I Have a Problem with my Pånty-Ums
I really do take Sydney’s weather for granted. I’ve been looking at the weather reports for Melbourne over the past month, and I’d forgotten how much warmer Sydney is than Melbourne. I must be turning into such a Sydneysider, because now I pout and moan whenever it gets to a temperature where I start breathing mist. Breathing mist is a fact of life in Melbourne’s winter. Frosty grass is a pure novelty in Sydney, but in Melbourne it’s an everyday occurance. I’m not a big fan of being forced to breathe mist on cold days. A lot of the time I breathe through my nose, and you look like a snorting maniac having mist being forced out of your nostrils while you wait for your train to arrive.
I finally cracked the shits with my job once and for all yesterday. I’m still doing the jobs of three people (which is far more than I can manage), yet I’m still constantly being reassured that my work will hire other people. Soon. Honest. So I looked on a job search website and found a great job at a TAFE college - I figured I’d have a good chance because I’ve got experience in TAFE administration. The pay was great, plus it was at Bondi. What more could I ask for?
I rang the relevant job agency on my lunch break.
Me: Hi, I’d like to apply for the TAFE college job at Bondi.
Job agency woman: Oh, um… where did you see that?
Me: It was on the net.
Job agency woman: Because it shouldn’t be.
Me: Oh?
Job agency woman: We filled that job yesterday.
Me: Oh. I see. It seemed like such a great job, too.
Job agency woman: Tell me about it - I was absolutely overwhelmed with responses for that position.
Me: Oh well. Better luck next time.
Job agency woman: What kind of work are you looking for?
Me: Well, I’m sort of looking for stuff in IT.
Job agency woman: Well, I have a job at an IT helpdesk. The pay is really great.
Me: How much?
Job agency woman: You’ll get paid (ridiculously low wage).
Me: Well… hmm. What else do you have?
Job agency woman: I don’t really deal with the IT industry, you see.
Me: Oh, okay. Do you have any general admin stuff?
Job agency woman: Um… no, I don’t tend to do that either.
Me: Well… thanks for your help, anyway.
Job agency woman: No, no, I’m sure we can find you a position here.
Me: It’s okay. Bye.
To summarise: You can’t have the job you want, but how would you like this other really crap job on a shithouse wage?
Straight away I rang up Jen to tell her I wanted to quit as well. She heartily encouraged me, but she’s utterly biased because she quit only a few weeks ago. I told her I was just frustrated with everything, that there’s no assistance for my job, there’s too many bills coming in, and I’m sick of it all.
‘Abundance is a word I live by,’ she then said. ‘No matter how much crappy stuff you have going on in your life, if you look hard enough, you have an abundance of good things.’ This is true. I can whinge all I want about having a shit job, but it’s a job that pays decent money. I have the choice to go on the dole while I look for work, but I choose not to. And there may be a lot of bills to pay, but Adam’s new job pays well and we’re going to be able to wipe out all our debts eventually. And I’ve got Adam, a guy who basically turned my life around to a degree I never expected. I was naive enough after a few brief, failed relationships to believe I understood love, but I know this is the real thing. Hell, I moved to the city I swore I’d never live in to be with him.
So as I walked down the street back to work, I thought… why worry? I should just take a step back from the crappy things at work and laugh. Suddenly everything seemed okay.
‘You’ve got an abundance of love,’ Jen said. ‘An abundance of happiness, and an abundance of crabs.’
A WHAT?
‘Abundance of crabs.’
Um…?
‘Joking.’
God. I don’t have any STD’s. And even if I did, I’d be worried how Jen found out about them.
Then everything changed for the better even more once I got back from lunch. Mr Marketing had a meeting with me, and advised me that seeing as Slow Sally has been fired, he’d like me to take her position. Of course, it’s a bit of a demotion as far as career progression goes, but the great thing is - with this new position I only have to work 5 hours a day - and I still get the same amount of pay as I do at the moment! This is brilliant. An abundance of nights where I can stay up late and not have to worry about snorting caffeine the next morning awaits! I won’t be starting work until 12.30 in the afternoon, and this all starts in around three weeks time.
It’s strange, really. This has gone from a job I really detested, to a job I’m actually looking forward to. I’ve got a question for anyone else who has a job they’re not enjoying - if your hours were cut in half and you were still paid the same wage, would you enjoy your job?
We started interviewing people for the new positions today, to replace myself and Jen. I’m allowed to sit in on the interviews with a few other managers because it’s my old position. The first guy who came in had bright red hair. He introduced himself, and it turns out he has the same first name as me. (Which isn’t Jeb, but you understand all that by now).
