Blue Chamber

The home of the kind of giggling that worries parents

Subscribe to RSS feed

Posts tagged with "Work"

Murder Most Fowl?

Friday, November 26, 2010 6:06:55 PM

,

One of the nice things about my job (other than owning minions1 and dual widescreen TFTs) is the randomness of some the issues that come my way. Take this one, for example...



This is a portion of a Telephone Exchange known as a Cable Run, basically a hefty metal gridmesh suspended from the ceiling or built into special 'loft' spaces for the purpose of running cables between various complicated equipments. The pigeon is what one, being blessed with a fairly black sense of humour, might call 'an unexpected bonus'.

This poor specimen has clearly been trying to build itself a nest and has, judging by that smooth, white ovoid, even gotten as far as producing offspring before coming to a somewhat messy end.

I've been laughing at this for about two days now, giving rise to much concern among colleagues. I keep writing the words 'dead pigeon' in emails and giggling.

But here's what really gets me about this: how did this poor bugger die?? I've been wracking my brain in idle moments - not that I get many of those among the phone-and-email torrent that is my daily working life - trying to piece together the circumstances. Perhaps I've watched too many detective shows on TV but something just doesn't make sense.

Lets review:

  • This bird looks smashed, and not in a good way. Is that neck broken? What could have done this and then not eaten the rest of the kill?
  • Bird is covered in poo not it's own. Has something been back up there to perhaps nibble on an egg? That could possibly explain why one egg is pristine and the other...not. But why nibble on an egg and not the bird itself?

You see? Questions. I need to get myself some yellow tape and a UV torch.

This issue is clearly a Health & Safety hazard, one of the rare amusing ones, so there are several in-progress cable installs that now need to go on hold until the site has been cleared and sterilised, but at least the customer responded with a smiley-face in his email after I sent this picture to him (not just me finding it funny, then). Meanwhile, the sleuthing continues. Feel free to speculate in the comments below - together I know we can crack this fiendish case!

- - - - - - - - - -
1Everything I learned about management I learned from Dungeon Keeper. devil

3 comments

Good Old Games

Thursday, September 11, 2008 2:54:41 PM

, ,

Work is getting me down today. Some of my past work has come back to bite me, and is causing some havoc/additional cost getting it sorted. Not entirely my fault but looking back it wasn't the smartest work I've ever done either. sad

On the plus side, a new site offering older PC games for download, Good Old Games, has emailed me a link to the non-public, invitation-only beta-test of their new service. There is one in particular I'm looking forward to trying, hopefully for the magical price-point of approx £5 (or less), Freespace 2, but I could see myself purchasing a few more if the service proves easy enough to use. Freespace 2, widely regarded as a true classic of the genre, is a space sim[ulation] in the old style, meaning a joystick is the preferred method of flight control*. This gives me a good excuse to pop in past PC World on my way home tonight for a spot of Retail Therapy.

Current Mood: Wanting to go home. wait

*Newer games switched to a mouse-and-keyboard method of flight, easier for the wider populace to get a grasp of but much less authentic. Predictably, we space-smitten die-hards prefer the innuendo-laden Stick of Joy.

2 comments

Today sucks

Friday, August 8, 2008 10:17:48 AM

, ,

:clown:

Fed up with today already and its only ten past eleven. Work is being completely annoying, to the point of boiling frustration, but the thing that's really got me down is that I've upset/pissed off a good friend through my thoughtlessness. All I want to do now is go home and bury my head, preferably under my duvet.

Today sucks. awww

4 comments

Mental Mental Chicken Oriental

Thursday, July 10, 2008 8:01:16 AM

, , , ...

