Updated highlights

Geez, 10 hours after the end of my daytime work day and I still haven't gotten to bed. Friday night was long at Orbit. To sum up the good stuff:

• Got my drugs back.
• Got to work with Jones.
• Would have won the tip-earning competition had we not just completely ignored it. That was satisfying enough (plus it was only a bottle of wine for an incentive).
• VIP-Veuve-Cliquot-Drinking-Rich-Man-Birthday-Party Party left very happy, even though it all started out a bit wrong (STRESS, sort of).
• VVCDRM very generous with the on-the-sly gratuity.
• Completely missed the massive fight that apparently happened amongst the kitchen staff and somehow included a fight between the head chef and the restaurant manager.
• Drank leftover Veuve and ate chocolate mousse cake (sorry Dex, we will get you a fresh birthday cake next time you come in).

I was going to put in some bad things that happened, but I figure that I don't need to remember them!

One last highlight: it's time for bed!!

I love free baked goods

Last night was my first night with the new menu. I spent a joyful first half hour or so with it and my red pen, proofing and highlighting all their mistakes (funny word, proof. As is much, which I realised today). I’m a geek but I do get such happiness from pointing out the errors of others. I had to train someone to be a senior waiter, which was interesting with the new menu and the consequent kitchen delays. She was better than I thought she’d be, but I think I was also extra bubbly and lovely which underlined to my guests who was really the best. There was almost a fist fight between two of the waiters, and I was sick, but despite all these things, I was in a really good mood. I must have been high on Phenylephrine.

I think that the woman I’m covering for is a little fruity and weird. She doesn’t seem to deal with stress very well, and this is definitely not the sort of environment she belongs in. Apparently she’s an actress of sorts, but fell into this job after temping for a while. I hope that doesn’t happen to me!

Highlights of my day so far:

• Free muffins! Carrot and pineapple, carrot and something else, pumpkin and pecan, banana, chocolate, blueberry, some other kind of berry … tried most of them and wished I could taste better today (still sick) cause they were yummy.
• Got paid for doing probably 3 hours of running around today and yesterday (two trips to the city hospital, running over to payroll a few times, drinking coffee, etc).
• Someone yelled out “Jesus!” to me while I was having lunch. I had my devil horn hoodie up cause it had been raining. I don’t get called Jesus very often.
• Completed a World Famous in New Zealand quiz. Stumped by some rugby references, but got there in the end. The link is for an Excel file download. I think non-kiwis will find it pretty difficult, but feel free to try it!
• No supervisor!
• Not desperately needing the decongestants I accidentally left at work last night.

Eww, but sort of aww ...

I still feel ill. I figured it would have gone away by now but I’m at the needing-copious-amounts-of-tissue stage. I couldn’t even taste my coffee this morning, and this doesn’t bode well for having to be nice to customers later on tonight.

I was walking to work this morning and was following this little man wearing glasses and an entirely brown outfit (you know the type). I didn’t take any notice of him until he stopped and turned around and started looking at something on the ground. I automatically looked as well, and must have seemed puzzled, because as I noticed there was only a gob of phlegm on the gravel (eww), he said “I coughed and made a bit of a mess”. As I walked past, he bent down and got some sort of moss from the side of the footpath to clear his “mess” away. I have to say that this is the first time I have ever seen something like this happen, and, although slightly grossed out, I was actually sort of impressed. There is too much disgusting spitting on the ground these days, and it was nice to see that someone felt chastised by their own accidental disgusting behaviour. Stop the spread of meningitis and tuberculosis! Thank you, little brown outfit man.

Spamorama

As much as I love spam and everything, I decided I didn’t want it in my comments. So apologies for the newly installed word verifications (I hate those things, personally), but if you don’t have the intellectual capacity for them, you don’t deserve to comment on my posts anyway. If you lack the motor function or are severely visually impaired, you probably can’t comment anyway. Sorry again.

