airmen’s head-things. I don’t know what they’re called, but Snoopy wore one when he flew and now Graeme is wearing one as he soars into the sales stratosphere, ha ha ha. Leather balaclava? Hmm.

I am going to be well-behaved at the staff party tonight! I am so dedicated to this life (well, evening) of good behaviour that I have not brought any going-to-town clothes or shaved my legs. In reality, all this means is that I will be as badly behaved as usual, just in a more hairy and slovenly fashion than usual. Oh no wait, no more hairy and slovenly than usual because this is always my plan! I need a new plan or stronger moral fibre.

Oh yeah. Kane, who I believe I may have previously referred to as the Gung-Ho Kid due to his propensity to charge headfirst into things full of cheer and ebullience, and then realise ten seconds later that probably he should bail out, wrote a rude note on the pod whiteboard yesterday (yes, our pod has a whiteboard. And a radio, and a recycling bin, and we used to have a plant (remember when I went on and on about that plant? Boring, wasn’t it? No inflatable guitars in sight then!), but then George moved into our pod and the plant had to go because she was bigger than it and wanted its desk. Bloody George. Frankly I would rather George moved…no, wait, that’s not true, I like George, I just liked the plant too and it caused less trouble than she does and didn't yell "PRICK!" when I was on a phone call, unlike George this afternoon). ANYWAY yesterday I announced that I had 22 more days at EFTPOS (oh yeah, I resigned and am moving back to Christchurch – did I mention that? Maybe not, huh) and left the pod to I don’t know, go and buy a sandwich or something, and when I came back there was a countdown-style display on the whiteboard saying “22 Days Until Hitler Leaves!” I like to think it was a bit of playful joshing. Ha, ha!

Kane is a dick. (But luckily, a dick with limited internet access after an unfortunate innappropriate-usage incident (wow, that sounds way worse than it was.)) I did warn him that I was going to use this blog to spread the word, so he shouldn't be surprised. I'm not angry, Kane. I'm just disappointed.

Speaking of my workmates, Kristy says Hi. I think she was talking to someone else but whatever. My workmates have started reading my blog. So now I can’t complain about them. Unless I give them really cryptic codenames and they all think I’m talking about someone else…yeee-ees. Yeeee-eeeessss.

Speaking of work. I am going to go to the bank, and then perhaps to Subway, and then to pay the power bill.