The Waiting Man

Aarrgghh!! The renovations at work continue ~ with floor preparation for the new wooden floorboards beginning today... Which meant that the day was full of jackhammers, circular saws, dust & WSFM. I don't know what it is about that 'classic hits' radio station, but every tradesperson I've ever encountered has it blasting from their radio while they work. Painters, electricians... Maybe it's the station's habit of playing 'Working Class Man' at least once a day

I have a headache... How much that's due to buzzsaws or 'Born To Be Alive' at irritating volume (which is anything above 'Silent' for that song) is open to conjecture. It certainly wasn't helped by this evening's Trivia night ~ driving around & around the streets near the venue looking for somewhere to park, after enduring heavy peak-hour traffic on the way over... Waah Waah Waah!!

It certainly took a couple of vodka & tonics to set me on my feet again... Oh dear, it looks like the effects of WSFM haven't worn off yet

Back to work. Mmmm... paint fumes. Niiice

The place does look different all painted white though. Which almost, but doesn't quite, make up for the electrician still not having completed all the wiring ~ meaning that when I walked in this morning, we only had one computer & one phone working, no EFTPOS & a $h!+load of work to do. I know... First World problems. But we are working in a kind of Third World desolate landscape ~ the old carpeting & shelves are randomly ripped up & apart, the new flooring goes in next week, so there are tripwires (Okay - cables) everywhere. With only a tiny stretch of the imagination, we're in downtown Fallujah ~ without the snipers... for now

Tonight we had a tech-savvy friend over for dinner, Game of Thrones, a look at why our wireless booster isn't boosting & why my internet speed is about as fast as the Australian Liberal Party wants it to be...

I also set up my new webcam & Skype account tonight

Rain... & rain... & flooding

My 7 minute drive to work took half an hour today, due to a couple of roads being closed as they'd become canals instead. And more for the next few days apparently

Renovations begin at work tomorrow, so much lifting & carrying of stuff again. Dinner with the Loved One in Manly tonight & now I'm soggily off to bed...

Don't let the date fool you... it's Friday night as far as I'm concerned

Quiet night in, as the Loved One returns to bar-work this weekend, so not much to report on the Home Front

Work was mainly busy due to the same client making the same number-juggling requests he made yesterday. After today's recalculations I have deemed him more trouble than he's worth... which is a lot less than he thinks he is... if you follow

Oops... missed yesterday. I'm sure you're all waiting with bated breath

Dinner with a recently retrenched friend last night, whose solution to unemployment is simple ~ he's going to Canada for five weeks to see his girlfriend. A bit like our six-week trip to the USA last year in the wake of my redundancy & its subsequent payout. Our friend is already talking of extending his stay over there, so we'll see him sooner or later

Having been presented with the keys to the Kingdom (okay, just the showroom I work at) yesterday, I spent today working solo due to staff illness. I don't mind being thrown in the deep end ~ it's the best way to learn & also shows the Paymasters I'm capable & reliable. The only time I didn't like being thrown in the deep end was when I was 7 years old & learning to swim. Thirty eight years later, I'm still not the most confident of water babies...

Trivia tonight with the old host at the new venue. Nice chicken Caesar salad & we won. I call that a pleasant evening

Day Four of Week One... A couple of things I like about this job so far:~ I only have to work every second Saturday... & only four hours of it. No Sunday trading either, very civilised!

I'm also a big fan of being paid weekly. Is this all too good to be true (& therefore isn't), or is this the way everybody else in the workforce gets treated & I've just been missing out 'til now? It's still early days, of course, but they're favourable ones

A rainy night in for us... now, off to the kitchen for slicing, dicing, searing & serving

I arrived & tried to find somewhere to park OBluV8 remotely near my new workplace. Funny, there'd been lots of parking outside when I turned up for the interview last week. Eventually, I found a spot in a not-too-distant residential street

Basically, this was a first day like most others:~ a whirlwind of new information, new names to remember, lots of new product knowledge to absorb... & paperwork to fill out so I can get paid. On the whole, a far more promising beginning than my first days with the job-that-wasn't back in December

And so it begins

It took 'em six months, but they finally "retrenched" me today

The official line is that their contract with their main supplier of goods has been revoked, they had to pay out bills & have lost 000,000.00s in potential revenue, so they've had to let "people" go. No news on who any of these other "people" are though...

