I am a man of many identities. I know this to be the case as I have the papers to prove it. These are, of course, business cards and I have about 20 of them charting my career as it, too, has careered over the years. From account manager level to Director level and, my all time favourite, no job title at all level, they rest in peace in a box somewhere in the house so I show my kids the rise and fall and fall of my career.
At the moment I actually have two different business cards. How cool is that? One set for my three and half day a week job and the other set for the other organisation I was desperately needed for, sign the consultancy agreement papers NOW and send them to us immediately is there anyway you can hand deliver them there is a job that needs doing NOW, can't wait, hurry, hurry, hurry we'll print you business cards and FedEx them to you. Actually that was four months ago now and yes, you knew it really, it never actually happened.
But what happens to these cards, I mean does anyone actually do business with them? I diligently collected other people's business cards for years on the basis that they 'might be useful.' I have them here, right now in this purpose designed business card holder with the words 'business cards' picked out in sky blue Dymo tape on the top, in case I was under the illusion that it held a Faberge egg perhaps?. What's even more astounding is that they are in alphabetical order. That's why, presumably, I have the Mayor of Cordova's, Alabama card. Now I can't begin to remember why I have his card, where I met him or why I though this would be useful. Here's some others. One for an online used car sales company (out of business, I just checked), a paint shop in Singapore (just in case I needed some paint as I was passing through?), Banco Fiat in Sao Paulo, the delightfully titled Directeur de l'Observatoire in Paris, a barrister (ominous) with his name, telephone number and one word title (full marks for going overboard with design there), one for Gasper in Sao Paulo (who was Gasper, or what?) and one in Arabic on one side and Japanese on the other.
I can honestly say that I have never contacted these people again. And they haven't contacted me either but we all go through this rigmarole of handing out these little paste cards to each other. For some reason. Of course, like so many things, cards have become more and more ingenious. They have changed size, they are bigger/smaller, open out like a folding ruler and some are quite clever bits of origami. You know the sort you can't fold them back up properly afterwards, like a large newspaper after you've read it. I've got transparent plastic ones, ones with people's pictures on, square ones, ones written on rice grains, three dimensional cards, holograms, ones that don't exist in our time space continuum, ones printed on the back of live animals that I now have to look after, talking cards and even mini CD cards that you are meant to put in your PC computer tray and then look at. And look at them you will for ever if you put them in some CD trays because they never, ever come out again.
So all this effort to create attractive cards that represent one's business and capabilities and they all get put in a little red book with blue dymo tape for ever until they are forgotten. How sad. I did have a really groovy one, when I was self-employed, that was designed by my friend, a terrific graphic designer. The design wowed people, they would stop in their tracks and admire the striking design. They never called me though and I sent out/gave out hundreds of them. Would you like one, perhaps a box of them I have several left over?
Then there is the ritual of the exchange of cards. If you are the one entering into an office you always have the advantage - card already secreted in a pocket you whip it out and hand it over with a flourish - there that's my credentials so now you have to take me seriously. They, on the other hand, immediately dive into a drawer stuffed full of loose elastic bands, staples that have escaped from the box, fifteen pens that don't work and twenty seven pencils that you keep meaning to sharpen if only you had a pencil sharpener, 126 paper clips all connected together from when you had that really boring on-line conference that took hours, six memos that you meant to reply to but had lost, sixty seven business cards from previous visitors and a year's supply of PostIt notes and mutter 'I have one here somewhere' and then hand you one with a coffee stain on as they can't find a coaster for the coffee either. Then you leave and your card becomes the sixty eighth. Of couse there are always the dreaded V cards, little attachments to emails that are meant to update your central collection of business contacts - somehow these never seem to work and get deleted.
Then there's people's titles; Grand wizard, Associate (i.e we don't actually employ them), Gerente Geral (sic), Head of Group Synergies (you just know from that that there aren't any), TQE District Manager and so on. Some put all their academic qualifications on: GCSE in woodwork, ironing and coracle weaving, along with the big ones: B.Sc (HONS), M.A (HONS), FRIXT Assoc, GMINT Acc, FRIAPP (Fellow of the Royal Institute of Associated Pygmy Photographers) or whatever. They have a qualification and boy are they going to make sure you know it, whether they actually earned it or paid an annual fee to have membership to the association.
It's all now lost on me anyway - as soon as I get a card that I know I will need the details for I write them in my Filofax anyway.
And throw the card away.
Friday, 4 July 2008
Thursday, 26 June 2008
The Iron Man
I think King Canute got it wrong. He should not have attempted to stop the tide coming in, as legend tells us, he should have tried to stop ironing appearing, a much, much harder task.
I'm getting to grips with this household management thing though. When I mentioned in passing a few weeks ago about doing the cleaning yet again (on the one and half days a week I don't have paid employment) Mrs EoTP looked at me (the Look) and said 'I've done it for the last 16 years so a few months won't hurt you.' and strode off to boss the Parachute Regiment around. She terrifies them. She has changed so much since starting work again. Somethings I just can't do - cooking for example - I still struggle with all meals except those that involve 'remove outer sleeve and pierce film, place in microwave' or food that can be put in the toaster. Sometimes I confuse the two with hilarious results. Try toasting frozen lamb mince and you'll see what I mean. Toasting and microwaving are just about within my competencies.