I vote today’s title as the Most Random and Nonsensical one yet. You’ll agree with me by the end, I promise. Catchy though, huh? Try saying it a few times. wink

A very quick one today, my way of saying I'm still alive – I’ve had no time to write any of the vast and elaborate blog entries I’ve wanted to due to my week being so gosh-darned, all-fired busy! Since last Friday I’ve:

  • Looked after my GF when she got ill with one of her horrible Migraines
  • Welcomed Dr’s Lenny and Sarah back to the ‘Deen from their homes in deepest, darkest Wales
  • Finally started the first part of my filming for ‘Capsized’
  • Collecting a pair of new couches from the tiny village of Fyvie, owned by a scary pair of Mad English people (Well, SHE was Mad, and possibly the most annoying woman I've ever met. HE merely had that tragic look of long-suffering tolerance that Husbands get when they're trapped in a marriage with a dominant mad wife...left)
  • Spent a day and a half being poorly myself
  • Spent some quality time with Dr Lenny playing the fabulous Ico on his PS2
  • Gone back to work and very much wished I hadn’t bothered; I got humped, to use a phrase I’m particularly fond of...cry
  • Bought myself the eye-tearingly gorgeous Unreal Tournament 3, and really enjoyed it despite the predictable fan backlash suggesting it wasn't as good as its predecessors
  • Wined and dined in a Greek restaurant where I fell off a perfectly stable chair startling everyone in the place. Oh yes, and also introducing my friends to my lovely new girlfriend! (They all loved her, naturally wink)

Phew! So many stories, so much fun, so much wine...drunk ...all of which has left me no time at all to come here and tell you all about any of it! Bah!

So yeah, before I go, I’ll leave you with some info about the filming (couldn’t drop that little gem into the post and run off leaving you with nothing to look at!) You might want to check out Zoffin film’s website – the latest blog entry is about what we did on Sunday. There’s also a gallery of snaps taken by yours truly (meaning none of me, sadly – sorry!)

...and that’s all, folks. See y’all soon!

PS: I appear to have been added as an Opera 'friend' by a pair of Sarahs. If you're quick you can see their pics in the recent visitors box below. Hello, Sarahs! *waves*

13 comments

Under the Lash...

Tuesday, July 1, 2008 1:58:14 PM

, ,

Work is being a pain this week. A large, unusually complicated order has landed at my feet - around 180 sites all needing careful Planning and documentation for each one made up MANUALLY. I've had some fun redesigning the old documents to match the new equipment specs; had to teach myself a little Macro VBA scripting in Excel but the new version is vastly improved on the old, not that I'm blowing my own trumpet at all...whistle

Sadly, all that's left is lots and lots of repetitive filling-in of boxes and sending of emails, which is doing a thorough job of putting my head into coma. I even have a helper, Duncan, but it's doing the exact same thing to him too. The bad news: we're only half-way through! cry

I wouldn't mind so much but it's bloody typical of [COMPANY NAME DELETED] leaving everything until the last minute and then expecting me to pull miracles out of various bodily orifices. Judging by the due dates on these things (some of which have passed already!) they've had months to sort this all out but noooooo. God forbid common sense ever becomes a valued business practice! irked

Rant over. Thanks for listening while I take the opportunity to enjoy a wee break from the monotony. coffee

...no, wait, let me put that cup of coffee down again. I have more ranting to do.

Our office is currently in the throes of choosing which resturant we want to book for our Xmas meal. Yes, you heard that right. For those not used to the ways companies work, bookings for the exceptionally busy month of December are made ridiculously early. The theory is that some companies make provisional bookings in JANUARY, with others catching up as the winter/spring/early summer months go by. We always seem to leave it too late, meaning every JULY we have this nightmarish process of finding a date we can all agree on (Old Marrieds VS the rest of us) and then seeing if there's anyone left in the whole of the city able to take us.

This year, we look like we're going back to the place we had last year, a place called Dizzys. I'm pissed off about this because I seem to be the only one (apart from Suzanne) that thought they did a piss-poor job of hosting us; everyone else seems to have these rose-tinted specs on. "Oh, the food was great!" Well, it was if you could get your elbows away from your sides to manage poking a fork into it. The seating was terribly cramped, but I'm starting to think this is because people at the top end of the table (hint: the management clique) were taking more than the rest of us...!

"And they had that great smoking area outside": I don't smoke, and it was cold. Next? "There was also a wee bar at the back where we all got a seat": Yeah, a better seat than we had at the dinner table!