But they've kept my lazy-arsed, drunk'n'hungover cow-orker, as they think he's a better salesperson than me ~ in a roundabout way of speaking, without going into detail about what I sell sold & who for ~ I can pretty much guarantee that notion will be disabused & abandoned in the near future, but for the moment... this is what it is

It would have been nice if they'd kept me on for another month, up to the point I board a plane for the U.S. as it's going to be hard finding an employer who'll hire someone about to leave the country for a significant chunk of time. But... it is what it is

Another week at work, another rumour regarding its (& my) future

This one came from a new-ish, but reasonably trustworthy source, who has been told that if a smaller site can be found, with cheaper rent, the business will move, taking two of its current three employees with it... & I'm the one not making the list. All officially unconfirmed of course, but no less annoying for that, given that I'm also told that the younger of my two alcoholic, irresponsible, lazy-arsed cow-orkers knows about this & hasn't said a word to me. And of course, annoying because the pair of Missing Links that run the company have chosen the two drunkards over the one who doesn't show up to work hung over, reeking of cheap booze & doesn't start getting drunk again while still at work... leaving empty beer bottles all over the showroom. Though they probably don't mind being called thieves or told that dogshit smells better than them... even though in their case, it's certainly truer than in mine

It all makes me wish I hadn't chosen to be unavailable for the six-to-eight week Supreme Court trial I was called up for Jury Duty for last week. At least there, Justice is easier to see being done

Okay... okay... So, something other than just token photos from the Flickr page

Current rumour, unfounded opinion & just plain scuttlebutt has it that my employers will close the doors of my branch at the end of the financial year. They haven't said anything about it, but it's an open secret that they've tried to sell it off to competitors & any other vaguely interested parties in the last few months & have had no takers

It would be a relief, but it will be annoying as L-SP & I have just booked our flights to & from the U.S. for September & it would be nice to have even the less-than-ample income this job provides up to the departure point. But as L-SP says... "We'll deal..."

Eliot the Time-Share Cat has begun spending more time inside WaitingManor as the weather turns colder. Her favourite routine involves coming into the computer room when I'm having my last, late-night potter around the 'net, jumping demanding to be lifted onto my lap, falling asleep on it, then claiming my chair when I go to bed. Then coming to our bed at about 2am, usually by climbing on top of me, tenderising whichever body part she wants to sleep on with her claws & complaining every time I want to roll over. Then, at about 4am, she lets me know it's time to let her out. Then, at about 5.30am, she bangs & yowls at the door to let me know it's time for first breakfast. Second breakfast is usually demanded just as I'm trying to get out the door & head to work... for a rest

Actually the colder weather means that not only Eliot uses me as a warm resting place, but so does L-SP, leading to my current description of myself as 'A Pillow of Society'

And on that bum note I think I should...

My Sunday morning... on a Tuesday as usual. A bit of a sleep-in, but now up & waiting for 9am to roll around so I can phone a couple of Recruiters about positions they supposedly have available. I say 'supposedly' because nine times out of ten, I never hear anything from anyone about the e-mail applications I send &, today, one of the jobs I looked at which fitted my Profile even had the headline 'Test Job. Do Not Apply'. How many of those have there been, I wonder?

In the aftermath of Saturday's confrontation with Ownership & Management it's been interesting to learn two things. First; that my lazy-arsed cow-orker escaped any kind of official censure or penalty even though it has been his arrogant disregard for procedures & wilful disinclination to heed my requests for him to follow them, that landed us... well, just me apparently... in trouble in the first place. Second; that O & M are most likely selling my Branch to a competitor who also wants the furniture shop next door, with the aim of opening a large outlet of their own. If that's the case, no wonder they didn't fire me when I can be made safely & non-controversially redundant in the near future anyway.

And I have a cold!! L-SP brought it home a few days ago when I was in the middle of the mess described above & previously & I said I'd get it when I could relax a little. Sure enough...

Now:~ more coffee, breakfast & to the phone...

Well... I wonder what time I'll get to sleep tonight... if at all.

I've spent all of this week like a condemned man on Death Row ~ the American-style Death Row, the one where you sit around & wait for ages before anything happens. I'd been told the axe would fall on Monday ~ it didn't. Then, on Wednesday the Owner & Alpha Male of the Company unexpectedly showed up on a day when I was doing solitary duty & proceeded to cast dispersions on my mental abilities & call me a liar & a thief in all but legally-liable terms, but failed to carry out an execution as was expected.