DIY is something I try to avoid - I can't do that either, and it has to be more of a PSE or 'pay someone else'. Mrs EoTP still reminds of the day I was replacing a light bulb, fell off the chair and broke an occasional table...with my head. Or the time I wired the electric cooker to the mains. That blew the fuse box right off the wall when I switched it on. The fact is that my hands will not completely obey my brain in certain conditions, usually those involving practical issues.
I've more or less cracked this dusting and vacuuming thing though. I can now clean the house, for the week, by 1230 on a Monday and I only need to start cleaning at 1145. Mrs EoTP will never discover the little 'short cuts' to cleaning - not until the holidays that is but by then it will be too late.
But there is one thing I can do and that's iron. I have discovered that I can put creases in trousers or shirt sleeves that you could spread butter with, they are that sharp. I can happily while away several hours ironing, listening to my my iPod and getting the cable of the iron tangled up with the earphones of the iPod (with hilarious results). Oh what pleasure there is seeing an empty laundry basket putting away the iron and ironing board and then turning around and finding there is still washing on the line, in the washing machine or hanging on a drier somewhere in the house. But no matter how much I do it still keeps on coming. It seems to make no difference how much I iron or when I do it (throughout the night at this rate) the amount of laundry requiring ironing never stops - in fact we seem to be have about 30% more ironing than than we have clothes. I am becoming suspicious that somehow I am doing the ironing for the street. The neighbours must be creeping in and depositing their ironing in our laundry basket, it's the only answer. How families that have more than three children keep up I don't know. Perhaps they are ironing in perpetual motion or in shifts. The other annoying thing is that, and I hate to admit this, Mrs EoTP is a lot faster than me - she seems to polish off shirts in no time but then can cut you cut a steak with the creases in her shirt sleeves like you can with mine? I think not.
I believe it is a Good Thing that I can iron, a way of demonstrating my solidarity with the necessity to keep the family clothed and fed. Mind you it is not a skill I put on my CV admittedly and neither is it a topic that gets raised down at the pub with the lads. Not for me the 'Oh forget about Chelsea's performance against Man United last night let's talk about whether non-iron shirts really don't need ironing and don't you think that linen is awful when it's become bone dry on the washing line. Those new man made fibres iron well on low heat don't they?' I think that might lead to me losing my hard man status. And any further invitations to go to the pub.
On reflection maybe Canute chose the right thing to try and stop. How would the history of the British Isles have been different if the Royal lineage has chosen laundry as the battle standard? The Doomswash Day book anyone? Magna Overnight Soaking?
I'm getting to grips with this household management thing though. When I mentioned in passing a few weeks ago about doing the cleaning yet again (on the one and half days a week I don't have paid employment) Mrs EoTP looked at me (the Look) and said 'I've done it for the last 16 years so a few months won't hurt you.' and strode off to boss the Parachute Regiment around. She terrifies them. She has changed so much since starting work again. Somethings I just can't do - cooking for example - I still struggle with all meals except those that involve 'remove outer sleeve and pierce film, place in microwave' or food that can be put in the toaster. Sometimes I confuse the two with hilarious results. Try toasting frozen lamb mince and you'll see what I mean. Toasting and microwaving are just about within my competencies.
DIY is something I try to avoid - I can't do that either, and it has to be more of a PSE or 'pay someone else'. Mrs EoTP still reminds of the day I was replacing a light bulb, fell off the chair and broke an occasional table...with my head. Or the time I wired the electric cooker to the mains. That blew the fuse box right off the wall when I switched it on. The fact is that my hands will not completely obey my brain in certain conditions, usually those involving practical issues.
I've more or less cracked this dusting and vacuuming thing though. I can now clean the house, for the week, by 1230 on a Monday and I only need to start cleaning at 1145. Mrs EoTP will never discover the little 'short cuts' to cleaning - not until the holidays that is but by then it will be too late.
But there is one thing I can do and that's iron. I have discovered that I can put creases in trousers or shirt sleeves that you could spread butter with, they are that sharp. I can happily while away several hours ironing, listening to my my iPod and getting the cable of the iron tangled up with the earphones of the iPod (with hilarious results). Oh what pleasure there is seeing an empty laundry basket putting away the iron and ironing board and then turning around and finding there is still washing on the line, in the washing machine or hanging on a drier somewhere in the house. But no matter how much I do it still keeps on coming. It seems to make no difference how much I iron or when I do it (throughout the night at this rate) the amount of laundry requiring ironing never stops - in fact we seem to be have about 30% more ironing than than we have clothes. I am becoming suspicious that somehow I am doing the ironing for the street. The neighbours must be creeping in and depositing their ironing in our laundry basket, it's the only answer. How families that have more than three children keep up I don't know. Perhaps they are ironing in perpetual motion or in shifts. The other annoying thing is that, and I hate to admit this, Mrs EoTP is a lot faster than me - she seems to polish off shirts in no time but then can cut you cut a steak with the creases in her shirt sleeves like you can with mine? I think not.