Fulfilment via espresso and ice cream

Ever notice that the word “fulfil” is really weird looking? I had to use it multiple times in a flowchart today.

I am back at the hospital, but working as support for a clinical team. It is going okay so far, despite not having my own office and having to start work at 8am. I was asked to ask some people to do something for me this morning, and they refused since apparently it’s not their job (and it’s easy to refuse a temp, cause I don’t know what’s going on). When I told the woman who asked me to ask them (why she didn’t ask directly is beyond me), she was “dizzy with shock” (seriously, that is what she said, and she did sound a little faint on the phone) that they weren’t going to fulfil (hehe) the request. I really don’t want to get involved in office politics on my second day.

Hopefully they will keep me on here until the end of the month (unlike the last debacle with the real estate people). My cut off date is the 30th of September though, and my last day at Orbit is officially the 9th of October (just in time for the staff party which will be the next night).

Oh, big news: I finally bought my ticket out of here! I bit the bullet and committed to a flight, mostly so that I could line up welcoming committees and couches to sleep on with minimal guilt about screwing people around with dates and times. I arrive in Melbourne on Sunday the 16th of October, after having to get to the Auckland airport at 7.30am. Yuck!!

I went out for dinner with my family last night for my little brother’s 21st. It was a pretty good dinner, with only the usual level of embarrassment that comes with having dinner with one’s whole family in public (or mine at least). I ate way too much, but couldn’t turn down an affogatto for dessert (or a taste of the banoffee pie (yum) and the Kahlua/Moro bar cheesecake (also yum) that other people ordered). What I want to know though is why had I never even heard the word affogatto (a scoop of vanilla ice cream with an espresso poured over the top) before about a month ago?! I guess I’m not as with it as I thought I was. It is a fantastic invention though, I must say.

Errr, uncomfortable ...

Is being caught with a 19 year old boy in his room at 3.30am by his mother. Nuff said. Except that nothing is going on! All the guilt and weirdness with none of the benefits.

Mmm ... sleep ...

I didn't get The Call from my agency today, so I took the opportunity to get some more sleep. Heaven. The gym afterwards was not so blissful, but helped me justify the yummy scrummy burger I had from Burger Fuel when I had lunch with non-boyfriend #1. Not quite as good as lunch with NBF#1, but also quite good, was the fact that I got to wear shorts today, yay!

I picked up a few more hours at the restaurant to make up for my not being at the EBJ and watched Spirited Away (Japanese anime film dubbed in English, kind of strange, but also quite enjoyable) and Napoleon Dynamite (to see if it was, indeed, funnier the second time. It was).

And here I am again, at nearly 5am, wondering why I avoid sleep so much when I'm not working ... especially as I love it so much when I have to get up ...

You're Fired ...

Sunday, Father's Day. I got up during the fuzzy border between afternoon and evening. Decided to make dinner, so went food shopping and did some minor organising to get all the sibs home. Roast lamb, veges, potato salad, Beanfeast shepherd's pie. My sister made a lemon cake. Very full after.

Monday, back at Excrutiatingly Boring Job. Some lady comments on my accent, thinks she heard "American" in there. I will argue that if there is, it's Canadian (sorry, Canadians). Gym. Dinner with Jonesy (again, what is up with having restaurant choice not work out? Three tries again, but at least we actually only set foot in the last one), aimless driving, Mt Eden, ice cream, tea. Late night, and can't sleep lately.

Tuesday, repeat EBJ. Except today find out that they, contrary to popular belief, wouldn't need me for the rest of the week. F*ckers. I was even going about half speed because I predicted this would happen. The boss was all apologetic and like "this doesn't normally happen" - but it did, the last time I was there! I'm not so upset, except that the three days of work I did there has effectively blocked out 10 days of potential other work. And also messed up a lunch date I had for tomorrow. Grrr. On the plus side, The Apprentice was on tonight. Somehow it's not so much fun now that I know who wins ...

There's an incentive?

