Happy Birthday To Me!

Ok, so a couple of days ago it was my birthday (yay!) and I wanted to blog about my presents…

 

Don’t worry it leads to more of my usual drivel, if you can stomach my birthday glee long enough to get to the end.  I know it might not seem a very big deal to you but because I’m rubbish and broke due to some financial issues, I don’t often get to buy anything for myself so I’m excited and thus you shall be excited with me, damnit.

Behold!  My treasure trove of birthday goodies:

From my sister I got 3 NYX Jumbo Eye Pencils in different shades of green, a L’oreal Pure Pigment Shadow Stick, a L’oreal Volume Million Lashes Mascara and a Salon style hair dryer!  I believe these were joint presents from my her and my lovely mama.

In the picture you can also see a beautiful Fiorelli handbag, gifted to me by my cousin Annie, alongside the lovely notebook, jewellery and card.  The handbag I must say was an absolute achievement as anyone who knows me, will know I am meticulous when it comes to choosing my bags – the straps have to be just so, the colour has to be just right, the texture/material/number of zips and pockets/size/shape all have to be a certain way, and she must have taken notes the last time we bag-shopped because she got pretty damned close.  The red packet of lucky money was from my brother and sister-in-law, and the mobile phone cover from my wonderful boyfriend. 

I also got (eventually*) these two games from my sister, which I am enjoying immensely as I have been an avid Sims fan since the original first came out all those years ago – I have yet to play these properly as work is just over the horizon but I have a week off starting Tuesday!

And lastly, the final parcel to come through the post were these beauties – courtesy of the best man on Earth:

Sennheiser CX 680 Sports edition ear phones.  Apparently the best sports ear phones money can buy – superior sound quality, water and sweat resistant, rugged and durable for extreme sports.  GLEE!!!  Why am I so excited about these?  Not because I’m a sports person – don’t be silly (you would be lucky to see me break into a jog on a normal day – despite how much I obviously need to), no I am excited because I have been using a pair of stock ear phones which have been hurting my ears due to their awful fit and my ears bleed from their appalling sound quality – so, I am over the moon to finally get a pair of decent ear phones again.  As you may have guessed, I am also an avid Sennheiser fan.

So many, many, many thanks to everyone for the gifts – it means a lot to me and I love each and everything as much as the next. 

* Right – so on to the explanation of why I said eventually.  It appears in this area, we have a bit of a problem.  A bit of a drug problem, a bit of a theft problem, a bit of a vandalism problem, a bit of a littering problem, a bit of a gang-violence problem, a bit of…well you get the idea.  It’s all quite a bit…well…problematic.  So much so, that not only is it normal to see gangs of youths brandishing chair legs and kitchen knives, in hot pursuit of some random person (usually bleeding), but the most frequent sound you’ll hear on our road happens to be the sound of squealing police and ambulance sirens.  In the time that it will take me to finish this post, I will undoubtedly hear at least two police cars go by. 

 

      

Is that a GRATE on your window?!  I hear you ask……Yes.  Yes it is.  But it’s there as much to keep our cats in as it is to keep the err, neighbours out.   

 

So what does this have to do with my present?  Well, it appears that this crime problem we have extends even to our postman.  I was supposed to receive two identically shaped and sized parcels – both of them games – in the post.  For some mysterious reason, the postman puts one through the letter box, and writes a ‘sorry we missed you card’ for the other.  On the card, he states the reason as ‘your packet was too large for your letter box’.

Well wait a minute – didn’t he just put the other parcel through my too-small letter box?  The other, exactly-the-same-size-and-shape parcel?  So that was stupefying – clearly he was not just a potential thief, but a really, really stupid one.

Around about Christmas time, the same thing happened with another DVD/Game-shaped parcel.  For some unknown reason it just disappeared, and never made it to our hands – was it just a coincidence, or was it just too tempting around the festive season to ignore the plethora of DVD-shaped parcels being sent?  Thankfully the company refunded our money, but there’s nothing quite like having your presents stolen by the postman.  It’s probably one of the sh*ttiest, most exasperating feelings to suspect your own postman is systematically nicking your post.