I believe it is a Good Thing that I can iron, a way of demonstrating my solidarity with the necessity to keep the family clothed and fed. Mind you it is not a skill I put on my CV admittedly and neither is it a topic that gets raised down at the pub with the lads. Not for me the 'Oh forget about Chelsea's performance against Man United last night let's talk about whether non-iron shirts really don't need ironing and don't you think that linen is awful when it's become bone dry on the washing line. Those new man made fibres iron well on low heat don't they?' I think that might lead to me losing my hard man status. And any further invitations to go to the pub.
On reflection maybe Canute chose the right thing to try and stop. How would the history of the British Isles have been different if the Royal lineage has chosen laundry as the battle standard? The Doomswash Day book anyone? Magna Overnight Soaking?
Friday, 13 June 2008
Chips with everything
I manoeuvred my car slowly down into the quarry following the muddy track the trucks used to enter and leave the site. By the time I reached the site office car park my company car was covered in a grey sticky film of mud. I got out of the car and, walking on tiptoe in a vain effort to keep the mud off my shoes and suit, headed for the Portacabin where the person I was due to meet worked. Two mangy Alsatians, held back only by their long leashes barked loudly at me eyeing me up as if I had been scheduled to be their meal today. As they jumped and strained to reach me they showered me in more mud. I entered the Portacabin, shook hands with the site manager - he offered me a cup of tea before we started the meeting. I thanked him and said 'yes please'. And then I saw the mugs.
The mugs were weapons of mass destruction. They were stained in ways I couldn't believe it was possible to stain a mug without using ancient banned magic. The deep brown stains of a millennia of never once seeing warm water and washing up liquid. Not a millimetre of white left on them. Striated like some monstrous geological fault with deep cracks running around the outside and inside. The rim of the mug was deeply chipped around the whole circumference. There were the stains of dribbles of tea from the last user running down the side. The site manager plonked the mug down in front of me, and drank deeply from his own mug - it had what remained of a cartoon on the outside 'The world's greatest...'. Indecipherable - poisoner, mass murderer? 'I'm going to die so young' I thought 'Of some horrible virus that has mutated for years on this mug and for which there is no cure. That's why the Alsatians were eyeing me up - they knew this was my last walk.'
Well I did die - oh no, I couldn't of of course. Staff facilities - they are mostly gross, rarely clean and generally have torn and crooked notices hanging from one drawing pin exhorting staff to leave the facilities as they would find in their own homes. On the basis of many years observation I would have to say that with most people's homes therefore you would be wiping your shoes as you leave they must be so disgusting.
As a student in self catering halls of residence our particular kitchen was singled out for praise by the long suffering cleaners on the basis that:
- We actually appeared to wash the tea towels more than once a term
- When we washed them we used warm(ish) water and soap powder
- We wiped down surfaces in the kitchen and actually used disinfectant to clean surfaces
- The contents of the freezer did not pre-date the last ice age.
My current favourite that I use, favourite in that I have to don a full nuclear/bacteriological hazard suit before I enter actually has, get this, a dish washer that is never used. Dirty mugs, plates that are deeply encrusted with late night curry detritus and tea spoons. We'll quickly pass over the state if the tea towels again, last washed in 1968. And just what happens to tea spoons? No matter how many are provided they all disappear within a few days. Must be a thriving international trade in contraband tea spoons. And,yes, there is the inevitable notice pinned to the wall that says 'Please leave these facilities clean or they will be withdrawn.' The notice has been there as long as the tea towel to my knowledge.
In one place where I worked I couldn't stand the state of the coffee making facilities any more so I bought my own bottle of washing up liquid to work and started, daily, washing the team's mugs before we used them and at the end of the day. At first I was regarded as a two headed monster and then, one day accidentally leaving the washing liquid behind, returned to find a queue of people waiting to wash up their mugs with my lovely soapy suds. At least we had a sink - don't you just hate people who wash their mugs in the staff toilets? The sinks I mean not the loos.
However I knew I reached my nadir in one country in Africa. I was there on business. I'd been offered refreshments at the office I was visiting. They kindly offered me sweet coffee, which I accepted (mustn't offend the host) and, of course, the drink came in the inevitable chipped cups. 'Would I like some food to go with the coffee' they asked. Now on full hygiene alert I havered, what to do? I finally said yes and so they proudly brought out some disreputable looking plates and emptied some white spherical objects from the fridge onto the plate - there were as many flies in the fridge as in the room as the temperature difference was only about 2C between the inside of the fridge and the room. 'Eat up' they said indicating the plate. It was only then I recognised what they were on the plate. Sheeps eyes. 'I'm going to die so young I thought (again) of some horrible virus.' For the Queen and Country I drank the coffee and swallowed the Sheeps eyes.
