Da dragon in the stationery cupboard

More or less, every workplace has a dragon, and if you can’t name the one in your office is because you have not realised who is yet (don’t worry – it is still your first week there)

My dragon is a 62 year old creature and among a few things is responsible for stationary … nooooo she freaks out if you spell it with an a – it should with an e.

Since I am doing the payroll, I know this is not true but otherwise you would have been forgiven for thinking that the correlation between her bonus and pennies saved on stationery is 1.

Very unfortunate for me, the dragon’s gossip bitch is my line manager (male but behaves like an old dear when it comes to gossip) so I have to be careful what I say – not here though :)

Both of them have been with the company since like it started and one of the reason, I think, why we had move into a smaller office, one floor up, was to separate these two.

Today, I was doing the P60s + covering letter. (For you non-UK readers & actually the for UK readers too, P60 is the employee copy of the taxed earnings. The UK tax year goes from 6 April to 5 April). In total I printed around 130 returns and did a mail merger for the covering letter. When I was about half way through stuffing the letter + P60 in the A4 envelope, I saw that the address field was wrong.

I, ahem, had missed out the first line of the address and now I was kind of in the shit. I had reprint the letters, on (soo expensive) headed paper and tear up a lot of envelopes.

I kept quiet and took a stack of headed paper and reprinted the letters and sorted them in with the P60. Now I had go down to the dragon get a box of A4 envelopes. Immediate when I took out the box, the dragon questioned me. Could I not take the smaller sized envelope? Me thinking: There is no fucking way I am sitting folding the 130 letters & forms (2 folds for each letter) – the job was boring enough as it was. So I had to take a stand and the dragon winced – LITERALLY when she realised that I had to use the bigger sized envelopes. This is the stingiest company I have ever worked for.

Under my desk was all those opened envelopes and when my manager (he sides with the dragon when it comes to this issue “What do you mean you want to order new stationery for the new employee? Use the stationery that the employee that left had”) was in the loo, I rolled them up and put them in my bin and also managed to shred all those letters with the wrong address without being found out. Ah – it was a great feeling – job satisfaction *hehe*

Dog

Just saw the first episode of season 3: Dog The Bounty Hunter

*yeah*

Liked it a lot & can't wait until the next episode.

Noted

The Danish Iman Ahmed Akkari, who went on the road trip to the Middle East and stirred up a lot of trouble, has now been dismissed from his position as spoke person for The Islamic Faith Community in Denmark.

Ahmed Akkari made the following statement on a hidden camera: "If he (me: the Danish politician Naser Khader of the Democratic Muslims) becomes minister for foreigners or integration shouldn't one then send two men to blow him and his ministry up?"

Ahmed Akkari claims it was a joke.

OH I GET IT NOW … if it is a joke then it is ok … if the jokes comes from the Muslim community then it is ok to say…

Ahmed Akkari's comment is the definition of being two-faced.

And where is all the indignation, the world media etc that was around when the 12 Cartoons news story ruled the world??

This is a statement, after all, from the man that created the foundation for it.

No, when it goes the other way around where one has to criticize a Muslim Leader then nothing. The silence speaks volume to me.

And after thinking of this a bit more ... this is a Muslim leader suggesting to blow up a member of the Danish parliament - that sounds like a terrorist to me. Hey - what was those cartoons all about again?

Yup - that is right ... they hit a sore (true) spot, didn't they?

Spectacular pictures

Faith

Either you have it or you don’t.

I don’t.

In one of the emails doing it rounds today, one picture bothered me so much that I brought up for conversation in our office. This picture disturbs & angers me.

How can poor people in a relative poor country give food to rats? I know the answer is "this is sacred to them".

But how of about stop and THINK of what you are actually doing? Don’t tell me that this drink or food can be used better on a hungry family which would make them less depended on handouts and be able to support themselves better?

I simply c a n n o t understand this picture.

The conversation in our office was that the two with faith defended this picture and whereas the two who don’t have faith stuck to the logic and argue against this waste.

No, no, no

Noooooooo – I did NOT get my phone today. Today’s offer was a black handset with a silver battery cover. I declined.

And the sly fucker … oh sorry … advisor … sorry again “Sales”person tried to hide the battery cover from me. After my comment “This is not acceptable” he mustered the comments “Oh I don’t know. I have never seen this phone (think he meant model) before” and then turns to his colleague.

Then I got to see one of the most despicable British traits; A Brit can’t commit to anything. They can never for sure say that 1+1=2

The colleague (who had dealt with me a week or so ago) answered back uncomfortable “I would have thought that the whole handset should be one colour” That guy knew that it was wrong and that I knew that I would not accept it – but can he say it? NO

No Brit can’t straight forward say yes, no or I don’t know - there is always a back door out of if so that no mud can stick on them.

Well, at least I have got the email address to the branch manager so there will be a follow up on that. Ah – I remember that I meant to blog about another dig on Carphone Warehouse).

Just maybe ....

... I will get my phone back today.

I received a phone call from Carphone Warehouse and the person said that the battery AND the cover have arrived.

But as always when dealing with these fu*kers - I believe it when I see it ... and when I see that the phone works.

Nice night in

My next door neighbour popped in (like I had a choice LOL) and we have a proper good girly chat.

I guess this sums it up:

Good site

I like this site. http://tubejp.co.uk/

Easy to use - what more should a website be?

Next episode of Prison Break (15)

...is already here and I am downloading it (it says internal screener). It should be down when I come home from tomorrow – something to look forward to!

Our ISP doesn’t really like us … we (I) download too much according to them. But we have an unlimited account so what do they do? They cut our speed. We have 2mb for the first 20 gig, then it goes down to 1mb between 20-40 gig and after that it is .512 ... possible lower

Currently since 28 Feb we have down/uploaded 58.65gig

What is your monthly usage?

This is us(me really) cutting back, we were between 80-100 gig with a peak of 120gig.

Better day today

Today was better, thankfully.

I don’t know why but it was. I guess the day started out well by seeing the Prison Break was back, (oh either I am shallow or I can use the mantra “be happy for the small things in life”).

At work, my manager was changing up the Appraisal notes. I did my changes, like changing “reasonable well” to well. To me, “reasonable well” means that I just about do my job and believe it or not, I do a good job. I am too damn conscientious, if you ask me. Another change was about the “problems and no communication” in payroll. My manager wrote it as it was my fault and covering the back for his pals *tsk*

Anyway, don’t know why I bother cos it will not add anything extra on my salary. The MD has put in his wish list for his people (y’know the girls that he is shagging and the mates that don’t question his supreme brilliance). That is going take the most of the pot and leave less to the rest of us. One quite ironic thing is about one of MDs fav sales person, he agreed to change the sales bonus calc to favour him but it turn out the other way so no bonuses have been paid. But I have to say if you bring the sales then you should receive a good bonus.

And I stopped by at Carphone Warehouse and no I have still not got my phone. They are now ordering a new case. I didn’t have the energy to cause up a fuss and that was weak of me. Last time I was there, I was told that the Nokia 6260 was discontinued and today I called up Nokia to confirm. The women at Nokia got a great laugh at that “fact” and she told me in no uncertain terms that the phone is still being produced. It just goes to show that Carphone Warehouse is nothing more the lying conmen and should not be trusted at all.

Boyfriend called during the evening but we didn’t have that much to say to each other. For my part nothing special had happened and he is still on this tech Microsoft conference.

And the episode (14) of Prison Break was great. I also saw the new show. The new adventures of old Christine (or something like that) and it is funny. It is the Seinfield-women that got the lead.

Dull Monday

Oh boy was this Monday dull or what??. It dragged on forever, especially up to lunch time. I had zero motivation. I guess it started with me reading the notes from the appraisal meeting … no it started when I had get up this morning.

I stopped reading the notes and I will deal with them later.

