ms crankypants

I have many things to say about the new job, but they’ll have to wait until I perform my planned stunt involving the stash of Hustler magazines in the lunch room. Let’s just say the highlight so far was scrubbing the women’s toilet today as apparently Friday afternoon is clean-the-place afternoon. At least I could undertake that task without having to read minds.

Anyway, I went out for dinner the other night to a pancake bar. It’s like the Pancake Parlour but with post-1970s decor and a wider range of booze. Today’s competition is to guess the number of spelling errors on the blackboard — I’ll hand adjudication to ThePurpleOwl as I come up with a different number each time I look.

Crank-o-meter: cranky but not hungry

November 27th, 2009 | Category: family, human behaviour | Comments (14)

Hey, I was offered and accepted a job, but I have to discuss something else first. What the fuck happened to feminism? Sorry for my swearing of late; all I can say is that I’m glad my mum doesn’t know how to operate a computer because she’d be after me with a bucket of water and a bar of laundry soap.

I understand and haven’t forgotten the youthful struggle for identity and I don’t give a toss how people advertise their sexualities, however, I get shitted off when blatantly dumb-arse, mindless, ignorant objectification is promoted by the gender it affects most.

I'd normally erase number plates, but she's advertising

Anyway, back to rapidly ageing, bitter old me. Application number 25 came up, which is a job with a small engineering company that installs and maintains safety systems that connect helicopters to ships. Its largest client is the government department I just left, funnily enough, and they initially liked how I’d survived the bureaucracy with some remnants of sanity and enthusiasm intact. There is also a new off-shoot division that’s designing and selling automotive accessories so I have a lot to learn, but at least they’re practical accessories and not Playgirl stickers. The company owner’s wife used to work in my team and she referred me and things went from there. The money is a bit less, the travel is a bit further each day but the potential to help grow the business and not go insane every weekday morning about 2am are pretty good incentives indeed. I start this Monday!

I was starting to cancel the other 26 applications, but my workload has abated after having received three rejections today and one refusal to accept my withdrawal — apparently the organisation’s e-system won’t accept withdrawals until candidates have been selected for interview and they can then refuse an interview slot. I was going to reply and ask how they re-fill the newly-vacant slots if the unsuccessful candidates have been rejected, but I ran out of energy. I’m a bit jittery from two of the three rejections because I thought I was a strong candidate for both and I’m thankful this piece of good fortune has come along when it has.

Crank-o-meter: too busy finding work lunchbox things

November 19th, 2009 | Tags: feminism, shittypants, work | Category: feminism, shittypants, work | Comments (13)

I was out today and missed an opportunity to answer the door in my Snuggie (I don’t think a 100% polyester robe would cope too well in this 30+ degree heat but I’m prepared to suffer in the name of fashion.)

Why would Father Greg be out in the heat conducting a census? Isn’t that the job of the Australian Bureau of Statistics???

Crank-o-meter: hot and confuzzled

November 13th, 2009 | Tags: general delusions | Category: general delusions | Comments (11)

I received a call last week to progress to the next stage of the recruitment process for a two-week contract (remember the timeframe, because it’s important for the context of the saga). The employer wanted the candidates to attend a medical examination and the agency phoned to give me the details and address for the, “20-minute check-up.”

I’m glad I took a book and didn’t have any other appointments on the day because I was gone for four hours and was too delicate of ego to do much afterwards anyway. The summary was that I’m too fat (yep, knew that), my eyesight is shithouse (yep, check) and I have a 20 per cent hearing loss in my left ear? What? No, I didn’t say, “What?” to the doctor who delivered the bad news as that would have been a bad pun, but my reaction was along the lines of, “I had no problems hearing that and you’re fucking kidding me, aren’t you?” He showed me the ear-to-ear comparison and my left ear was under the ‘normal hearing function’ line for every single frequency the nurse tested when I was locked in a large metal box with the cute red and green Mickey Mouse earphones on my head.

Oh. I can’t remember having my hearing tested since my government medical seven years ago but a substantial degradation in hearing in only one ear sounded (ha ha ha) a bit odd. Perhaps I had a bit of button-pressing anxiety because it was the first ear tested and I wasn’t sure if I was hearing real sounds or imagining them to do well in the test. But I don’t have time to appreciate oddness as I need to see my doctor for a referral to an audiologist or whoever tests ears professionally, all before I can be offered the two-week contract supervising a team of people and entering stuff on a computer. I don’t understand why I might need to be the bionic woman with my left ear to do this contract but I’m more than keen to get a definite diagnosis as I’m paranoid that my body’s falling apart quicker than I’m prepared for. I have lost enthusiasm for the role but the day before I said no to another contract because I had already committed to this one, not expecting to possibly fail the damn medical exam.

My hearing is bloody fantastic, I think. I was on the way home from another interview this afternoon and knew I had to stop at the chemist for a thrush treatment because it was hard to concentrate on my interview responses when my girl bits were screaming in raw pain at me (too much information, I know). I whispered my symptoms to the counter assistant, she whispered back about my options and I whispered that I wanted the quickest solution. She handed over a large box with a single tiny tablet of fungus killer and whispered it was quick but more expensive. I yelled, “I had no problems hearing that too! $23.99 for one tablet — you’re joking as well, aren’t you?!”

Crank-o-meter: can you hear me calling for an audiologist?

November 11th, 2009 | Tags: health, work | Category: health, work | Comments (7)