So that is why, when offered a coffee from anywhere other than a machine, I look very, very carefully at the staff facilities before I make a decision - it's going to get me one day.
Monday, 2 June 2008
Claims procedure
I'm owed £400 this month.
From expenses.
There's a word that brings both delight and terror to the claimant.
As you regular readers know I have worked for many organisations - therefore, by dint of my work, I have had to claim expenses throughout my working life and the experience has varied from one end of the spectrum 'Here is the rule for everything and you will obey, exterminate, exterminate' to 'Dunno really just claim what you think is reasonable'. Both ends are as difficult as each other.
Let's go for a stroll to the 'We have rules' end. This company, a substantial multi-national had an expenses form that an accountant must have devised with codes for everything and a strict requirement to account for VAT. Receipts WERE required or you were shot. No, thinking about it, your expenses were just not signed off and you starved. The rules were made and kept by two elderly house elves who maintained the company archives and who were locked away night and day on the fifth floor where the company library was located. Here giant dusty tomes were opened with the spine of the book creaking as the heavy pages were turned. 'You may claim for a car wash each week with no receipt as long as it does not cost more than £2.50'.
'Right then' we'd ask, 'can we just claim £2.50 a week and put it on the expense form?'
'Yes' the house elves would reply.
So we'd claim the £2.50 a week and the cars would get dirtier and dirtier (as, of course we didn't wash them) until we could convince a car dealer to clean them for us - for free.
'Field staff can claim £2.50 a day for lunch without a receipt.'
'Can we claim that every day whether at home or in the office or on an interplanatery trip?'
Well of course we could and did, and most days the dealers bought us lunch anyway. Fuel was a good one as well. You claimed on a pence per mile basis according to a fuel rate. Basically, unless you were driving in excess of 100 mph in second gear all the time, you made a substantial profit on fuel.
And this was all condoned by the management - no wonder few members of the field staff wanted to return to head office for promotion - you couldn't afford the drop in salary. It all started getting difficult when my then manager started asking me to get blank receipts from restaurants, get an amount filled in, claim that amount and when reimbursed, pay him the money in cash so he could go horse racing. We were talking serious amounts of money here - then some of my colleagues who lived in my territory, thought it would be a jolly good jape to take their friends/wives/mistresses out for a meal and get me to claim the bill as 'entertaining' and then pay them back, 'No problem the boss will sign it off'. Bit of a problem really as are you really going to shop an influential and senior manager and then continue to have a career in the same company? The only answer was to join the CIA, become a hit man and take him out. Actually I had a quiet word with another manager and it all stopped, as did my career, but at least I didn't do anything dishonest as I said to the manager of the Job Centre as I signed on. The daft thing was that you make a substantial profit on your expenses by just claiming them as allowed - you didn't need to make dishonest claims
Wandering across to the other end of the spectrum we have the company that has no rules and has an expense form that is basically a blank piece of A4 where you write your name at the top. For this company, Consolidated Who-Hahs, I travelled the world selling who-hahs to anyone that would buy them.
"Can I travel business class?'
'Suppose so'
'Can I stay in 5 star hotels and claim laundry as I am away for several weeks?'
'Seems fair'
'Can I arrange my flights so that at weekends I can stay in fabulously exotic resorts at the companies expense?'
"S'all right.'
'Can I eat like a King and buy the most expensive wines in the world, smoke the most prestigious cigars and be waited on by fair hand maidens selected from the world's most beautiful women who I will fly in especially?'
'Spect so'
You see, no rules and the net effect was that I would actually travel like a penurious student to save the company money that I hadn't been expected to save anyway it would seem. Of course they had no idea what I was claiming as all the receipts were in Thai/Vietnamese/Saudi/Brazilian thingies and so on and the Caribbean island I was actually buying on the basis of expenses was never spotted.
And so we have variations on that theme across the expenses spectrum - right now I work for a reasonable company that takes a reasonable view and therefore expenses claimed are always reasonable. Still got a big form to fill in though and the phrase 'I need a receipt please' is still in daily use. And will be for years. Spect.
From expenses.
There's a word that brings both delight and terror to the claimant.
As you regular readers know I have worked for many organisations - therefore, by dint of my work, I have had to claim expenses throughout my working life and the experience has varied from one end of the spectrum 'Here is the rule for everything and you will obey, exterminate, exterminate' to 'Dunno really just claim what you think is reasonable'. Both ends are as difficult as each other.
Let's go for a stroll to the 'We have rules' end. This company, a substantial multi-national had an expenses form that an accountant must have devised with codes for everything and a strict requirement to account for VAT. Receipts WERE required or you were shot. No, thinking about it, your expenses were just not signed off and you starved. The rules were made and kept by two elderly house elves who maintained the company archives and who were locked away night and day on the fifth floor where the company library was located. Here giant dusty tomes were opened with the spine of the book creaking as the heavy pages were turned. 'You may claim for a car wash each week with no receipt as long as it does not cost more than £2.50'.