Just before I left work my boss wanted to know about Blogger and leaving comments. The blogosphere is getting further into mainstream society I didn’t want him to know about my blog or what I know about Blogger. Since I post from work, they could find it out of course, but I don’ want to give any ideas. Paranoid or what? Possibly cos I bitch about work every so often and I don’t want that outlet to be taken away from me. One (nosy) co-worker has already caught me with the website open but she aint computer savvy enough to get all of it.

When I, finally, got back home I saw that I just missed boyfriend on the skype window this morning and I typed in a message. He replied right away and he gave me the link to the stream feed to the conference he is at. Pretty good quality and I ended up looking at Bill Gates and Tim or Tom O'Reilly keynote speech.

Here is the link to Mix06

After about 2 hour of listening to the conference in the back ground and IM with boyfriend – I got bored again. Said my bye byes and writing this blog post. After this, I am going to bed and reading a book.

Tomorrow will be better yeah??

Malaysia

The F1 race was in Malaysia this morning. I got up at 6am, watched the race to 9 and went to back to bed and slept to midday when boyfriend called from Las Vegas.

We have been to Malaysia twice to watch the F1 race. Its a great country to go to for a holiday. The people are very friendly. I will definitely go back. I could even live there for a year or so. Watching the race on TV and huge part of me wants to be there now.

This is one favourite places on earth:

The Unit

I saw the first two episodes of this show yesterday and I think the show is damn awful. It is about special unit in the US Special Forces. Besides the bad acting and the realisation that Robert Patrick is still the best in The Terminator 2, I have two issues with show (I know, I know - I should not get this worked out but I got really annoyed).

No 1 – the women were down right awful. There is a new member joining the unit and he is married. The other men’s wives put the new wife in her ‘right’ place and basically telling her that she needs to live her life through her husband and his situation. This pissed me off big time. The pecking order was, of course, the same as their husbands rank in the military. That was is nothing more the bullying and forcing somebody to conform.

No 2 – A plane has been hijacked in the US. This unit goes in and saves the day. But they didn’t have the authorisation do this from the politicians or pentagon. They did this even though FBI or whatever civil agency was in command. Since when is it to ok for the military to do whatever they want? I don’t have problem with Special Ops being done IF they have the right authorisation.

I hope the show bombs (the pun is intended) big time.

Saturday

I am all by myself this weekend and next week. Boyfriend has gone away again (to Las Vegas the lucky b*stard!!)

Some people don’t like being by themselves – I am not one of them.

Yesterday, after work, I did my obligatory stop at Carphone Warehouse (no, I did not get my phone) and after that I was tired when I came home. I plonked myself on the sofa and watched a lot of bit torrents. I like the show “Life on Mars” and I saw episodes 4-8.

I slept in, milled around the flat and am now sitting in front of the computer – drinking my 20 oz (591ml) Diet coke I brought back from the US. After that, the flat needs to be cleaned. I don’t mind that now when boyfriend is away cos it will stay cleaned until he comes home again J

Wohey – I just log in to blogger and I saw the missing post from yesterday

Carb lunch

My lunch did not turn very healthy today. I had McD Fries, Pret’s baguette with tuna & cucumber and Pret’s crisp = carb lunch

I could not read one of my fav blogs this lunch hour. The last post from this blogger was really personal post so I hope that the blog has not been deleted by this person. That would be such a shame.

I also hope that this afternoon will be less stressful then what happened this morning. I got dis’d by another department cos they know more how a Finance department works then I do. Silly me for trying to do a simple improvement – I should have gone the more complicated way. But I also found out that the FD had not helped the case, in fact he made it worse. Our FD needs balls & backbone – he can’t say no to nobody except his ‘own’ department. A constant source of frustration.

What I can look forward to is another visit to the detested Carphone Warehouse. Boyfriend suggested taking them to Small Claims Court if they don’t produce a fully working handset. I like that idea.

I hate, HATE Carphone Warephone

*sigh*

I got a called from the local branch today and they told me my phone was ready for collection. Disbelief was my reaction.

