Mildly Irritating Moments for a Monday

The BBQ Pit
1

… okay, it’s actually Tuesday here, but I figure Most of you ‘Mericans are still experiencing Monday so I’ll excuse myself.

So what’s mildly irritating for you today? What event has upped your dander, put the squishy dog poop under your bare feet, the sad wrinkle on your otherwise taut buttocks, the broken ring-pull on your pudding tin of life, put the black fly in your chardonnay, the rain on your wedding day, the no smooooooooking sign on your cigarette break?

For me, it’s been Monday’s local newspaper. Said paper has devoted half the front page, plus a double-page spread on pp 6-7 to covering a recent Jose Carreras concert in town. Why does this shit me? Well, chiefly because same paper will not devote any newspaper coverage to youth-oriented events, not a word of recognition to any one of a multitude of concerts and festivals which dot the events calendar throughout the year.

They’ll positively ejaculate over a Carreras concert in the Supreme Court Gardens – which I am sure was perfectly lovely – attended by some 5,000 people paying $120-$770 a pop to see the skinny bloke sing. They’ll have eleven large colour pictures of the happy WASPy concert-goers, enjoying their wine and canapés on the lawn, or hussied up in their tuxedos and froofy ballgowns in the front rows.

But they’ll ignore events such as, say the Big Day Out Festival, which attracts more than 30,000 people (mostly under 30 years of age) to the showgrounds every summer. They’ll ignore gigs like the Ministry of Sound show four weeks ago, which brought 3,000 people to a nightclub on a Friday night. No words will be written and no photos published of the recent Gay Pride Parade and after-party, despite the fact that around 10,000 people came to watch the Parade, the after-party itself bringing maybe 3,000 heads out to dance. And no doubt, they’ll ignore the upcoming series of outdoor summer dance festivals that will draw tens of thousands of partygoers to an amphitheatre for an afternoon of cultural enjoyment – yes, art just as cultured and just as valid as a fucking Jose Carreras sing-along.

… before someone speaks to me on newspaper demographics and marketing, I’ll point out that the paper in question is the only local daily publication in this state. Everyone reads it, not just the Jose Carreras fans. I’ll also make it clear that the economic impact of the ignored concerts is just as significant: each kid forks out around $100 for a ticket and they all spend up big on the day.

Okay, that’s the Mildly Irritating Moment for my Monday.

What’s yours?

Jervoise

2

I’m trying to recover from another damned cellulitis attack. I spent a couple of hours yesterday in my car, with the heat turned full blast, trying to get warm. I was shivering so hard that today I feel like someone has beaten me with a stick. However, I’m able to keep food down today, and my doctor has allowed me to keep a prescription of antibiotic on hand for these episodes, so I’m getting better.

I still feel like absolute crap, though.

3

I’m getting more and more anxious about not having a job.

4

Missed the bus

Car was out of petrol

nuff said.

5

High winds turning an otherwise sunny day into bitterly cold with chill factor making it below zero outside and about 60° inside my cabin. You see, we usually get these winds after it snows some, so we got some insulation on the ground and around the cabin.
Not this year. No sign of it letting up either.

6

Well, my boss has been throwing spaz-attacks for the last few weeks over our ‘lack’ of performance, whilst conveniently ignoring the fact that the main reason we have been unable to achieve decent results is that the data* we have to work from is extremely dodgy. This culminated in him sacking our favourite supervisor today, and I’m not happy about it.

  • I’m a telefundraiser, and we rely upon up-to-date names and phone numbers to solicit funds for various charities. Of late, a LOT of the data has been replicated, meaning that someone who donated last week has been harrassed again THIS week, and it is embarrassing for us as well as a waste of pointless hours for the charity. The problem is NOT the telemarketers fault, but the boss has done a bit of blame-shifting (away from the Admin folk) and onto the telephone room and especially the now-sacked supervisor.
7

People have begun to meow outside in the courtyard. First it was tag. Then singing (each member sand a different tune) and now they are meowing. I hate drunk college students.(And later on, marathon fire alarms. At 1,2,3 AM) Every night I cannot sleep because of these idots.

Has sleeping gone out of fashion? Is it just not hip anymore? At the age of 25 I should not feel like leaning out the window, shaking my fist at those darn kids and telling them to all “GO TO BED.” Gah.

8

Jervoise – a lot of newspapers are open to freelancers submitting stories. If the lack of coverage annoys you that much, you could always toss together a quick write-up of the events in question and see if their editor is interested. Extra cash is always nice and you seem to be a fairly capable writer…

Yesterday sucked ass. Went in to work and found out our web server was nearly hacked. Spent all day plugging security holes. The hideous receptionist kept breaking her damn computer on purpose so she could flirt with me. My work computer’s been acting dodgy the last few days and I can’t figure out what’s causing the spontaneous reboots and to top it off I think I’m coming down with something nasty. Fucking life.

9

I found out from an orthopedic specialist yesterday that I need surgery for my carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands, but because of my diabetic neuropathy he cannot guarantee that it will help at all.

:frowning:

10

Last night I had a very vidid dream. To summarize, while squeezing a pimple on my chest I opened a fist-sized fissure, to find out that my chest is full of cranberries. Organs too, I could see my lungs and stuff, but cranberries nestled in there too.

It sounds really goofy, but it wasn’t a funny dream. It shook me.
Plus my job sucks, and my car died; my commute has turned from a 20 minute drive into a 30 minute bus ride and a twenty minute bike ride.

11

I forgot to call this cute girl I met a few days ago. The one who really, really would like to know me better.

Today, a customer was looking for an item we no longer carry. I let her know that I was very sorry that said item was no longer available.

“Well, ‘sorry’ isn’t going to help me, is it!?!?”

I did not ask her to bend over so I could check and see if maybe I could pull one out of her ass.
I wish I had.

12

My Monday and Tuesday were both OK. My Wednesday was made a little better by the news that there is one less telemarketer (the supervisor) in this world.

13

Although the calendar doesn’t say Monday…

Arriving at the notion that this workplace is sucking the soul right out of me for many reasons, but not the least of which is that I’m frustrated and sick to death of worrying about making sure my job is done right and tight because I work directly for the boss, while getting to watch a bunch of worthless good for nothing assholes do nothing and constantly complain about how overworked they are. The boss seems to have no clue that they don’t do their jobs much, and I’m not willing to be a narc, thereby creating MORE hostility and tension in a place that barely remains civil sometimes.
Like just this second, I had to field a call that the receptionist should have answered, but she’s too busy laughing it up up stairs and just figures that since I’m sitting here, there’s no reason for me NOT to have to answer the phone. Now this isn’t too much of a problem at the moment when all my work is organized and finished, but on days when I’m working my ass off, it really burns me. Feh.
Me, now a little more about me, did I mention ME??
:wink: