Posts Tagged with NaBloPoMo

So when does something that you might randomly put up on Facebook become fodder for people to gossip about, or to spread rumours about?

Don’t you hate it when people read something on your Facebook status and decide that because you put it up there, they are free to tell everyone about it?

So that happened to us today. A while ago I had put up something about us one day moving to Port Lincoln – which is a good six and half hour drive from where we are now. It’s nothing that is set in concrete and at the time, it was actually only put up as a joke. But one of my “friends” and I now use that term loosely, decided she would take it as the gospel truth, without even talking to me about it. Now she doesn’t know my partner, she knows about him from what I have told her, but she has never met him.

But her partner and Mick both work for the same company, at different stores. They do however have the same reps that come in to see them. One of them comes up to Mick today, and tells him that he hears we are moving to Port Lincoln. When are you moving? Have you told everyone yet?

OMG WTF? That was one rep who was asking Mick when we were moving. Which makes me wonder, how many other reps has she told, and how long until that rumour gets back to Mick’s boss, and how damaging is that going to be to his career? It just brings back to me, that yes Facebook can be fun, but damnit, Facebook can be bloody dangerous too. To put it mildly I am less than impressed with her, and her name did get hit with the delete button. I can’t afford for her to read something I say and tell the wrong person – especially when it’s not even the truth.

On the weekend Mick and I decided to get ourselves a Christmas present a little early – a new flat screen LCD TV. I have to admit that I have been bombarding him for a while now with, can we get a new tv, can we get one, are we there yet, are we there yet…… I’m not sure if it was Mick actually wanting a new TV or just wanting to shut me up, but finally he gave in and we got ourselves the TV. It’s lovely. It has Netcast, so yeehar, I can go and watch YouTube videos on the TV now (just what I always wanted??), and it also has Telstra BigPond movies, so I can use my credit card, order a movie and there it is just waiting for me to watch. So I tried it out with some really dodgy Lindsey Lohan movie (it was the cheapest one) – and apart from being such a crap movie, I just am not sure if I like the idea of ordering movies over the TV. I mean it is handy, but the selection of movies wasn’t so super fantastic that I just HAD to do it, but maybe it will improve as it gets more popular?

So when we were setting up the TV, we plugged our stereo into it, like we had with our old one, expecting to be able to hear better sound, but alas, who knew (certainly it wasn’t something we thought of), that a digital TV doesn’t output sound through an analogue stereo – probably something we should have considered. So were we content to just listen to the sound that comes out of the TV itself? Of course not. So then we had to hunt down a surround sound system. This whole TV project was turning out to cost a lot more than either of us expected. Finally, tonight, we bought a surround sound system – Sony, with BluRay player, iPod integration, wanky feature, another wanky feature – I think you get the picture. We are set.

You know what? I was just too tired by that point to care. All I wanted was a flat screen TV. Simple. What did I get? Flat screen TV, new TV cabinet (less storage space), new BluRay player with surround sound, and the knowledge that I’m not as up to date with digital things as I used to be, and the putting together of audio equipment, isn’t easy for me anymore – I’m turning into my mother who always asked me how to put things together. I was tempted to call my niece and ask her if she knew how to do it – she is young, surely she would know?

So excuse me, posting is now going to be a lot harder, because I have to spend time with my new TV, getting acquainted with all it’s wanky new features 🙂

At what point does workplace exclusivity become a form of workplace bullying?

Let me set the scene for you. I have been at my current job since April this year, so I’m still a newbie. I’m also five years older than my manager and 10 years older than two of the girls in the team. These three have some sort of secret little club thing going on I’m sure of it. Now don’t get me wrong. I have friends, enough to keep me happy and I don’t necessarily want to be friends with these girls, but the whole shutting out of people in the office is starting to drive me a little insane.

A couple of weeks ago, the two younger girls both happened to be away on the same day, so my manager was all very nice and chatty with me. Didn’t think much of it. Until last week, when the manager and one of the girls were both away, and the other girl was all very chatty with me. Now everyone is back on deck at work, and it’s become almost a game of Tina who? I share an office with (we shall call her Girl A), and every morning the other girl (from hereon referred to as Girl B) comes into our office, sits herself on one of the desks and just starts chatting away with Girl A. Occasionally I may receive a good morning.

As I said, I don’t want to be best friends with these girls, but seriously? A bit of common courtesy doesn’t go astray, does it? But want to know what gets up my nose the most? Girl B did a cross stitch quilt for the old manager (who I don’t know) and needed a backing put on it. Who did she ask? Yep – me. And who went and did it for her, staying up all hours getting it finished the next night so Girl B could give it to old manager the next day? Yep – me. Who did current manager ask to fix her dress, and put on new netting underneath it? Yep –me. Who was the dumbarse once again? Yep – me. And who was then not good enough to be invited to Girl B baby shower? Oh yeah, that would most definitely be me. And all of that, in the space of two weeks. God give me the sanity to deal with women.

At what point is it now appropriate for me to turn around and tell these people to just leave me alone completely? If you don’t want to talk to me – fine, I shan’t lose sleep over it. But stop pretending to be a “friend” – I use that term loosely – only when you need something. You’re all doing my head in.

So I don’t normally watch Packed to the Rafters, but last week I got sucked into watching the episode where someone died. It took the whole hour to get to the point of the characters death, and yes I sat there and watched the whole episode just to see who died. And then I cried. I cried for a character I didn’t know on a show I never watch. Not just cried, but sat there heaving huge sobs out of my body, to the point where Mick who just walked into the room asked me if I was laughing, my shoulders were shaking so much.

So you would think, knowing that I cried at the death, that I might avoid watching the show tonight, when they have the funeral on. But did I? No, of course not. Five minutes into the show, and I’m sitting there with tears welling up in my eyes, and they haven’t even gotten to the funeral yet. This does not bode well for the rest of the episode (ten minutes left, funeral still to come).

So why do I do this to myself. Why do I watch or read things that I know are going to make me cry? And, because of the crying, will make me feel like crap afterwards? There are no good feelings that come out of all this crying, just heartache. And it makes me scared. It makes me think about Mick, or lil Snotface dying. And that doesn’t just bring tears to my eyes, but that brings the outright bawling. I don’t honestly know how I would cope. But it certainly does make me appreciate the ones I love so much more. So what I want to say is – make sure that you tell the people that you love, just how much you love them – every single day. Don’t let a moment pass. That’s me on my soapbox, stepping down now, to go and tell Mick just how much I love him. Who would have thought it would be a television show that would make me realise that.

Well it was a lovely lazy Sunday today. There was no writing, no quilting, just a bit of food shopping and then some other shopping. So I literally have nothing new to report. Totally non event of a day. Seems a bit of a waste to blog a post, but NaBloPoMo says I have to *sigh*. So here is my non event post.