Is there anything worse than public toilets? There are certain things I have come to expect from a 21st Century Men’s Room:
i) Urine on the floor
ii) No paper in the cubicles
iii) Urine on the seat in the cubicles
iv) No Soap
v) At least one hand dryer out of order
vi) No paper towel alternative
And in prime
vii) Needle box
The Pyramids Shopping Centre in
Oh video games, you evil mistress. With your enticing gameplay you take me away from this pained reality and entertain and excite me! I’ve seen the different S.T.A.L.K.E.R (PC) endings and been playing Excite Truck (Wii), and after downloading and playing through the BioShock (PC) demo a few times (runs surprisingly well on my crusty ol’ rig!) decided that I couldn’t wait for the upgrade so when it dropped on my doormat Thursday it was installed and have been playing that too. It’s early days yet so I could live to regret saying this but BEST GAME EVER!
Back in pained reality, “Lazy” boy is back in work and telling lies again. I’m at a complete loss to understand why he does it. Does he think I won’t find out? Does he really believe the spiteful crap coming out of his mouth? Why don’t our employers put a stop to it? The mind boggles! The news of his impending return was met with derision from a section of the workforce. Some even suggesting we’d be better off if he never came back. The irony is that once again I have to defend him. It’s ridiculous, I know.
My education was queried today. Sometimes people get this crazy notion that I actually know stuff. Funny considering that of my peers I am the least intelligent, by some margin. I’ve picked up snippets of information over the many years I’ve wasted, mainly in order to fill the time I was wasting. I hated those last few years of school and didn’t apply myself. I had a just and noble cause mind: I honestly thought I was going to be a Rock God. So odd jobs for just enough money to get along; college; bands; and finally the acceptance that the years were no longer being kind and deity status would forever elude me so I’d better get a real job, was the path I travelled. It’s not something I’d recommend, although I must admit, it was great fun!
So much has happened I barely know where to start… Football is back. YAY! Had a great Guild Wars (PC) session with some of the clan. Finished S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl (PC) and enjoyed it so much am going to again to see the different endings. Decided I might have to leave Bioshock (PC) until I upgrade my hardware a bit. (I really want that game, but I need to do it justice and my current rig won’t and I’m not buying a 360 just for one game). I’ve been meaning to order Excite Truck (Wii) for ages so finally did that too. I’ve got a problem, don’t I?
All that and I still managed to squeeze in eating, sleeping and some work. Sometimes I amaze myself.
I’m trying to avoid social and political commentary. Can you tell? I used to rant and rave a lot about the ills of the world, but at the end of the day I don’t have the solution or the power to implement it if I did.
A situation in work today illustrates my current feelings of helplessness. I call this situation:
Everything you do is wrong!
Some colleagues complaining about another. He’s lazy; idle; useless they claim. He’s a valued member of the team I reply. He’s a waste of space who should be sacked. No, he is doing his work to the best of his ability and if he is falling short we all have to help to get things back on track.
I’m sure you can already see the road this is going down. Why are these guys working their socks off when they could reduce their workload by 10% simply by slowing down a bit and saying they’ve done their best? So what do we do?
a) Speak with everybody involved and explain what’s needed and required and that people’s ability will differ and that that should be respected and we should all do our best.
b) Discipline the “lazy” guy. Give him targets to reach and a reasonable period to improve and reach them?
c) Discipline the colleagues for making derogatory comments that could offend that other colleagues sensibilities?
Take a few seconds to think about it. Decided? Okay, if you answered:
a) I’m sorry, you have failed to act in any party’s interest and they all feel you are not listening or acting to improve the situation. Expect a couple of grievances to be lodged against you.
b) I’m sorry, you cannot single an individual out like that. Even if that persons performances are below expectations and all his colleagues are repeatedly complaining, to only set the one person a performance improvement schedule could be considered bullying and/or harassment. Expect a grievance to be lodged against you.
c) I’m sorry, you have failed to empathise or act on their concerns. They now feel you are giving the “lazy” colleague preferential treatment while making them do more work. Failure to balance the workload equally could be considered bullying and/or harassment. Expect a grievance to be lodged against you.
The clue was in the title.
Right… S.T.A.L.K.E.R…
I always liked the pseudonym peachFUZZ. It’s wonderfully innocent and masked the angry young man I once was. Of course back then the internet was barely crawling and uber haxxors were fragging in Quake on their 33.3k modems and names like God; Deathbringer; The Mighty Bob were the norm. Now of course we have our broadband and streaming HD movies and that angry young man has become an angry middle aged man with blood pressure just about scraping the ionosphere. Try and sign up to a forum or congregative area with the name peachFUZZ and rest assured you’ll be greeted with something along the lines of:
I’m sorry, that name is not available. Please try peachfuzz73681, or come up with something original, loser!
Googling the word can also return some disturbing results, none of which I’d share in a family environment, and made me wonder whether pseudonyms and aliases are truly worthwhile. At least if you use your real name there couldn’t be any chance of mistaken identity.
Curious as to what search parameters would be needed to locate blogs, I first googled peachfuzz and blogspot. Returning blogs mostly about some odd couple who are teaching their offspring to pray not be ginger (SEE)*. I then tried googling my name and blogspot which lead to a series of sex scandals and dirty pictures (feel free to pop off and see for yourself. I’ll be here when you get back). “Kevin Furlong described yesterday as the "BITTER FORMER AIR FORCE MAJOR WHO POSTED WIFE'S NUDE PIX ON INTERNET." Bitter is putting it mildly, ...” Reading on I was rather disturbed to learn, “The death threat issued by Captain amErika against Kevin Furlong has not been resolved” I’ve only just started and am already a potential dead ginger pervert. Result!