So anyhow, with parcel card in hand, we went to the post office to try and retrieve said parcel – only to be told that the parcel was nowhere to be found and that we could try again tomorrow.  Bearing in mind that we had already waited 48 hours to make sure that the item would be sorted and back at the office, this sent alarm bells ringing.  It already made no sense that one packet was delivered and yet the other wasn’t – but for it to not be back at the depot just further confirmed our suspicions.  Needless to say we spent the rest of the day cursing our postman for being a dirty, thieving c**t.  I stormed back home ready to mount a full-scale attack via the phone/email/letter and whatever else it took to get the bastard erased from existence, only to find that the packet had mysteriously turned up on our doorstep.  Bizarre?  Damn right.  In the end I couldn’t work out whether he had decided to steal it and then lost his nerve, or if he left his brain at home when he was out delivering the other day.  Either way, I was relieved my gift had arrived intact and had to take a rain-check on project-destroy-the-postie. 

But he better watch out if he’s thinking of stealing anything in the future – because I’m onto him. 

    

 

del.icio.us Tags: Crime,Birthdays,Postman,Presents,Fiorelli,L’oreal,NYX,Sims 3

Anti-Idiotics…

Hello all, it’s about that time again when I’m sitting at work and my brain is melting from severe inactivity, so I must do some writing to impede the gradual deterioration.  It’s that or risk becoming stranded here after turning into a hideous, dribbling vegetable.  After all, there is only so much FML one can take in a day…

Today I want to talk about medicine.  Sounds intelligent, doesn’t it?  Actually it’s not even remotely – because I just got asked by a customer if we sold Antibiotics.  Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that Antibiotics are prescription only – available only at a pharmacy or through registered/authorised people in the medical profession.  Not an Oriental grocery store.  I mean, would you even trust it if we did?  Oh yes, lady – straight down towards the vegetable aisle, between the marinated pigs intestines and the spicy beef balls, we have some broad-spectrum antibiotics over there.  ERM.

So I mean, on the Weirdo Scale that probably scores a Weirdo Factor of 151,000,000,000.  I completely lost control of my ‘composed, unperturbed, seen-it-all customer-services face’ and gave her my ‘WTF is wrong with you!!!?? face’.  I seem to be doing that a lot lately, I really should keep track of my face.

And then the other thing that ticks me off is when customers – particularly mandarin speakers whose English is not up to scratch, call in after looking at their receipt and scream blue murder because they’ve apparently been charged for items they ‘did not buy’.  One such customer literally cried down the phone at me, saying that she ‘DID NOT BUY ANY SUCH FISH,’ and that ‘WE MADE A BIG MISTAKE’ and ohmygodtheworldisgoingtoendbecauseyouvechargedmetoomuchzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Turns out, after I checked over her receipt – the only two remotely ‘fish’ items were:

Lucky Fish Udon Ndl £1.25

Lucky Fish Beijing Ndl £0.95

So I called her back to explain that the two ‘fish’ that she ‘was charged for’ were in fact two packets of NOODLES.  Although surprisingly she saved me the hassle and sheepishly admitted that she realised that it wasn’t fish after all.  But don’t be mistaken – it is not only people with limited English who do this – the native locals seem to have the same problem here.  Of course if she used just a little bit of common sense, she would have noticed that her FISH, cost no more than 95p – what fish do you know costs 95p?  And did she really have to scream at me like I’d raped her cat over a measly £2?  I wish people would just think before they called.  I hope she felt suitably foolish.

I also got another prank call.  Yes, another one – they sure seem to be increasing in frequency lately.  I guess it must be the heat, it brings out the idiot in people.  No actually, I shall reword that: It brings out the idiot in young, British males living in the London area.  For some reason they find asking an Oriental Cash and Carry if we do delivery ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS. Whatever makes you happy I guess – it might even be nice from time to time to have the IQ of Swiss cheese; easily amused and all that.