'Right then' we'd ask, 'can we just claim £2.50 a week and put it on the expense form?'
'Yes' the house elves would reply.
So we'd claim the £2.50 a week and the cars would get dirtier and dirtier (as, of course we didn't wash them) until we could convince a car dealer to clean them for us - for free.
'Field staff can claim £2.50 a day for lunch without a receipt.'
'Can we claim that every day whether at home or in the office or on an interplanatery trip?'
Well of course we could and did, and most days the dealers bought us lunch anyway. Fuel was a good one as well. You claimed on a pence per mile basis according to a fuel rate. Basically, unless you were driving in excess of 100 mph in second gear all the time, you made a substantial profit on fuel.
And this was all condoned by the management - no wonder few members of the field staff wanted to return to head office for promotion - you couldn't afford the drop in salary. It all started getting difficult when my then manager started asking me to get blank receipts from restaurants, get an amount filled in, claim that amount and when reimbursed, pay him the money in cash so he could go horse racing. We were talking serious amounts of money here - then some of my colleagues who lived in my territory, thought it would be a jolly good jape to take their friends/wives/mistresses out for a meal and get me to claim the bill as 'entertaining' and then pay them back, 'No problem the boss will sign it off'. Bit of a problem really as are you really going to shop an influential and senior manager and then continue to have a career in the same company? The only answer was to join the CIA, become a hit man and take him out. Actually I had a quiet word with another manager and it all stopped, as did my career, but at least I didn't do anything dishonest as I said to the manager of the Job Centre as I signed on. The daft thing was that you make a substantial profit on your expenses by just claiming them as allowed - you didn't need to make dishonest claims
Wandering across to the other end of the spectrum we have the company that has no rules and has an expense form that is basically a blank piece of A4 where you write your name at the top. For this company, Consolidated Who-Hahs, I travelled the world selling who-hahs to anyone that would buy them.
"Can I travel business class?'
'Suppose so'
'Can I stay in 5 star hotels and claim laundry as I am away for several weeks?'
'Seems fair'
'Can I arrange my flights so that at weekends I can stay in fabulously exotic resorts at the companies expense?'
"S'all right.'
'Can I eat like a King and buy the most expensive wines in the world, smoke the most prestigious cigars and be waited on by fair hand maidens selected from the world's most beautiful women who I will fly in especially?'
'Spect so'
You see, no rules and the net effect was that I would actually travel like a penurious student to save the company money that I hadn't been expected to save anyway it would seem. Of course they had no idea what I was claiming as all the receipts were in Thai/Vietnamese/Saudi/Brazilian thingies and so on and the Caribbean island I was actually buying on the basis of expenses was never spotted.
And so we have variations on that theme across the expenses spectrum - right now I work for a reasonable company that takes a reasonable view and therefore expenses claimed are always reasonable. Still got a big form to fill in though and the phrase 'I need a receipt please' is still in daily use. And will be for years. Spect.
Thursday, 29 May 2008
'Every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.' ZZ Top
Well I haven't been here for a while. It's like your house when you return to it after two weeks holiday and it has that strange smell when you enter for the first time and just before you fling open the windows to let some fresh air in. Sort of fusty and with the hint of another smell - this is actually what your house smells like to strangers just as, when you go to another house, it too smells odd. Anyway no mail in the porch, no free newspapers stuck in the letter box, no dead flies on all the window sills and no huge spiders in the bath glaring at you.
I'm not one of the world's greatest dressers.
I have never liked suits and ties and could quite happily exist in T shirts and jeans until the end of my days.
You see I went to a Public School, a minor one in the scheme of things, but Public all the same. In my defence I had passed the 11+ and won a County Scholarship to attend said august place and that is where is all started. That and being marked as 'dead meat' by all the boys I used to know in primary school and who now regarded me as target practice for whatever they had in their hands as I passed them to and from school. Being a dayboy I had to run the gauntlet of the mean streets of the small town the school was located in to get home, and we all know how mean they can be. Well reasonably mean. Sometimes a little mean and there was often litter too. Anyway the school code stated that boys had to wear a proscribed uniform to be bought from the school outfitters also located in the same town. This, of course, was duly ignored by the rich and this was my first lesson in capitalism. My mother and father struggled, I know, to afford the uniform which included a mandatory school cap (which HAD to be worn until the third form if you were OUTSIDE school). Well, this cap had a peak that was so long it required scaffolding to support it - and, being tall for my age, meant that it was as instantly recognisable as a policeman's helmet in a crowd. Therefore it became 'Target 1' for the lads about town that now hated me with the intensity of a burning star. Then you could wear, if you wanted, a straw boater in the summer term. Well not having a death wish, Grievous Bodily Harm being bad enough most days, I pleaded successfully for Ma and Pa not to buy me any such thing. What we did with the peaks on the caps was to soak them in water and then they would curl up like a Turkish slipper - yes we must have looked stupid but it seemed enough to calm the blood lust of the townies who then just called us bad names as we passed. Of course the fact that I soon aligned myself to Ian at school who was built like The Incredible Hulk and who could grow luxurious sideburns at 12 probably helped a little as well.