Went to the branch after work, thinking I believe it when I see it.

When the shop assistant took out my phone from the bag, it was the wrong colour. I told him that my phone was silver and not black. The reaction: Hmm, and he tapped away on the system to see if I was right. Customer is never right at Carphone Warehouse, remember that.

I said I wanted to check if the phone was working so I took out my SIM card, put in the phone and then held out my hand get to the battery from him. There was NO battery. More tapping on the computer to see if I had handed in my phone with battery – again it didn’t matter what I said.

I shouldn’t take personally, right? Guess what, I DO. I take it damn personally if I am treated like I am not telling the truth.

The system said I had handed in my phone with battery and battery cover.

So to do a quick sum, I have got a handset with a new colour but no battery or battery cover. Typical Carphone Warhouse. The action following this: to put a trace after my original battery and the cover – time frame: 1-3 days. (No batteries is in store)

I told the guy “I am not paying for this” and he has the audacity to argue back and tell me “it is not my fault.” (Remember that I am standing in their local branch with lots of customers). I raised my voice sufficiently and say “Oh it is not my fault, I am the customer here. I handed in this phone on 17 Feb and you have taken forever to fix this. And when you do, then you do not even get all the parts with it. Do not just stand there and say it is not my fault” Funnily enough, he got more co-operative after that. But very so often I humpf:ed, sighed and muttered.

He still had the intention to get the £30 of me, give me the “handset” and then I could come back and collect the battery + cover when it arrived. I told no, we are going to do the following. You are going to call me when the items have arrived, I am going to check the phone and I should not have to pay for this. The guy says I can’t take that decision regarding the payment.(which I can understand) and he referred me to the main Customer Service Centre number. Like I will deal with them, they are there to fob customer off (told him this). So what we are going to do, I have a conversation me, him + the centre all together to discuss the level of payment.

All of this took about 50-55 min to do. It is really annoying but WTF can I do?

Any suggestions?? Plz tell me.

Lizze bitches about...: I hate Carphone Warehouse

Webcams - good or bad?

Swedes with backbone

I loooooooooooove it!

The Swedes @ Pirate bay and the independent new political party of Pirate Party are taken a stand against MPAA and copyright organisations.

Absolutely brilliant and rather unexpected to see it coming from Sweden. But then again, Sweden has a long tradition of Freedom of Information – it is just the back bone bit that could be better.

Just maybe the little insignificant country in the North can trap up the mighty USA & MPAA. I certainly hope so!!

You have to read the responses from Pirate Bay to Microsoft, Apple etc – click here. So, so, so funny!

Wired News wrote a great article about this – click here.

Bit torrent (or what ever the future format will be) will not go away and the more to use it the stronger it will get.

There are several reasons why bit torrent is so damn good:

TV/Film On demand – you watch it when you want

No ads

The entire industry with TV, Movie, Software etc are doing the outmost to rip their customers off. For the first time the customers have leverage and are happy using it.

I am not going to pay anymore for some superstar’s coke habit/jet/entourage. Who do they think are paying for all of that? YOU do.

I can pause the film/TV program when ever I want

I can convert to my PSP and watch it @ lunch time.

I can watch it a second, third or several times before deleting the file.

I did a legal download once, never again – it is in this blog post:

Lizze bitches about...: Warning about Tesco downloads!

W/E Homework

	05-06	06-07
Council Tax	5.37%	3.20%
Water Rates	45.45%	37.50%
Electricity	2.36%	11.54%
Season Ticket	5.94%	3.74%
House Insurance	8.95%	12.60%
Mortgage	6.52%	-2.96%

Well, this is damn depressing reading.

The only redeeming issue is that the main part of our expenses is the mortgage which has decreased in our favour. I have made sure that we have an efficient mortgage deal and it is a tracker to BoE until Dec 06.

Sunday evening

The washing machine is fixed. The repair man was a little bit late but the call centre had identified what the problem was and he had the right spare part with him.

