...mean while back at the office

All was almost well again down at the Funny Farm today. The office was almost completely deserted, what with the monthly budget-closing looming eminently above the next ten days. Most people are either in meetings or conducting site visits- it could also be that they’ve given into the almost all consuming urge and decide to stay at home. Either way, I while away my morning clearing up some spectacular confusion which we, along with Finance, have decided will be blamed wholly and entirely on Procurement should anyone ask.

My boss and I are ever so polite when dealing with each other these days and I make a mental note to do my best to make this mood last til de-mob or atleast until one of us resigns/ gets fired.

Steph says he has a busy day today and will be in a meeting in the next five minutes with our Head of Department. He adds that he may or may not need to have a word with me in private there after. I tell him that I'm basically free the whole week but I mean one can never tell in this place.

True to form the big guy waltzes into the office looking rather officious and perhaps a little too self-important. He grunts at me absently, and not one to be out done whenever I can help it, I grunt back at him just as absently. I take it we have now exchanged greetings so I pull myself up and head for the kitchen.
Much to my luck; the kitchen door opens directly opposite to the boardroom door... allowing say one who is that way inclined to eavesdrop splendidly on the ongoings of the boardroom while one sips quietly on one’s cuppa. I lean against the fridge and stare worriedly into my java.

Two or so minutes later I give up and slunk back to my cubicle. The meeting is being conducted in a well balanced mix of French and high emotion (more so though on the part of my own boss than anyone else). The names Wes and, at times, my own are thrown about casually along with the horrowing phrase “two weeks notice”.

I wipe away at the sweat collecting above my brow. I am now torn between scribbling down a resignation and throwing myself on the ground begging for my employment.

...

Both men emerge from their meeting over an hour later looking drained and completely used. The sort of look one would desplay after running a considerable marathon or the likes.

Steph asks for a quick word. I shuffle about and struggle to find my keys. I tell him I am late for a meeting which is sure to take up the rest of my afternoon. I do however assure him that he will receive a meeting request from me once I have double checked my week's schedule…

"a rich life"

Well Oprah says the only way for one to secure one’s success in the future well in advance before one gets there is for one to make, what she refers to as, a “rich life” list. The idea is to create a list of all that would comprise one’s idea of a rich life, paste it on the wall and stare it down as frequently and as intensely as possible until it succumbs to your strong will and sets about the business of magically readying your life well before you live it.

I clapped my hands together in absolute glee and rushed to grab my pen and paper before the commercial break was over and then plonked myself heavily on the couch again. Like a mad man I began to frantically scribble down notes as I had decided that because
a) Oprah is rich, it is therefore correct to assume that…
b) Oprah is right

“ I Will Be Living A Rich Life When:”

• The people in my office begin to respect me and stop stealing my bloody stationary
• Some of my stationary is returned
  
  
  The end!
  
  
  

...an ode to fallen Saturday night pleasures

Allow me this moment, if you will, to mourn the tragic demise of a once glorious yet delightfully sinful Saturday night institution. The one night stand or ONS for short was once a majestic thing of indulgent beauty. An honourable lonely-hearts passtime with a clear and concise code of conduct, rules and acceptable etiquette.

The beauty of the ONS lay in its ability to deliver highly satisfying, albeit fleeting, returns at minimal time, effort and false-promises input requirements.

The ONS could always be relied upon to come the heroic rescue of any lonely, single, overworked or heavily intoxicated woman whose Ken-Doll happens to live a seven hour drive away from where she does.


The rules were simple, the recollection of events often dodgy and morality indeed questionable….
Boy would meet girl.
Girl would refuse him the time of day citing her undying love and commitment to her one true love as being strong and unwavering.
Girl would then suddenly be hit by a slicing pang in the pits of her stomach as she realises just how far the Ken-Doll lives and how seldom she sees him. She would surprise both him and herself by being able to calculate, from the top of her head, the precise amount of time in milliseconds which has passed since she last felt the thrill of being in the arms of another.
Girl would order a more manly drink, drink deeply from her glass and tell the bar tender to keep them coming.
She’d then wake up at the crack of dawn with a sudden, yet hazy, realisation of what just happened. They’d say an awkward goodbye at her door with her leaning in for a hug and a kiss while he offers his hand to her for a friendly hand-shake.
The end….


Or so it should have been!!!

Alas dear blogger as I sit here writing this posting (tears in my eyes and GnT on the ready) I am sad to report that a great hero is fallen.