Redhead guy: Wahey! How’s it going, folks? (rotates head around in an idiotic attempt at a one-man slapstick show)
Mr Marketing: (raises eyebrows at me)
Redhead guy: Well, hi there everyone. My name’s Jeb!
Me: Oh, cool. That’s my name too.
Redhead guy: Whoaaaa! That could cause confusion! (throws hands up in air and waits for us to laugh. Nobody does)
Me: Well…
Redhead guy: Everyone, to avoid confusion, you can call me… THE JESTER! Wooohahahah!
He’d lost the job and we hadn’t even asked him any questions yet.
*****
I woke up on Monday morning, and it all seemed unusually dark for that time of day.
Me: The sun’s not quite right.
Adam: What do you mean?
Me: It’s usually far brighter by this time of the morning.
Adam: So the sun slept in. So what?
Me: I bet the Olympics are responsible for this.
When I catch the train in the morning to work, I’ve learnt that you don’t sit on the left side of the train. You get nice warm sunrays on your legs for the first portion of the trip, but then the train goes around a bend and you’re blinded by the sun for the majority of the rest of the trip. I know exactly where the train turns and the sunlight blinds everyone on the left side of the train, too. I make a special point of laughing at how everyone screws their eyes up and curses at how their comfort has been invaded.
Sydney desperately needs vending machines on the trains. I get so hungry and thirsty while I’m on the train. I’ve also noticed that the level of vandalism and graffiti on trains has shrunk. So come on, Cityrail - install some vending machines. Sydney’s hooligans need more things to vandalise!
At most Sydney Cityrail train stations, the train announcements are made by the Cityrail Disembodied Announcement Man. However, this week at a few select train stations, we’ve been introduced to the Cityrail Disembodied Announcement Woman. She’s decidedly easier to understand than the Announcement Man, so perhaps this is something to do with the Olympics. She’s not entirely convincing, though. She manages to work herself up and sound too enthusiastic about a train trip. By the time she’s read off the final few stations that the next train is stopping at, she’s worked herself up into something close to a climax.
Everyone knows by now that man boobs = scary. But I’ve witnessed a new phenomenon: man buns. Yes, that’s men who choose to wear their long hair in a bun. I saw one guy on the train who even dared to wear his bun slightly to the left. The thing is, these people look like normal guys - UNTIL YOU VIEW THE BUN! It’s definitely not right.
Yesterday I caught a bus that had an eerie quality about it. When I embarked on it, I couldn’t quite pick what it was that was so different about this particular bus. Then it came to me - there were no advertisements on the bus! It was like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of public transport. Of course it was all too good to be true, when the bus promptly broke down five metres from it’s origin.
While I was sitting on the bus, I noticed someone had stuck a price tag on the window I was sitting next to. The strange thing was that the price tag was actually printed on a ‘Use By’ label. So either a) the product that the price tag was from cost $6.35; or b) it actually was a Use By label, but printed in a strange hexidecimal-type system.
*****
It was almost unanimously agreed by the other staff yesterday that I have three different ‘looks’ when I come to work each day.
1: Westie. Apparently when I don’t have enough time to shower, brush my hair or shave… this is the Westie look.
2: Melbourne Boy. I’m not sure what Sydney people consider a ‘Melbourne boy’ to be, but I’m told it’s something “arty”. I usually wear my yuppie-ish black shirt when I’m accused of being a Melbourne Boy. Note that the Melbourne Boy style is bimodal: it comes in flavours of either Stubble Stubble or Fashion Stubble. (Stubble Stubble is lots of stubble that I really should have shaved off a few days ago, whereas Fashion Stubble is only half a day’s worth of stubble).
3: Triceratops. Apparently this accurately describes what my hair looks like when I spike it up with gel.
*****
At my work, we get requests for samples of our products every day. One item we offer to potential large-scale clients is a set of CD-ROMs that goes through an interactive tour of the high-end products we offer. Because of the size and expense of the products these CD-ROMs advertise, we don’t really get many requests for the CD-ROMs. Usually it’s spotty teenagers trying to get something for free.
So when we recieved an email request for this set of CD’s from a company named ‘Pizzabob’, I was slightly suspicious. I was also suspicious of the alleged 1800-PIZZA telephone number, which is one digit short of being a proper phone number. The suburban address was also suspect. The whole thing smacked of a teenager trying to get some CD-ROMs for free (actually, he even emailed us from an email account with a free ISP).