ANYWAY.  Enough of all that – I am thinking of starting a YouTube Channel.  GASP! Please don’t get too excited, you might make me nervous.  Notice the keyword in that last bit is ‘thinking’ – I might just end up with my knickers in such a twist that I end up not doing it.  BUT, the channel is more educational than entertainment (unless you have a very strange sense of humour), and is aimed specifically at a niche of people who need help in a certain area… and will be done entirely in Cantonese.  See how I was totally specific without being specific at all? Vagueness FTW!

As and when this project launches, I will be posting a sneaky link on this blog, however I am almost certain it will mean very little to any of you as you are unlikely to fall into my niche. STILL – if you DO know anyone who does when you finally find out – please be sure to direct them my way. Ooooooooh the mystery!

Thanks for reading!! Keep your eyes peeled for Film Reviews coming up!

 

del.icio.us Tags: Idiots,Antibiotics

The Human Centipede…

So, many of you will not know from my blog posts so far, that I am a bit of a Movie-Junkie.  Specifically the horror or thriller genres, but I’m partial to some comedy, romance and sci-fi from time to time as well. 

I was playing around with the idea of reviewing movies I have seen, or just discussing films in general when something interesting comes about – so hopefully you will see the MOVIES category of my blog expand and develop into something more readable.  Bear with me whilst I work out the kinks and things I want to incorporate for this part of my blog! 

Whilst chatting to my brother the other day, we ended up discussing the latest movies we wanted to watch – (him owning a DVD rental store and me being a die-hard horror fan).  I began recounting the details to a particularly gory film I watched a while back called Grotesque.  A Japanese film so full to the brim with gore and guts that it was banned in the UK.  It’s totally illegal to supply or sell this film as far as I know, so please don’t do this.  And obviously, I cannot give you a copy.

BUT, since you cannot see a synopsis of the film on the link due to it’s illegal banned-ness, I will enlighten you briefly about its content behind the link at the bottom of this post. 

Ok, so on to the main topic of this post: The Human Centipede.  After describing Grotesque to my brother in full, graphic detail, he recommended this film to me having recently seen the trailer himself.

If you haven’t already heard of the film/watched it then I suggest you take a look at the trailer here. Please refer to the warning checklist below before doing so!  If you don’t think your stomach/heart is up to watching it, then I will toss some keywords into the air to give you an idea of what it is about.  Let your imagination do the rest:

 

• Ditzy American Girls
• Road Trip
• Car Break Down
• Mad German Surgeon – leading specialist in the separation of conjoined twins
• ‘The Siamese Triplet’
• Anus-To-Lips (Sorry.  LOL.)
• Joined by the gastric system
• Attempted Escape

It received a lot of hype back in 2009 when it was released, and was rumoured to have made people run out of the cinema whilst projectile vomiting.  Don’t quote me on that one.  And as a die-hard horror movie fan, I dutifully checked out the trailer and was quite excited to sit down to 90 minutes of what I hoped would be a Saw/Hostel style gore-fest.  Of course, I needn’t have bothered to waste my time, and I suppose I really ought to have clocked that one about half-way through when the main star (a ditzy, American brunette with the IQ of grass), surrendered her chance of escape to go back for her unconscious, drugged up friend. 

Now, I’m not saying that I don’t admire the heroism and courage displayed here, but consider these points:

a) The friend being rescued is unconscious

b) The friend being rescued is taller and heavier than her

c) The BASEMENT, is where said friend is being held, and only up a wooden, spiral staircase can they exit that part of the house

d) Our wannabe heroine has the muscle mass of a sunflower

e) She insists on screaming and crying and grunting all the way to the escape route (a broken window) so that if the crazy doctor didn’t know where she was to begin with, he definitely would know by the time she got close to her escape point. 

The whole 10 minute ordeal was enough to give me a nose bleed, and in hindsight I wonder why I continued watching.  As you can imagine, I’ve been through my fair share of horror/thriller movies and I’ve lost count of how many low-budget, pointless, plotless films featuring moronic lead characters I’ve made myself sit through, all in the hope that the film would get better eventually.  Every time I swear to myself that I will not make the same mistake again, and if I even so much as get a whiff of a stupid character I will switch it off.  This one, I guess I will have to add to my ‘Just wasted 90 minutes of my life’ list. 