Gone is the endless wondering of what could or could not have been, the subsequent shacking it off as if nothing happened and finally the storing away of the whole experience in your extensive archive of “things to never think about again”.

Not only does the “guy” of today attempt to sleep in and chat away with you merrily over a hearty breakfast. He also stores your phone number as “cup cakes” and makes a mental note to call you during every waking hour of the every day thereafter. He also notes his intention to tell you he loves you a week later and to send sms’s which are sure to cause a stir in you dealings with the Ken-Doll.

The question, however, is what is a girl to do when the “guy” insists on desplaying such slanderous disrespect for rules and standing tradition ….

...a simple slice of life

08:25
I walk ,my eyes cast down, 25 minutes late into the office. I am already exhausted but have vowed to see this day through to the bitter end! As I walk in I notice my red-faced boss hurling the receiver at his laptop, screaming obscenities in French.

08:47
My boss is on fire; he's hurled telephonic abuse at almost everyone in Finance and is evidently working his way through the company contact list at a steady pace.
(for fear of being assaulted in a language I do not understand) I make a mental note to stay well out of the lunatic’s raging war path

09:00
Innocently, I send out an email querying some irregularities in the calculation and pricing of end quantities to my site QS... sadly CC'ing my boss in on it.

09:01
A heated war of words breaks out between myself, my boss and our site QS. Minutes later a few "head of's" and directors are CC'd in on the chaos. I shift around uncomfortably in my chair...someone is bound to get fired!

However it soon becomes clear that the fight has little to do with me so I resign myself to silence and enjoy my ring-side view of the project's mounting internal unrest

10:15
In a spectacular display of superiority and total abuse of power my boss tears up some important looking documents and declares Wes the worst QS he has ever met in his life and glares at me in disgust. I down my coffee in two gulps...


10:43
I receive a sincere apology from Wes the site QS via email, I forgive him instantly and we jabber on about my boss in Afrikaans - with him CC'd in.

16:00
It's now late in the afternoon and Steph's mood has all but worsened. He's been trying to make travel plans (he's taking leave soon) with someone in HR but it seems as though his passport has expired.

Steph makes an urgent call to Home Affairs and beggins the trecherous business of holding on the line every five minutes

16:42

....he screams into the receiver and makes incoherent threats and promises to an employee of state who cuts the line on him


The trip to France has been postponed until further notice.
…. a passport is seen flying out a window on the second floor

16:50
Steph goes down to the HR

16:55
...loud banging is heard from the first floor

....someone screams


I pack my bag and head strait for the exit.

17:45
...the end to yet another day!
I kick my shoes off ...I am home

...simple on a sunday

It’s a little after nine on a Sunday morning. The sun is out and warming my face through my blood-red textured cloth curtain. I frown slightly, roll over and then there he is; quite possibly the most beautiful man I have ever seen. He’s lying next to me with his left arm around me. “morning Luv” he says. I smile at him but say nothing. God he’s beautiful!

I struggle my way out of bed and stumble towards the kitchen sink.
“Tea or coffee baby?”
”Coffee please.”
I fire up the kettle and set about the business of making hot brew for the Ken-Doll and myself. He reaches over and grabs his book and ruffles about it’s pages trying to find his placing. Two minutes later, armed with my own copy of Spud, I amble over and join him again in bed. He’s on The Madness Continues and I’m halfway through Learning How To Fly. I prop myself up with a pillow and lean slightly into him. …I am here!

Twenty minutes and hoops of laughter later (sadly louder on my part than his) the Ken-Doll puts his book and mug aside and slides up against me. No matter how much time I spend with him I just cannot get over the smell of being near him. It’s lovely and warm and, best of all, it stays on my skin even after I shower. I moan at him for disturbing my reading and attempt to move away from him. The Ken-Doll puts away my cold and unfinished coffee then sidles back up to me. Spud and his hilarious days at boarding-school drop to the floor with a soft thud. …Dear God this man completes me!

...and all things new

A quick update on the new things in my life as of 01/08/09.

The new boss:

French
Begins every sentence with the word “normally”
Punctuates every sentence with the word “normally”
Concludes each conversation with “this is good, yes?” …it is sadly not always good
Is prone to promptly emailing me surprisingly accurate details of almost every work-related conversation we have together (?).