Despite the fact I didn’t have any phone number besides 1800-PIZZA, I did have the guy’s name and street address. This made tracking down his true phone number in the White Pages quite easy. Mr Marketing is trying to prevent people who don’t really need these CD-ROMs from requesting them, because it costs the business too much. I rang the alleged headquarters of this previously unknown fast food giant ‘Pizzabob’ to speak to the alleged CEO himself.
Man on phone: Hello?
Me: Hi, I’m from (company). I have recieved an email from the CEO of Pizzabob Inc, and I was wondering if he was interested in speaking to some of our salespeople. It’s a rather large product which is customisable to individual clients, so perhaps the manager would be interested in speaking to these people.
Man on phone: (long pause) You wanted to speak to Bob?
Me: If he is the CEO of Pizzabob, then yes.
Man on phone: Well… Bob’s at school right now. He’ll be home after 5.30 - he’s got footy training tonight.
Me: That’s okay - you’ve just answered all my questions. Thanks.
No CD-ROMs for Pizzabob Inc.
*****
Food and drink I’m not particularly fond of:
1: Wheeties. Which may as well be called Wheezies as far as I’m concerned. For some reason they make me choke and induce asthma. Vita-Brits are another breakfast cereal guilty of this crime.
2: Non-standard fruit. I was offered an apricot museli bar today, which I politely declined.
Temp: Why don’t you want it? Don’t you like apricot?
Me: Well… I’m working on apricot at the moment. It’s a sort of work in progress thing at the moment.
Temp: What do you mean?
Me: I’ve never really eaten a lot of apricot until recently. I’m still getting used to the concept.
Temp: So why don’t you want this museli bar?
Me: Because that’s not really apricot.
Temp: Yes it is. Apricot museli bar.
Me: But it’s a bastardised version of apricot. You can’t take a bite of that chewy, bitey, vaguely fruitish substance and tell me it’s proper apricot.
Temp: But it’s still apricot.
Me: But it’s a special version of apricot. It’s a non-standard apricot. You have to learn to like and accept the concept of regular apricot before you can move on to challenges like this.
3. Honeycomb. Biting into this is almost a miniture version of scraping your fingernails along a blackboard.
4. Anti-fizzed Coke. I had a friend in high school who many people predicted would grow up to be a flasher. He just looked suspicious and spent the majority of his free time chainsmoking. Whenever I went to his house and he offered me a drink of Coke, he would pour it in the glass, then blow into it to get rid of the excess fizz. ‘I can pour the drink quicker this way,’ he explained. Sure, it’s also a far quicker way to give me your respiratory diseases.
*****
The DJ Accountant, Mr Marketing and myself were discussing our love lives yesterday morning. Mr Marketing is adamant that he won’t get married and have children until totally necessary, and currently the DJ Accountant is having relationship woes with his girlfriend. Nobody at work knows about Adam, he’s just my flatmate as far as they’re concerned.
One of the girls from finance walked past and overheard our conversation, and claimed that getting married is one of the best things that could ever happen to you. Without going into all my views on marriage, the DJ Accountant rolled his eyes at her statements. I was then asked when I would get married and have children.
Finance girl: So, how long until you get married and have a family?
Me: Oh, I don’t think that will happen for quite some time.
Finance girl: Are you worried about the money side of things? Because if you manage it properly, it’s not that expensive.
Me: Even if I had extra money, I’d buy some furniture or something. Or a better computer.
Finance girl: That won’t be the case when you’ve got a wife. A woman’s biological clock starts ticking, you know.
DJ Accountant: Tell me about it. I get the old ‘I don’t have many years left’ thing all the time.
Me: I guess I’m just not the kind of guy who wants to have kids.
Finance girl: That’s horrible!
Me: The world’s overpopulated enough as it is, without miniture idiot versions of me running around!
Finance girl: You will have kids one day whether you like it or not.
Me: I feel like you’re trying to convince ME to have kids with you now. This is scary.
Finance girl: It’s a terrible way of thinking.
Me: So you don’t have many years left, you’re harassing me to impregnate a woman, and then you’re throwing a biological clock at me? What have my sperm done wrong?!
*****
Things I Will Endeavour To Work Out:
1: The stock market. I can throw around words like Nasdaq, buyout, market forecast and aquisition as well as anyone else, but I’ve got no idea what I’m talking about. I don’t want to become a finance-head, but I’d at least like to be able to understand the finance news segment on the nightly news. I’m not going to go as far as buying the Financial Review every day (or BRW for the ultra-yuppie look), but it’d be nice to understand. Right now the stock market makes as much sense to me as Adam Sandler’s acting career.