The season first F1 race is done and it was ever so existing even though my man didn’t win. Michael came second but at least him & Ferrari is back (last season was terrible).

After the race, I made these:

I do the best cinnamon buns …

Then I did some catching up of my bit torrents. Watched the two final episodes of Beauty&Geek (not ‘my’ team won – hmmm, a theme going on here or what?) and then it was The Apprentice. I want the Russian guy Lenny to win.

*Go Lenny Go*

And now I am about to start my little homework for the weekend. Calculate what the % increase of my main bills has been over the last couple of years. This is for my line manager to show his manager how pathetic the previous year’s salary increases have been and to put pressure that this year it will be a salary increase.

Michael Schumacher on Pole !!

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

*gasp*

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Michael Schumacher is on par with Senna’s 65 poles.

Waiting cont.

Nothing yet from the repair man – am still waiting for him (or her)

Boyfriend has landed and is making his way home.

In the meantime, I found one new blog. For the rest of random blog, all I can say it must be boat & motorcycle season cos there are loads of those ad/commercial blogs out there. Very dull, indeed.

Waiting

Normally at 8am on Saturday morning I am deep asleep. But today I am waiting. The washing machine repair man is coming this morning. They re-scheduled from Monday morning to Saturday morning … an opportunity gladly accepted. But oh I do feel too grown up (= bad thing) to be pleased to get the washing machine repaired on Saturday.

I am also waiting for boyfriend. He is landing at Heathrow this morning - sadly, I can’t be there to meet him but his dad will pick him up. I have not seen for a week. I have enjoyed being by myself but now I am happy that he is home. Well, for now. He has another conference to go to in a week.

While waiting, I will be reading some of my fav blogs and hopefully might find some new ones through “Next Blog” button.

Post appraisal review meeting

Lots, lots of fun, am sure of it. A meeting when all the appraisals have been done, 3 of them, and now the common goals and targets are to be set.

I hate Carphone Warehouse

My phone was ready on Monday but has not been sent from the repair shop. In desperation I called Nokia and they said that the phone should have sent to them and it is a 10-15 min job. I handed over my phone to fucking Carphone Warehouse 17 Feb

When I call the branch nobody is answering and after 5 min the calls get cut off. I call the main phone number they do not have any “advisers” available

I fucking hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate
Carphone Warehouse.

Previous blog post:
Lizze bitches about...: 17 Feb 06 part 2 (part 1; the post below)


Update:
Before going home, I went to their branch. No, I did not get my phone. And now their system is saying that the phone is not ready and "he did not know what his co-worker was saying to me". They have no internal number where they can call up and ask what is oing on, just the same external numbers (the ones with no “advisers” available). Carphone Warehouse is a con - never ever deal with them ... ever.

Vending machines

When I was in Japan, I thought their vending machines were cool.

Americans do things bigger and better, yeah?

Check this out:

Revenge is sweet

A great letter of complaint; Part 2

I received a letter from M&S while I was away.

I got another £20 in gift vouchers and a much stronger apology. This letter is personal and not a mass produced bullshit letter.

The problem was “discrepancy in the communication process between our contracted carrier company and ourselves” they basically take more responsibility of the problem and they also state in the letter that “both customer service manager and our system administration team who have assured me that the matter will be investigated fully and necessary actions will be taken to prevent any recurrence of this incident”.

Sure, I don’t believe it to 100% - am far to cynical for that – but this letter is better then previous letter received.

Part 1:
Lizze bitches about...: A great letter of complaint

Summary

I didn’t do more blog posts in SF mainly cos boyfriend was busy using his laptop.

To continue from previous post, Best Buy was shit and found nada there. After a quick search on Google maps “Computer store SF” we went to CompUSA on Market Street. They were better stocked but I doubt that it was the best prices around. Anyway, it was cheaper the UK and I bought a digital camera. I really missed not having a camera, since my Nokia 6260 is in the Nokia repair shop. I bought a Canon CD450 and a 512 MB memory stick (or is called flashcard?). Canon was cheapskatey and did not enclosed a pouch *tsk* but I found a suitable one from Microcenter for $9.74

The days in SF went quickly. On Friday, I was by myself. I had to get up at 7.30 to drive boyfriend to SFO *yawn* and spent the rest of the daytime taking some pics.

