Life is riddled with a procession of minor impediments

[TordelBack]

Really suffering from my cold at the moment.

If you gents are labouring on with the same cold I have (and it certainly seems like it), may I endorse Sudafed decongestant?  It's the only thing that's even put a dent in it for me.

[Roger Godpleton]

Someone is trying to make it more difficult for me to cook crystal meth by encouraging more widespread consumption of a base ingredient.

[Gonk]

The boilers packed up so there is no heat in the house until Wednesday probably.

[Gonk]

There's a strange person in the bathroom. Someone my sister brought home with her last night - I'm going to have to use a bucket if she doesn't hurry up and get out of that frigging bog!

[paddykafka]

Re that nasty cold/flu that some of the squaxx seem to have come down with: Years and years ago, I came down with something nastily similar and, in an inspired moment of self-medicating brillaince - as you do - I bought myself 3 litres of the finest Irish Whiskey money can buy and retired to me bed for three days straight, sipping gently away at the rate of a litre a day.

The bedsit I was in at the time was overlooking a park, and by the third day, one of the trees had uprooted itself and toddled over the road to rap it's branches against my window and have a conversation with me.

I can't really remember what we talked about - for obvious reasons! - but by God, those nasty flu germs were sent packing. Maybe not a cure for everyone but hey, it worked for me. Anyhow, hope all those of you who are currently under the weather will recover soon.

[Roger Godpleton]

I was that tree.

[vzzbux]

I was that tree.

This tree?






V

[TordelBack]

I was that tree.

This tree?

I'd say that's more a 5-litres-of-whiskey tree.

[Rog69]

I started my weekend by downloading our team's work schedule for the next few weeks, just to see what everyone else is up to, only to find that from later next week I have been put on a 2 shift pattern for the next few months, so instead of my normal hours I can look forward to getting up at 4.30 or getting home at 23.30  .

Now I'm pretty flexible when it comes to the hours that I work (I have to be in this job) but this change has come without any warning or consultation, they didn't even have the courtesy to tell me this was on the cards, so I was pretty pissed off and sent my manager an email telling him as much.

The whole thing has made me a grumpy bugger and cast a cloud over my entire weekend, my first one off this year. I have the wife's 40th and my Daughter birthday in that period and it looks like I can kiss goodbye to having any time off as there is nobody else who can do this role because the same corporate robot drone who is responsible for this has also fucked up by not getting enough people trained for this project.

I could always raise a grievance with HR I suppose, thus securing my place in the next annual redundancy brushfire.

[Gonk]

That sounds like a real p###take Rog from your employers. If you do complain you'll more than likely get the "if you don't want to do it I can easily find someone who will" answer. It's a horrible experience when you feel you are being taken for a ride, I know. Talking of which....

ordered 30 quids worth of music from someone on the internet 2 months ago. Did the records turn up? Nope. Did paypal get my my money back for me? Nope.

[Roger Godpleton]

Why do things smell like things? Yesterday the bread that my dad made smelt like the inside of a Burger King. Then just now my mum's fried eggs sounded like chips.

[TordelBack]

I met the most fascinating person in the Social Welfare office today, with the hilarious (in retrospect) title of Jobs Facilitator.

I had specifically arranged an interview with her to see what supports might be available, or consequences incurred, in coming off the dole and starting and developing a new business, since I have a few half-decent ideas, and am getting nowhere finding regular work that'll cover both my mortgage AND my childcare, and am sick to the drokking back teeth of my current existence (although more time with the kids has been an unexpected blessing).  Reason I'm looking for some sort of support is that I have no capital of any kind, and will still have to feed my kids and the bank while getting set up.  Not unreasonable, I thought.

In between scowling at me, taking phonecalls, speaking in an unvarying terse monotone, spewing a stream of departmental- and scheme-acronyms at me (actual example: "if you want to know what level of JSA you'd get on a STEA you you'd have to talk to the CW officer in the HSE"), and calling me her 'client' (if used in the usual sense of the word, that's a relationship that would have lasted all of 15 seconds), she managed to impart this wondrous piece of advice:  my best option would be to remain on the dole for another 7 months, and then look into the business thing, as then i could reapply immediately if the business failed (as one of the 'long term unemployed'), whereas if I did it within the first year of unemployment I'd be completely screwed, as a self-employed person with no meaningful tax contributions.   

Severed from the appalling manner of its delivery (which included remarking that my wife's take-home pay was greater than her own and she had three children, as if by way of saying I should be happy with my lot - I'm not sure there's any way to see this as appropriate), this was actually remarkably helpful advice, coming from someone whose job it is to facilitate me getting back into gainful employment. 

So there you go, that's apparently the State's policy on digging us out of this recession: I should sit on my arse getting the maximum dole I can until it runs out, and be glad of it, and THEN try to get back on my feet.  Sure why don't I put my feet up while I'm at it, and pen a little note to the bank explaining that on the advice of the Department of Social Protection, I won't need to make any more mortgage payments until Saturn is in Gemini, and the omens propitious for my glorious return to the world of work.

(Yes, I realise that I'm the walking caricature of a middle-class middle-aged nob finally exclaiming in horror at what the Morlocks have to put up with day-in day-out). 

[Roger Godpleton]

What you need is a hobby.

[TordelBack]

Haven't got time, too busy posting drivel on comics forums.

[JOE SOAP]

You're living in the Hoop.


Keeping so many on the dole, keeps them from marching the streets. It's a cheap bribe.