Oh, and get this: when we arrived at half one they told us they were shutting the kitchen down in half an hour! We all had to hurry our orders through to be sure of getting a meal at all! How is this worthy of a second go??!

I made one suggestion, based upon fond memories I had of a previous year's locale - a place called Howies. I loved my food there, had plenty of room to sit because they'd given us a room to ourselves and not squeezed 14 people into a space designed for 10 MAX, and they supplied free champagne! What could be better? But no, apparently - and you're not going to believe this for a reason - the Xmas pudding fritters "let people down". Okay, xmas pudding covered in batter isn't the most appealing dessert ever. In fact I left that one well alone, but we're seriously discounting a perfectly good choice of venue because of a dessert??? Even if it's on the menu this year - and there's nothing says it will be - ORDER SOMETHING ELSE. furious

*squeezes smiley foam stress ball harder than ever before*

PS: I vote this as the first xmas rant of 2008! yes

2 comments

Bog Standards

Thursday, April 10, 2008 3:43:34 PM

,

Pet Peeves. I have a Pet Peeeve, and I'd like to share it with you today, not that anyone out there will thank for for the effort.

I work in a building of many floors. My particular floor is comprised of two wings, neatly segregated by a trio of lifts and a pair of toilets: one male, one female. Of all the people that work on our floor - and a very nice floor it is too, tastefully decorated and windowed all the way around:



I, at 32 years of age, am one of the younger denizens. Most are 40+, some even older (we hang our coats on them, helping them keep busy in their dotage).

So why is it, right, why is it that SOMEone hereabouts does not seem capable of flushing a toilet after using it?

yuck

Time after time I open a cubicle door to be confronted with either a bowl of yellow/orangey fluid (Still 'sparkling') or, even worse, masses of toilet paper covering a reeking mass of something more solid.

yuckyuckyuck

*Best Anne Robinson voice*
Who is the two-year-old that has not been potty trained?
Which one of you needs to think seriously about wearing nappies again?
Who the hell uses a toilet these days and doesn't flush!?!?

There's a serious beatdown coming for this person when I find them. irked

 - - - - - - - -
In lighter news, I've been quiet on the blogging front through no obvious design or intent that I can discern: either I've simply been doing other things, or my life really isn't interesting enough to be committing to the web right now, most likely the latter. The Beard is back, if anyone finds that newsworthy. I doubt I've lost any weight this week (but my paranoias are well documented in these pages already so I shan't go into them again). Mandriva Linux has finally been released, I'll be looking into that on Saturday when I get some time free. And, er, I did some training at work yesterday that was as dull and tedious as could reasonably be expected. I've enjoyed some interesting dreams...oh, and I've been playing a fair few games on the PC lately.

I bought Knights of the Old Repulic 2: The Sith Lords (try saying that mouthful three times fast!)(Er, you really don't have to) and the complete Myst collection. KOTOR is a Star Wars RPG - I get to fulfill my fantasies of being a kick-ass female Jedi while being insulted by Sith (evil Jedi), droids, aliens, crew-members and random Non-Player Characters...while Myst, for the uneducated, is a series of interactive slideshows creatively disguised as interactive entertainment, focusing on story-telling and letting you solve fiendishly difficult puzzles. While much derided in the popular gaming press, the first Myst game sold MILLIONS (and was re-made twice) while the rest, including the Uru spin-offs, have enjoyed a strong cult following ever since. I've played 1, 2 and half of 3 (I gave up on it 'cos it wasn't as good as 1 or 2) so am very much looking forward to games 4 and 5, 5 supposedly being the last ever. For anyone that hasn't tried the Myst games and fancies themselves a bit clever - maybe I'm speaking to anyone out there with a Nintendo DS and Brain Age? - you might find yourselves pleasantly occupied by some time spent in the Myst world(s).

Or not, knowing how fickle some of you lot are.