2: Pressure patterns. You know, the squiggly things on weather maps. I think if the lines are close together it’s colder or something. I don’t know. I’m sure nobody else really understands pressure patterns either. When you’re watching the weather with a group of your mates and the words ‘pressure pattern’ are uttered, everyone nods in agreement and vaguely agrees with a universal ‘mmm’. As if they understand what’s going on. All anyone cares about is the 4-day forecast.
*****
You’ve seen Napster… now prepare for the next wave of unlimited information:
Soon, everyone will be using Chapter ™. With this device, you can COPY ANY PAGE OF ANY BOOK IN THE WORLD! Chapter ™ - coming soon from an American teenager with an uncle who has too much money.
*****
Torana’s a bit of a Napster user. I taught him how to use it and he’s overjoyed at the selection of AC/DC songs he now has access to. I worry that he finds more joy in waiting until someone’s downloaded 90% of a song on his computer, then he disconnects and cackles wildly.
But all sorts of file-sharing things are popping up now, aren’t they? I read today of a file sharing service that lets you share ROMs (Nintendo and Sega games) over the net.
But as for me? I’m going to go to bed and curl up in bed with a nice computer monitor. (God, e-books are shithouse)
*****
Everyone travelling along to the Olympic Games here in Sydney in September - I know you’re eager to visit the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House and stuff. But you know what? Up close, the Opera House reeks of dead fish. I’m just warning you.
*****
This afternoon at work, the DJ Accountant started singing the first two lines of ‘Blue’ by Eiffel 65. Judging from the enthusiasm with which he was bouncing around, it appeared he was threatening to go the whole way, until he recieved a telephone call.
It was someone from our company, and they were asking him if he knew how to fix their computer. He was speaking aloud saying things like ‘So you have a problem with your pånty-ums?’ I thought he was getting a prank call, until he started calling other people in our company and asking them if they knew anything about pånty-ums.
This all went on for about 10 minutes until he called one of the tech-heads at our company and discussed the problem. Suddenly everything made sense when the DJ Accountant said aloud ‘Yeah, it’s a problem with the guy’s pånty-ums… um, I think that’s what he said… oh, yeah, Påntiums. That must be it.’
Intel Pånty-Ums: Coming soon to a desktop near you.
Sidenote: the reason pånty-ums appears with a weird circle above the A? I keep getting spam comments on this entry, because of the word pånty. Seriously!
*****
Our team at work ordered pizza yesterday. There was much discussion and debate over which pizzas to actually order, and when we’d finally made our mind up, Parappa the Rapper eagerly placed an order through, and we were told to wait around an hour.
Two hours later, and still no pizza. It just never turned up. I’m not sure which pizza chain Parappa ordered from… maybe it was Pizzabob.
*****
When I’ve set up my giant enterprise of companies, I’m going to introduce a number of new companies into the market. One of the first organisations you’ll be seeing from WWJI Inc is… World Wide Jeb Bank.
Everyone hates waiting in long lines at banks, and when it come to queues this bank is no different.
However! Everyone’s happy to line up, because this is a bank with a difference. This is a bank where all the tellers are completely naked. Our customers are totally encouraged to get in the spirit and nude up as well. Sure, our interest rates are far higher than they should be, but when you’re getting a free eyeful of raw flesh everyone’s happy! (Just wait until you see our commercial banking staff!)
We’re keeping the nudey theme in line with our internet banking service, too. After making a transaction on World Wide Jeb i-Bank, you’ll be treated to a couple of free porno pictures. Everyone wins with World Wide Jeb Bank - where the long term deposits are decidedly loooonger than the other banks.
*****
If you’re not in Australia, you’re probably not aware of the Panadol situation over here. Panadol is probably the most popular paracetamol headache tablet, but you can’t buy it at the moment. They had a poisoning extortion attempt by some loony, and all the products have been withdrawn. The exact same stunt was pulled on Panadol’s biggest competitor Herron a few months back, so there’s not many headache tablets to choose from nowadays.
Me: I’d like some Panadol, please.
Chemist: I’m sorry, they’re still being recalled.
Me: Oh. Damn.
Chemist: However, I can sell you these. They’re called Panamax.
Me: I’m not sure. It doesn’t have that nice green box of Panadol. This Panamax looks rather clinical.
Chemist: You don’t have to worry. Panamax has exactly the same ingredients as Panadol.
Me: What, even the strychnine poison?
*****
In bags of chips at the moment, you get these little free 3D Pokemon cards. I got one for a character called ‘Electrode’. On the back of the card is a description of it:
Electrode, also known as Bomb Ball, is full of electrical power. It stores electric energy under very high pressure. Watch out! It explodes often and for no reason at all.
Not only is this a description of a Pokemon, it’s also a description of the DJ Accountant I work with.