So without detailing the whole film (and possibly ruining it for those who actually want to waste 90 minutes of their lives too), I give this film a PUKE-FEST rating for its gory concept – and that’s the CONCEPT only, not the actual film, and an overall rating of 5 out of 10.  For trying.

 

The Human Centipede

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually I’m not so sure why I wanted to share what essentially was a CRAP film with you all, but after watching it I felt compelled to blog about it.  Oh well, there goes my steam.  Maybe I just wanted to share a bunch of interesting links with you guys.

I’m watching Precious and The Blind Side tonight (you see?  No guts and blood in these two at all!), so if there’s anything actually blog-worthy in those then I will post something up. 

———————————————————————————————————————–

Ok – so as promised, the synopsis to Grotesque.

 

Please do NOT read any further if you check any of the following:

a) of sensitive disposition

b) not a horror/gore movie fan

c) easily nauseated

d) easily offended

e) suffer from nightmares related to scary films/descriptions of scary films

So don’t say I didn’t warn you – I decided to write this post because I enjoy sharing my hobbies and interests with you, some of you may find the content humorous (if you do, good for you, it’s intentional – if you don’t, I apologise in advance and advise you to leave the link alone!)

 

Drunken Chicken Woman…

Another day at work, another phone call from a weirdo.  The tragedy here is, these calls are probably the only interesting parts of my week…

It’s barely 11am and the long drag of Saturday has just begun and the phone call with Drunken Chicken Woman (DCW) goes like this:

DCW: Hello, I’d like to give my opinion on an issue, would it be best to speak to a manager or  can I speak to the customer services department?

Me: Well you can give me your opinion…if you want.

DCW: Ok, so I’ve been shopping at your store for over a year (why do they always feel like they have to mention this?) and I used to by the LKK Drunken Chicken Sauce.  But recently you haven’t stocked it and I have to go all the way to China Town to buy it.  I spoke to one of your colleagues and she said that she would express this problem to a manager, but you still don’t have it in stock.

Me: Well, the chances are if we don’t stock it, then it’s because there is very little audience for it.

DCW: Well, couldn’t you get in a few bottles since you get the other sauces from LKK, I’m sure you could just get a few bottles of this sauce as well.  I mean, do you have to take a WHOLE case if you were to order this sauce from them?  I know I can’t buy that many bottles but I would use at least one bottle a month.  It’s just that I really like to make drunken chicken and it’s not really fair that I have to go all the way to China Town to get it.

Me: Erm – usually with sauces, we have to order not by cases, but palettes. That’s thousands and thousands of bottles…There are only 12 bottles in a WHOLE case.

DCW: Oh REALLY?  THAT MUCH?  Why would you need that much??  I thought you could order just a few bottles…(uh, no, stupid woman, we’re not a corner shop you know…)

Me: No, it would be by the palette as we are a very large store with a lot of customers, so that’s why if there is not much interest in a product we usually stop stocking it, as it wouldn’t make sense for us to stock a load of something, and then have it go off because no one wants it.

DCW: Oh yes, last time I came shopping I saw some Pork Floss you were selling that had expired.

Me:  ANYWAY…what I mean is – if we stopped stocking it, it’s because not enough people buy it, and as a company it wouldn’t make sense for us to stock something that nobody buys.

DCW: Well I just think it’s a bit over the top that I have to go all the way to China Town to buy it; that really isn’t fair (life’s not fair, moron – get over it!).  Maybe you could mention this to your manager and get it back in stock, because really I don’t want to go all the way to China Town to get it and if you had it then I wouldn’t have to.

Me: Yeah sure, I’ll mention it if you like (not).

DCW: Thank you that would be great because I really don’t want to go all the way to China Town and it’s because you don’t stock it that I have to do that, so you have to consider my circumstance.