What the parents of the boys who paid to attend the school did (and somehow, in a strangely inverted world that made them, in their eyes somehow superior to those of us who actually had the brains to justify being there) was go to a bespoke tailor in London and have their uniforms made for them. Yes made-to-measure at 11 years old. I had then, as now an odd shaped body - short legs but a long torso and the school tailor could not cope with sizes outside the norm. My Mum did her valiant best to turn up the trousers but, let's face it Mum, this wasn't a core skill was it? So the hems would come down regularly and there would much mirth from those with Savile Row suits but with IQs that were similar to the number of buttons they had sewn on the jacket. So I had 6 years of this then cast off the uniform for the freedom of own clothes at university. I think we will pass over quickly the fad for wearing clogs (bloody clogs in a hilly university town?), flared jeans with flares so big they resembled a two man tent, tie and dye T shirts and cheesecloth shirts. And those are the less embarrassing items of clothing that I am prepared to mention in public.
Of course being in work means that I have to wear a suit from time to time, like yesterday, and two very nice Austin Reed suits I have as well - but really my heart is in jeans and T shirts and, even when I go to the office, it's still very casual stuff. And just what would be wrong with a clip-on tie? Of course Mrs EotP objects from time to time and dares point out that I actually look scruffy - but what is to object to with £3 jeans and £1.50 T shirts from Tesco anyway? So I do have to buy some clothes and have them vetted by her. However what is weird is the person I know who works for a very large PLC and lives nearby - he wears his suit and tie when working at home. 'Can't wear anything casual if I'm at home as it doesn't feel right' he claims.
There's a time for certain clothes?
How does one know these things or is it a woman thing passed down through the ages without us menfolk knowing or hearing about it? I can't say, but it perplexed Mrs EotP that's for sure. Clearly some subliminal messaging going on here that is not fully understood even at womanfolk level. However Mrs EotP has fought back and bought a linen blouse today. Whether it is an acceptable date or not.
Sending her out to work has hardened her heart. But I'm still in my jeans and T shirt and now the sun has come out again maybe it's the time for shorts.
I thought I'd come back to the blog. The thrill of working 3.5 days a week has, frankly, worn off and so I feel it's time once again to return to the ramblings of Eyes on the Prize. No full time job despite my every creative attempt in finding a full time position (the stories I could tell, and may very well do if you are unlucky) but the bills are being paid and we dared book a weeks holiday in July. Got to be better than this time last year.
I have never liked suits and ties and could quite happily exist in T shirts and jeans until the end of my days.
I think my aversion to suits stems from the dress code at my school.
You see I went to a Public School, a minor one in the scheme of things, but Public all the same. In my defence I had passed the 11+ and won a County Scholarship to attend said august place and that is where is all started. That and being marked as 'dead meat' by all the boys I used to know in primary school and who now regarded me as target practice for whatever they had in their hands as I passed them to and from school. Being a dayboy I had to run the gauntlet of the mean streets of the small town the school was located in to get home, and we all know how mean they can be. Well reasonably mean. Sometimes a little mean and there was often litter too. Anyway the school code stated that boys had to wear a proscribed uniform to be bought from the school outfitters also located in the same town. This, of course, was duly ignored by the rich and this was my first lesson in capitalism. My mother and father struggled, I know, to afford the uniform which included a mandatory school cap (which HAD to be worn until the third form if you were OUTSIDE school). Well, this cap had a peak that was so long it required scaffolding to support it - and, being tall for my age, meant that it was as instantly recognisable as a policeman's helmet in a crowd. Therefore it became 'Target 1' for the lads about town that now hated me with the intensity of a burning star. Then you could wear, if you wanted, a straw boater in the summer term. Well not having a death wish, Grievous Bodily Harm being bad enough most days, I pleaded successfully for Ma and Pa not to buy me any such thing. What we did with the peaks on the caps was to soak them in water and then they would curl up like a Turkish slipper - yes we must have looked stupid but it seemed enough to calm the blood lust of the townies who then just called us bad names as we passed. Of course the fact that I soon aligned myself to Ian at school who was built like The Incredible Hulk and who could grow luxurious sideburns at 12 probably helped a little as well.
What the parents of the boys who paid to attend the school did (and somehow, in a strangely inverted world that made them, in their eyes somehow superior to those of us who actually had the brains to justify being there) was go to a bespoke tailor in London and have their uniforms made for them. Yes made-to-measure at 11 years old. I had then, as now an odd shaped body - short legs but a long torso and the school tailor could not cope with sizes outside the norm. My Mum did her valiant best to turn up the trousers but, let's face it Mum, this wasn't a core skill was it? So the hems would come down regularly and there would much mirth from those with Savile Row suits but with IQs that were similar to the number of buttons they had sewn on the jacket. So I had 6 years of this then cast off the uniform for the freedom of own clothes at university. I think we will pass over quickly the fad for wearing clogs (bloody clogs in a hilly university town?), flared jeans with flares so big they resembled a two man tent, tie and dye T shirts and cheesecloth shirts. And those are the less embarrassing items of clothing that I am prepared to mention in public.