Yesterday, I was informed by the GM & Beta Male of the Company to "Make sure the place is spotless by Saturday", the inference being that we are to have another visit from Alpha 1. Two visits in a week when he hasn't set foot in the branch in over a year is not a good sign for my future involvement in the business &, yet again, I expect the axe to fall tomorrow.

I feel like I've been sentenced to Slow Death By A Thousand Cuts, instead of a speedy knife to the heart or head. I am informed that Alpha 1 likes to play these games with his staff & has done so at the Head Office on a few occasions ~ drawing out the process like a cat with a mouse...

But I am no mouse. While I feel a little fear & anxiety, it's more about my future than the untenable present. I have no fear of him as a person, mostly because I have no respect for him &, in fact, haven't had any since about thirty seconds after I first met him. It's annoying to be looking down the barrel of unemployment yet again & it puts various plans for the year in jeopardy, but the job itself was never one I held in high regard & have been for several interviews regarding other roles during my tenure. I suppose I'll just need to do a lot more of those... if I can get them.

Which brings me to another pet peeve about this modern world. When did Recruitment Consultants decide that they don't have to actually talk to any of the people who apply for advertised positions?? With the amount of e-mail applications I've sent out, to only receive an automated reply to about half of those makes me think of a special room in every Recruitment Agency where the Junior Work-Experience Kid sits playing Angry Birds while a printer spools out pages of applications & CVs which run directly into a shredder... & it's the Kid's job to make sure the process runs smoothly & to put the paper bin out for recycling every night. I'm almost convinced that the next time I buy toilet paper, it will be made from multiple copies of my CV...

It's a cruel world...

A metaphor for life?? All peaceful serenity on the surface, but paddling away like crazy underneath...

Today's my Sunday ~ the second of my days off during the week. Confusingly, the first one is Sunday, which I call my Saturday. Down at Debtor's Prison they're expecting a visit from the company GM today... kind of glad I'm nowhere near that.

Also today... & for the last three weeks... my L-SP & I have been waiting for the latest round of repairs on her VW Beetle to be completed, so that we can finally get a feel for driving the thing. The whole saga may one day be told in a series of nine books à la the Clan Of The Cave Bear novels covering a similarly long era, but suffice to say the latest delay came in the form of the Bug being hit by another car while the mechanic was test-driving it last week. The up-side of that is the two front mudguards are being replaced... something that was on the 'To-Do' list for the car anyway... at no cost to us. I had cleared my leisurely schedule to be ready to catch public transport across town to pick up the car, but there's now a delay in getting the aforementioned mudguards & so another week slips by without the car.

And so, it's been a minor domestic day by default ~ washing, washing up, little chores & jobs that tend to go undone & unnoticed during the working week. Dinner with friends tonight... maybe that will give me something exciting to write about.

As I'm about to leave the wonderful world of consumer electronic retail sales... again... at the end of this week, I couldn't resist posting this truer-than-life mock advertorial. Courtesy of both The Onion & the online diary of Robert Fripp:~



A shame they didn't go all out & produce catalogues, flyers, cardboard shelf-talkers, DVDs of the promo interspersed with movie clips to make it seem interesting & a mailing-list-acquisition database thinly disguised as an on-line competition for a lucky winner to receive a free piece of shit & a Michael Jackson Blu-Ray DVD...

... like they do with every other product launch

And so my sentence at Debtor's Prison #2 looks set to be commuted to more soul-crushing hours at the local Centrelink Office, due to its not-entirely-unexpected undercrowding & underfunding ~ or more simply ~ the place can't afford to keep me any more & since the Warden Manager & I haven't really seen eye-to-eye since Day One, she has (most likely gleefully) arranged for my release in a fortnight's time from the shackles of Appliance Retail barely six months into my sentence tenure.

As an unreformed & as-yet-uncrushed optimist, I choose to see this as a blessing in disguise. Ask me again in two weeks when none of the jobs I've applied for have even bothered to get back to me...

On the plus side, the refinancing has borne fruit in the form of a new bed for us & the totally indulgent purchase of new albums by Peter Gabriel & Sting... How very 'Adult-Contemporary' of me!!

But just to show I'm down with this new-fangled technology, I also downloaded the new Massive Attack album tonight & it's soundtracking this post rather nicely.

Enough... time to construct some semblance of dinner from the cupboard contents.