The new office environs:

Learnt on the second day that staplers, staples and staple removers are a rare and precious commodity here abouts. I had to borrow all the above from Naadia, across the floor from me. Naadia refused despite the fact that the stationary in question already had my name scribled in bold on it. She cited stationary thievery as being rife in the office and that I too should be careful with mine (?)
Calculators, as I have come to learn the rather hard way, are akin to the holy grail in this department and should be taken out of ones handbag only in emergencies

The new flat:

Questionable acoustics all round
A near treasure hunter’s dream…just in the past two weeks I have discovered/found:

3 sewing needles

a dozen rainbow coloured feathers

1 yellow screw driver

1 large fern

something which I assume is a piece of something else

The new neighbours:

loud

no more than three members in total

the youngest has yet to appreciate the value of boundaries

prone to public displays of internal unrest and generally high levels of violence

shall hence forth be refered to as the Hatters

An Open Letter To My ID Book

Dear Green Bar Coded ID Book

I understand that you’re upset. Bearing the sole responsibility of proving my existence on earth must be hard and tiresome work, I can appreciate that. But disappearing without warning, trust me, will not improve the situation in any form or way. Do you want to perhaps show up now as things are starting to get a little heated here in my corner and I am having more and more trouble convincing those around me that I am infact more that just a figment of my own imagination.

Yours entirely
jane

...and the curious fabulosity of "future me"

So this is me, plane ol’ jane… “Good ol’ plane jane” you say, almost audibly. You smile even, pleased to have stumbled upon this here site. “Simplicity’s so hard to come by nowadays” you think, philosophically. You glance briefly at my profile pic; “Could do with a lil’ hair though” you mutter to yourself. But you’re not going to hold that one against me, you resolve decidedly. You’re a sport like that. There’s definitely something endearing about someone who can, so wholly, resign themselves to a life of complete and utter “somewhatness” you muse. You admire the neither here nor there take on life which, you are almost certain, has come to be mine. “Good ol’ plane jane” you say. “Now there’s a plain girl for you…”

“Now wait a bleating second!” you say as you straighten yourself up in your chair. You’ve now given the whole page a thorough once over. “Who could be the seemingly deliriously happy couple pictured on the top right hand side of the page” you wonder. You’re not at all fazed by the blindingly obvious danger which the handsome couple seems to have found itself in. No your confusion, my dear friend, stems from the realisation that neither one of the two people/ persons/personii pictured resembles, what you have now come to believe to be, me.

“there’s a laughably logical explanation for all this good friend” I write reassuringly. You see the slender, sleek haired, stylish personification of complete and utter fabulossity pictured above (holding ever so dearly onto the equally scrumptious gentleman before her) is infact “future me” …

“Ofcourse it is” you agree sinking comfortably back into your seat. And for a brief moment you feel the colour rushing to your cheeks. You’re a little embarrassed by your poor observation skills as well as, perhaps, your lack of imaginative thinking. However, being the ever astute individual that I am, I notice that you still exhibit clear signs of confusedness. I understand almost immediately what it is that may still be boggling your sweet little mind. …”That’s the Ken-Doll” I write. “The gentleman at the helm of the wince-inducingly hazardous bike ride; that’s the Ken-Doll.”

“Ahhuh!” you mutter audibly to yourself. The light has now been turned on, albeit slowly. You urge me on, telepathically ofcourse….

The Ken-Doll is every bit the decedent scrumptiossity in his present incarnation as the picture implies of his “future self.”
He also happens to be every bit a part of my life now as the picture implies of my “future life.” He is every bit as dear to me now as he appears to be to the “future me.” In other words, if you were to take away the dangerous locomotive contraption with unconventionally shaped wheels, the glossy well manicured mane of hair from the delicate looking lady person, and if you were to add- give or take- a few extra pounds to her waif waist line you my friend would be left with a pretty darn accurate picture of the Ken-Doll and I as we stand at present.

You take a generous swig of your now luke-warm coffee. You nod. You’ve still some burning questions though, like “Did I remember to switch off the living room lights” and “Just how feasible are some of those energy saving tips you’ve downloaded on the net” but mostly you’re wondering “How could someone as well sculpted and poised as the Ken-Doll wind up with a plane ol’ jane such as myself?”

I nod. I understand. I have asked my self the very same set of questions countless times in my life before. We bond, you and I. we have a common endeavour. We know it will take time, we know it will take astonishingly large quantities of liquarice-free-liquarice and red wine to finally arrive at the answer. But we’re not afraid, we’re tough cookies you and I!

We both down what little remains of our now stone cold coffee. “Good ol’ plane jane” you say. “Now there’s a plain girl for you…”