On Friday I + friend to a Mexican place, which was fun but in the end it turned out rather expensive. $5 for nacho chips and $75 for a Parking Ticket. This explains why there was a spot to park in to begin with. Apparently, there was like a 2 foot red line that was impossible to see. Ah well, such is life, that is my contribution to SF City.

On the flight home, only 9h30min!, a nice man was sitting next to me. I got my beloved aisle seat. The guy next to me popped some pills and went to sleep - perfect. I had problem falling asleep and finally got there at Churchill, Canada, woke up briefly between Greenland and Iceland cos the guy needed a toilet break and then was awaken up at Glasgow, UK by the air stewardess handing out breakfast. I don’t know what is was, but the crew was not happy. I overheard a few comments that the stewardesses were pissed off with cockpit so the explained the wibe.

When landing, the plane flew by the London eye and I pointed it out to the guy next to me (don’t know why, just did … ok?) and we started chatting about this and that. It turned out the he knew about my boyfriends work and handed me his card.

Boyfriends’ parents came and picked my up at the airport – am ever so thankful for that – but in the car I felt sick and came close to throwing up. I never get travel sick, except on sailing boats, but this was bad. But then again, my ‘day’ had been very, very long.

Short sleep, woke up 8.30 SF time, packed, filled the car up with gas/fuel, got to the airport around 11am to get an day off in the rental price, ate breakfast at 12.30, checked in, went through a security (that is an another blog post coming up cos I was on some damn list so I had to go through extra security), got on the plane at 18, slept from 21-2am, landed 12 UK time (5am SF time), got in the car and felt really sick. I did take a nap when I came home and the manage to stay up to midnight. Today, I feel fine.

Pics from SF

A fresh Strawberry Lemonade at the 21 Amendment - very nice :)

A chocolate fountain at a party we went too. It was very nice with fruit, marshmallows, cakes and cookies. Well anything really.

In-and-out Burger. It came recommended but I didn't think it was all that.


I drove a City jeep. I thought it was a big car until I drove on the 101 *lol* there ar emuch bigger cars around.

Krispy Kreme *Homer Simpson sound* It is yummy and much cheaper. I think the donuts were around 95 cent, in the UK we pay £1.10 or $1.91 for this pleasure. This was in a McD restaurant place with the manufacturing band behind glass wall so one could see the yummy creation being created. Just to state the obvious, I like Krispy Kreme.

"San Mateo Bridge" Click on the link to see the Google Maps satellite view of it. It just went on and on - at 70 miles/hour. This bridge is at sea level, guess there are no major storms in this area.

People having their lunch in their cars - I tried to take a pics of the woman in the black jeep in front of me but I didn't quite get the perfect pics.

A few thoughts

Boyfriend had few things that he needed to do so I went for a walk around Market St (lots of shops etc) and had a nice lunch. I like to sit and watch people. One thing that struck me was the calmness and lack of stress.

We in Europe, I guess the rest of the world, see the Americans as the bad guys sometimes. But do you what I think? As there is in the UK, it is a distance between people and the politicians and we have not given that credit to the American people. The people that I have seen around are not bad people so we are sitting on the other side of pond and casts judgements. NO country is without fault, not even yours – remember that.

I had great fun just looking around in a huge Walhgrens store and I found a shoe shop with self-service & discount prices. After this, we are heading to Best Buy. As boyfriend has said to me that what we pay in £, it costs the same amount in $. Rip off Britain, anyone? And boyfriends' agenda seems to be to get me a laptop so that would free up the computer upstair for him to use *tsk*

Oh yeah; the weather … it was suppose to rain but guess what, it has been sunny. Wired weather :)