Tuesday, March 10, 2009

On the job training

Time is marching on... but seriously MARCHing on. How can it be nearly time to change the clocks back? How does life just slip away so fast? I WANT AN ANSWER! THIS IS NOT A RHETORICAL QUESTION! (Well, really, it is. But it's so cliché that I felt the need to step away from tradition).
Over two months in my job and so am settling in. I've gotten on the bandwagon with organising happy hours and like the company of the girl who is attached to my desk, so that's lucky. Career-wise, I would say that the most environmentally related thing I've learned in the past couple weeks is that the Northeast of England is third highest for percent of salmon rod catch. All other learning is wedding etiquette. Most important things to note:
1) It is the _groom's_ responsibility to buy gifts for the bridesmaids;
2) the Mother-of-the-groom only gets to choose her dress after the mother-of-the-bride has chosen hers, the dresses cannot be the same color, and they most certainly should not be cream, ivory, ecru, or anything nearing the color reserved for the bride;
3) If the mother-of-the-bride wears a hat, all the ladies at the wedding have to wear a hat AND they're not allowed to remove their hats until the mother-of-the-bride does!
Every moment spent not learning is spent observing my colleagues, mostly because they're fun to watch. The two Richards always go together to get their drinks. I don't know why, but it's like watching girls going to the bathroom together... I can almost see them in high heels, with their elbows linked as they furtively whisper about work gossip. In actuality, they trudge a bit, exchange a Tim Allen grunt or two, and come back bearing cups of tea.

There is, of course, life outside the office. It goes on much as before.
I hurt my back on the trampoline and have been advised not to bounce for two whole weeks. I've taken this advice to mean something akin to "sit around on the couch, watch crappy quiz shows, and shove potato chips into your face whilst waiting for your wife to come home from the gym". It's really not doing much for my figure. It does amazing things for Sinéad though, since I'm eating up all the chips.


The Thing that most annoyed me in the news today (goodness it's hard to just pick one!)

What's really getting on my tits lately is the hoopla over Jade. Americans might have no idea who this is? Correct me if I'm wrong. It's a woman who was on Big Brother and was an annoying chav. She then became famous for being annoying and did a turn on Celebrity Big Brother (neither of which I have seen, by the way). While on the second TV she was thrown off for being racist, caused a big hoopla, and everyone in the UK and in the press hated her. And then she got cancer and she is the nation's darling. Which is weird, but somewhat understandable, but what annoys me is the minute-by-minute updates of her health that the news people give. This morning I got dressed to hear all about how she's gone blind in one eye.

It's all well and good to be sympathetic but everything this woman is going through is publicized. She has an agent to manage her cancer publicity. There's a debate about whether she's planning on publicizing the moment of death. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!

Related Links:
Jade goes blind
Wedding Etiquette

of the stalking kind