So there we are. My blog post, and week of my life, in two words: Crappy and Geeky[/ALIGN]

17 comments

Wot a Week That Woz

Saturday, January 12, 2008 1:07:33 PM

, ,

Hello all! smile

No smutty pics this time around, you'll be glad/sad to see (delete as appropriate). I thought I'd better have a clean post to avoid any further embarrassment. I was at work, you see, innocently writing a comment in my Shoutbox when a colleague passed by from behind me and gleefully told the entire office I was surfing porn sites, an entirely sackable offence. A little bit of thought would have prevented this but as I've had one thousand-and-one distractions this week I don't think I can really be blamed.

I didn't half blush though! o

It's been a funny old week, this my first full week back at work since the festive holidays. Some holidays drag on too long and you do start looking forward to the simple rhythms of a working life again, but I hadn't quite reached that stage yet. Coming back for a full week seemed like cruel and unusual punishment.

This feeling wasn't helped by my needing to clear a backlog of overdue orders and emails, while still having to deal with the dozens of fussy little complaints, alterations and issues reported to me on a daily basis. Monday and Tuesday passed without much excitement, Wednesday was horrible – just nasty. Thursday was amazing thanks to the feeling of making real and significant progress at long last, on a number of fronts, while Friday finished on a bit of a sour note. All part and parcel of the working experience, as I'm sure a great number of you can testify.

On the financial side, the agency I work for managed to screw up my pay - and that of my colleagues – for what seems depressingly like the thousandth time. I'm down about £70 this week. It's not a huge problem, I won't incur any bank charges or anything like that, but it is infuriating that after three years those fucking monkeys I work for still can't get a simple thing like pay right. They're supposed to be sorting it, and we've been promised the deficit paid into our accounts shortly (touch wood) but I remain deeply dissatisfied at not being able to rely on them for such a fundamental part of our contractual relationship. I don't suffer incompetence well, and would give anything at this point to part company from such a shower of total imbeciles.

Staying on the subject of incompetence, The Carphone Warehouse have once more failed to reach the lowest of my expectations. Remember back in October (the 7th) I was promised £150 due to their mis-selling me a phone a few months previous? No, I still haven't received their cheque, despite being told it would take only 28 days both on that date AND when I phoned to chase it on the 23rd November. It's on the way now, allegedly - I made damn sure they knew I'd been promised this twice before and wouldn't be happy if the 3rd time was NOT lucky - but it's going to take...you guessed it...another 28 days. irked If it fails to arrive this time they'll be cancelling my contract and paying me a lot more than £150 for my inconvenience!

Ok. After all that kvetching I think I should end this post on a much more positive note.

As some of you may know I'm currently rather unhappy with the amount of weight I've put on since entering this sedentary office-based lifestyle 3 years ago. My waist has expanded several inches, I feel tired and heavy all the time, and I'm growing heartily sick of feeling so desperately unfit.

Enter Scottish Slimmers.

After hearing lots of positive word-of-mouth regarding their services locally, and some patient research, I decided to take myself along to a meeting on Thursday night. I had intended to go only to see what I could expect, but ended up joining when an inner voice started screaming at me to stop pissing around and sign up right bloody now (My inner-voice can be quite harsh when it wants to be). Basically, I don't feel I can afford to waste any more time; I have to start losing the weight now, particularly if I want to fit back into my Kilt by my birthday in June. Scottish Slimmers should give me the support I need, and promises an average weight loss of 7 lbs per month (meaning a full stone in two). I aim to lose about two-and-a-half/three stone, so I estimate about 6 months work altogether, depending on my metabolism and other factors beyond my ken, but I'm prepared for a longer haul if needed.

It's a daunting prospect. I'm not good a long term commitments like this but hope the weekly meetings will help keep me on the right path. I need to do this as a long-term platform from which I can launch myself into the next few challenging years of my life. I need to change my habits to a more active mode. I need to learn how to eat properly. There have been lots of little steps over the last 24 months leading up to this, so now is the time to start putting it all together and making the changes that will lead to a happier, more confident, more active me. Hopefully, at long last, I'm going to get this right. up

10 comments

1 2 Next »

February 2012
M T W T F S S
January 2012March 2012
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29

Great Sites