OK so moving on quickly. It is, of course, all so very different for woman and clothes for most females occupy far more temporal and physical space than they do for me. One drawer and two hangers in the wardrobe and I'm done. But when Mrs EotP wore a pair of linen trousers to work the other day (the hot day, you remember it before the rains came again) her colleague posed the question 'Is it time for linen trousers yet?'
There's a time for certain clothes?
How does one know these things or is it a woman thing passed down through the ages without us menfolk knowing or hearing about it? I can't say, but it perplexed Mrs EotP that's for sure. Clearly some subliminal messaging going on here that is not fully understood even at womanfolk level. However Mrs EotP has fought back and bought a linen blouse today. Whether it is an acceptable date or not.
Sending her out to work has hardened her heart. But I'm still in my jeans and T shirt and now the sun has come out again maybe it's the time for shorts.
Monday, 14 January 2008
Back to the future
Being ill when you work at home is decidedly odd. I started back at 'work', that is sat down in the room where I work with fingers poised over the keyboard, on 2nd January. My commute to work is at least two seconds and it takes me that long to commute home. The staff canteen serves whatever I want it to (provided I have bought it and can cook it, a moot point). Coffee and tea - as much as I want and nobody can surprise me by looking over my shoulder at what's on the screen when I should be working.
When you feel ill and decide not to go to work there's a process. Call your office and talk to whoever you need to in a voice that suggests manly perseverance under extreme duress where many other lesser chaps would have succumbed already but you have managed to stagger on but is just pitiful enough to garner immediate sympathy and the magic words 'Oh you do sound ill best not come in today. See you when you are better.' Staying at home then means largely being immune from work, emails and phone calls. And if you do get them you can practice the 'I'm getting better let me just crawl by my fingertips to my Filofax so we can rearrange our meeting.' voice. Now at home no such luck. You can either get up or not. Mrs EoTP has gone to work, the kids have gone to school. I did get up one morning and decided that the move from the horizontal to the vertical was not something that my immune system was currently supporting and would I please reverse the entire move. So I did. After an hour I was bored so started all over again and this time managed a posture that one of our ape ancestors might have been pleased with having just discovered upright walk. And that's where it starts to go wrong.
Nobody is forcing me to work. Nobody has called on the phone to demand I meet a deadline. In fact nobody is asking me to do anything. The kids had pointed out that the dust bunnies were the size of Corgis and therefore the house might need a clean (I am still astonished that they even noticed). So why am I in front of the screen working when I have to stop to sniff and cough every few seconds and my head feels like its been put between the jaws of a vice? It can only be some deeply rooted Protestant work ethic that says you must NEVER stop working even though you are like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and all your limbs have been cut off. What does the Black Knight say?: "Just a flesh wound.'
So I'm here. I've been working, I've met deadlines, I have shopped and cleaned. And nobody told me I had to.
But this is life for the medium term. The full time job search goes on and I will continue to work for the 3.5 days agreed with the company. Mrs EoTP and I have dared to think we might book a holiday this year as it seems possible that we might be able to take one. As Mrs EoTP has not been further than Birmingham in 9 months Shrewsbury is currently regarded as a remote and exotic location but I think we need to go further than that.
Like Wrexham.
When you feel ill and decide not to go to work there's a process. Call your office and talk to whoever you need to in a voice that suggests manly perseverance under extreme duress where many other lesser chaps would have succumbed already but you have managed to stagger on but is just pitiful enough to garner immediate sympathy and the magic words 'Oh you do sound ill best not come in today. See you when you are better.' Staying at home then means largely being immune from work, emails and phone calls. And if you do get them you can practice the 'I'm getting better let me just crawl by my fingertips to my Filofax so we can rearrange our meeting.' voice. Now at home no such luck. You can either get up or not. Mrs EoTP has gone to work, the kids have gone to school. I did get up one morning and decided that the move from the horizontal to the vertical was not something that my immune system was currently supporting and would I please reverse the entire move. So I did. After an hour I was bored so started all over again and this time managed a posture that one of our ape ancestors might have been pleased with having just discovered upright walk. And that's where it starts to go wrong.
Nobody is forcing me to work. Nobody has called on the phone to demand I meet a deadline. In fact nobody is asking me to do anything. The kids had pointed out that the dust bunnies were the size of Corgis and therefore the house might need a clean (I am still astonished that they even noticed). So why am I in front of the screen working when I have to stop to sniff and cough every few seconds and my head feels like its been put between the jaws of a vice? It can only be some deeply rooted Protestant work ethic that says you must NEVER stop working even though you are like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and all your limbs have been cut off. What does the Black Knight say?: "Just a flesh wound.'
So I'm here. I've been working, I've met deadlines, I have shopped and cleaned. And nobody told me I had to.