……………………………………

What I WANTED to say of course, which I could never say unless I no longer needed my job is:

Erm, no – I definitely will NOT be troubling my manager to request something so ridiculous.  I’m not sure who you think you are, but just stop for a minute and consider the absurdity of your request.  It is neither our fault nor responsibility that you feel the need to make drunken chickens, and if you choose to do so, it is of your own free will – therefore your having to travel to China Town, France or the end of the Earth to find the sauce you need has nothing to do with us, or how FAIR anything is.  Please in future think before you pick up the phone to speak – I am more than happy to put in a request for an order, but not if you insist on blaming us for random, irrelevant things like travel.  Now stop wasting my time and go make some chicken. 

The irony of this story is, I later checked the system and it turns out we have plenty of LKK Drunken Chicken Sauce.  So aside from an obnoxiously inflated sense of self-importance, this woman clearly needs a sight test as well.

Just thought I’d share this snippet with you as I haven’t had enough time to write about something important/insightful/interesting.  The fact that little else goes on in my daily life really doesn’t help this situation!  The joys of customer service.  And they wonder why some people just lose it and go on a shooting spree.

 

del.icio.us Tags: Sauce,Stupidity,Phone Calls

Comeback Super Fail…

Hello all, I am back.  (Already!? I hear you gasp.)  Yes, already.  Today I am here to recount a story of the mother of all Fails.  And the idiot in question? Moi.

Occasionally, we get prank calls at work.  Being a large Asian company and all, every now and then an ignorant moron with too much time on his hands will attempt to get his kicks by calling in with ridiculous questions, or trying to initiate spastic dialogue in the hope that he will land a colleague who has lesser command of the English language.  It is notable, however that despite the accent or pronunciation issues that some staff have here, both their English and their intelligence is far beyond the dunces who call here for a laugh.

Anyway, so it’s not even lunch time and I am suffering from sleep deprivation of the worst kind.  Last night I barely slept because our Carbon Monoxide alarm decided to go off, making me too paranoid to go back to sleep for fear that nobody would wake up in the morning. Thankfully everyone did wake up, me in particular looking like death warmed up.  Perhaps this is a symptom of Carbon Monoxide poisoning, who knows.  Whilst we’re at it I’d like to attribute my forthcoming denseness to aforesaid poisoning also. I didn’t even know we had a Carbon Monoxide alarm…

Ok so everything is progressing as normal when I get caught off guard by a phone call.  The tell-tale stupid voice and retarded dialogue raises my prank alarm and I assume my (T_T)  face over the phone.  I can tell already that it is a teenage boy with the estimated IQ of 5, and a group of his equally challenged friends in the background.

The funny thing is, usually it’s quite hard to determine whether a prank caller is REALLY a prank caller, or just really stupid… (in stark contrast to the only occasional prank call, we get a LOT of genuine morons).  For example, there was one who sounded like a grown man.  Firstly it was probably my fault for assuming that once a man is grown, he would miraculously STOP being a total tit.  And secondly I should have noted that plenty of young boys are sounding like grown men awfully early nowadays.  Anyhow – assuming it was an adult on the phone, I was lead to believe that he had genuine questions to ask regarding stock.  That is of course until he started asking if we sold sausage, and how long our sausage was… (T_T;) By that time, which was several minutes into the conversation, any opportunity for an intelligent, joke-deflating comeback was long gone.

So, with that experience under my belt, my prank alarm sounded the instant this boy started speaking.  Assuming my (T_T) face as per mentioned above, I set about readying myself for the joke-deflation manoeuvre.  The boy started with, ‘nee howww…’ to which I replied, ‘can I help you?’ and this obviously wasn’t what he expected, so he repeated himself in an obnoxious half-idiot, half-something else voice.  The stunted silence from his end after I snuffed him out, should have been the satisfying moment when his joke completely face-planted.  Of course, being sleep deprived and mildly poisoned, I wrongly decided to put him in his place, and ended up coming out with this:

“Do you not have anything better to do than to have brank calls?…”

……Yeaah go figure.  My one and only chance to get one up on an idiot and I get total brain diarrhoea.

 

To top it all off, that gave them exactly what they wanted and the receiver erupted with laughter from the other end.

Le sigh.