Apparently there was, and even though I wasn't told about it, I still won! The aim of the game was to sell the most Chef's Specials and we would win aforementioned Chef's Special (Hereford prime Scotch fillet steak served on oven roasted potatoes and baby cress finished with a prawn and bacon veloute sauce). I win! I get steak! Hooray. Last time I won as well, but had done so well that we sold out, so no steak. Note to self: tone it down a little with the steak. Perhaps that's why they didn't tell me about it tonight. I don't think they told anyone else either though, which made it fair. I usually don't eat full sized meals at 10.30pm, but I'll take exception for free steak dinners.

The toothpaste buzz

Whenever I'm extraordinarily knackered, brushing my teeth before bed always wakes me up a little bit, which is quite frustrating. I understand that it's the minty thing that energises you, but it's still somewhat annoying. I decided to use the force to write a quick post before the 16 hour workday on the 4 hours of sleep overpowers me ... also, please forgive the lack of editing, my brain's not in the ON position.

I went to the dentist on Wednesday. I had decided to boycott the dentist I saw last year due to the wisdom teeth issue, and Julie my new dentist is really pretty cool. She sorted out a couple of things for me, and I came out of there with a couple of new fillings, a numb cheek and another increase in my credit card expenditure.

I spent the rest of Wednesday with Simon, making the most of the glorious sunshine and the fact that we actually got to hang out with each other. We went to the beach, ate ice cream (with awful awful coffee), went shopping, saw Sin City (finally! I really enjoyed it, but it really did seem incredibly long and full of waiting for people to die horribly. Elijah Wood was also uber-creepy in it), had Melt pizza (oh so so good), watched the Fifth Element on DVD (geez, it only took me about 8 years to see that film), ate cheesecake and drank wine. It was pretty much a perfect day, especially after the anaesthetic wore off and I could eat food.

Also, within three days I got to go to two different beaches on two different coasts (with two different Simons!) and the weather was stunning. So, so happy.

I also managed to totally screw my sleep "pattern" again, so have been surviving on too little/too much. I also managed to forget, in my haste, to put baking soda in my second attempt at carrot cake. Fatal mistake. Those Orbit people do not know how lucky they are with their light and moist, not stodgy and flat, cake.

On Thursday night I had a middle-aged woman do a really decent impression of a screaming harpie for a really long time, partially at me, but mostly at my manager (heh). I think she just really wanted to be mortally offended by something (maybe because her kids were such demons and she'd yelled at them enough already), and proceeded to yell so half the restaurant could hear that she thought she had been kicked out before she could even have dessert. I think I actually got pity tips from some of my tables who heard her ridiculous performance. Of course, she was right about some things, although I blame all of those things on others ...

Today was day 1 of a 6 part series of mind-numbingly-boring-no-outlet-for-skiving data entry. Blah. I am so taking my own music in on Monday so I don't have to listen to the Classic Hits No Repeat Work Day. Since when has Coolio's Gangster's Paradise been a classic hit? Although hearing my middle-aged female supervisor singing along was kind of hilarious. There was also a farewell morning tea (I'll jump on the goodbye bandwagon for some free cake), and office antics which involved a Saffa squashing himself into a wheelie bin which then fell over. Eventually he managed to jump out and scare his target so much that she screamed and spilled her coffee all over his farewell card. Comedy.

The highlight of my shift at Orbit was finding out that I've been credited for drastically changing the direction of someone's life (for the better, of course). I'm extremely humbled.

Lexicon update: I have noticed that since leaving Canada and coming back to NZ, the incidence of the word "super" in my speech has decreased dramatically, almost inversely proportional to the level of usage of the word "bro", which is still climbing. "Awesome" is still one of my favourite words, and "dude" still occurs frequently. I do say "sweet as", like any good kiwi, but feel free to slap me if I say "chur" (don't even ask if you don't know what it means, you are better off in the dark, especially as it is ridiculously hard to explain this concept).