But this is life for the medium term. The full time job search goes on and I will continue to work for the 3.5 days agreed with the company. Mrs EoTP and I have dared to think we might book a holiday this year as it seems possible that we might be able to take one. As Mrs EoTP has not been further than Birmingham in 9 months Shrewsbury is currently regarded as a remote and exotic location but I think we need to go further than that.
Like Wrexham.
Friday, 14 December 2007
'I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink', The Beatles
I could have lain down on a frosty lawn this morning and slept. In my ongoing quest to stay moderately fit I still go running, usually at 0630 in the morning, so as not to frighten the neighbours and alarm the local dog population. At the speeds I achieve running the slipstream is causing ice burn on my exposed extremities and I recall David Niven's anecdote about he cured similar problems after skiing: I couldn't find any brandy at 0700hrs and even if I could have I'd have drunk it and not poured it over the affected area like he did. The cold does wake you up though, which is just as well as I am so tired and could have just had a little nap after running a few steps. Until I discovered that it was really minus 4 C.
Anyway back to tiredness - this is what happens when you get tired, your mind wanders. Now that I have a longer term job much of the angst and worry that unemployment causes has left me. Yes I still need to get a full time job but the kids will not be in the Workhouse for Christmas and we can buy a few presents. Now the immediate future seems a little brighter I have relaxed: this happened quite suddenly in town a few days ago and I almost immediately fell asleep, which was a shame because I was in the queue at Boots at the time and it caused a small commotion until the customers behind me decided to use me as a mini roundabout until I woke up. And who says there is no compassion left in this world?
It's very strange. I mean nothing has really changed. The job I am doing is basically the same hours and the same tasks, Mrs EoTP is still working and will continue to do so but it is the knowing that there is some sense of continuity. It's all artificial - may I remind you of my favourite Woody Allen joke 'How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans.' The universe is a big, random, unfeeling sort of place. It doesn't care if I have a job no matter how much I rant and think it monstrously unfair so it could go horribly wrong in a few days again.
However I have seem to have entered the TATT zone, that is to say Tired All The Time. I've had boundless energy over the last few months. I could moan for hours without a break. Shopping, pah, I spit in the eye of shopping. Cleaning, pshaw I care nothing for it, me and my Marigolds. Cooking. Well OK that really hasn't been my strong point, or weak point come to that - it still defies classification.
It's like children in the long Winter term at school. They struggle along for the full 12 week term, getting alternatively cold and wet going to and from school. Finally they make it to the Christmas break. Then they fall ill. Colds, flu, headaches, you name it they get it. I think I'm the same, heading for man flu I'm sure.
I'm looking forward to the break - can't wait to ruin the Christmas dinner, though Mrs EoTP is starting to think that letting me loose on it may not be such a great idea after all. I may be relegated to the preparation of the brussels sprouts, can't do much damage there. At least I will be able to sleep after the meal (and the drink).
So I'm having a break from the blog until after Christmas - may I wish all of you a Happy Christmas.
Cheers
Eyes on the Prize
Anyway back to tiredness - this is what happens when you get tired, your mind wanders. Now that I have a longer term job much of the angst and worry that unemployment causes has left me. Yes I still need to get a full time job but the kids will not be in the Workhouse for Christmas and we can buy a few presents. Now the immediate future seems a little brighter I have relaxed: this happened quite suddenly in town a few days ago and I almost immediately fell asleep, which was a shame because I was in the queue at Boots at the time and it caused a small commotion until the customers behind me decided to use me as a mini roundabout until I woke up. And who says there is no compassion left in this world?
It's very strange. I mean nothing has really changed. The job I am doing is basically the same hours and the same tasks, Mrs EoTP is still working and will continue to do so but it is the knowing that there is some sense of continuity. It's all artificial - may I remind you of my favourite Woody Allen joke 'How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans.' The universe is a big, random, unfeeling sort of place. It doesn't care if I have a job no matter how much I rant and think it monstrously unfair so it could go horribly wrong in a few days again.
However I have seem to have entered the TATT zone, that is to say Tired All The Time. I've had boundless energy over the last few months. I could moan for hours without a break. Shopping, pah, I spit in the eye of shopping. Cleaning, pshaw I care nothing for it, me and my Marigolds. Cooking. Well OK that really hasn't been my strong point, or weak point come to that - it still defies classification.
It's like children in the long Winter term at school. They struggle along for the full 12 week term, getting alternatively cold and wet going to and from school. Finally they make it to the Christmas break. Then they fall ill. Colds, flu, headaches, you name it they get it. I think I'm the same, heading for man flu I'm sure.
I'm looking forward to the break - can't wait to ruin the Christmas dinner, though Mrs EoTP is starting to think that letting me loose on it may not be such a great idea after all. I may be relegated to the preparation of the brussels sprouts, can't do much damage there. At least I will be able to sleep after the meal (and the drink).
So I'm having a break from the blog until after Christmas - may I wish all of you a Happy Christmas.
Cheers
Eyes on the Prize
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