Before I finish, let me explain the thought process involved in this particular fart, because poisoning aside, I usually can speak properly:

 

 

…

Ah well.  I’m glad that’s over.  Thanks for reading! 

 

del.icio.us Tags: Prank Calls,Brain Fart,Saying the wrong thing

Oh Glorious Sunshine…

Hello people!  I am so sorry for these past few months of absence, my life just got so busy I couldn’t fit anything other than work and sleep into it… I hope you are all well, because I am back in the world of part-time working again, I finally have time to update!  Ironically, I am writing this whilst sitting at work…but there you go.  Now before I get side-tracked/kidnapped/mobbed by mother, let me quickly bash this out whilst it’s fresh in my head…

So then, considering the last couple of weeks in the UK, let’s talk about the weather. Fascinating topic that it is, and all that.  Particularly our Great British weather, which most Brits will likely assure you is not particularly great.  For what seems like the last 9 months we’ve had nothing but awful, freezing weather and come April when we had almost become permanently fused to our scarves, it started to look like maybe we would bypass Summer altogether.

Fortunately for us, the sun wasn’t on an extended vacation after all and made several stunning appearances in the middle of May.  Of course, these were dotted with sporadic days of rain and cold in between.

The most intriguing thing however, is how the sun (or lack thereof) affects the behaviour of the Great British people.  We are so starved for sunshine for most of the year that the minute it stops raining and the thermometer hits 12°C, your next door neighbour is flat-out on the decking, boobs first and naked like her life depended on it.  This erratic behaviour can be observed in various environments throughout your neighbourhood as well, most notably in the form of under-dressed females and topless fat men.  Never mind that the goose pimples rippling up and down their arms indicate they are probably going to suffer mild hypothermia by the time they get back home, but the lengths that people go to in order to ‘get a tan’ in this country are absurd.

Firstly, I don’t know how many more people are going to have to suffer skin cancer and premature ageing before they realise that roasting like a stuffed pig in the sun is not good for your health.  In the past week we’ve had up to 28°C in some places, and despite that being a feeble number in comparison to places like Dubai and India where they frequently get temperatures around 40°C, it’s still hot enough (at least for the likes of us pale-skinned, pasty light-weights) to burn you.  Recently I read in the news that a woman was warned by police when she decided to cook her child under the midday sun on the beach.  That is, in all her intelligence as a grown woman and mother, she decided it would be a good idea to sunbathe and leave her poor, naked child to burn.  What kind of backward, primeval society must we live in when such stupid people still exist?  And what kind of idiot mother must you be to have to be warned to STOP SUNBATHING YOUR CHILD ANYMORE IT’S STARTING TO SMELL LIKE BABY MEAT AROUND HERE.

Ludicrous. It is absolutely inexcusable in this day and age to claim ignorance.  And yet in the same news there were reports of people being admitted into hospital for ‘sun burn.’  How exactly, can this happen?  Were they held under the sun against their will?  Was it a dare? Maybe they were helpless babies?  Who knows.  But it is completely ridiculous when people think they have got themselves a ‘healthy tan’ after spending the whole day in the sun.  That ‘healthy tan’ that you have just got yourself is cellular damage.  Invisible to the eye, those hours you just spent frying yourself outside equates to premature wrinkles and irreparable damage to your skin.  And while it might deceptively take on the guise of a ‘golden glow’ whilst you are still young, what you’re inevitably doing to your body is this:

 

…I’m sure you don’t need to be told that Wrinkly Brown Thing is NOT a good look. 

 

Amazing then, that people will even go as far as to pay to have their skin damaged by sun beds.  But I suppose humans are the masters of self-inflicted damage; and whilst we are digressing, let’s take a look at a quick list of other masochistic things we pay for in the name of fashion, pleasure, conformity, whatever:

•  Cigarettes (you might think you look cool now, but wait until you’re 30 with yellow teeth, bad breath, gingivitis, wrinkly skin and lung cancer.  You’ll look really cool then.)
•  Alcohol (That pot belly you’ve got there?  No you don’t ‘just need to hit the gym’ – you’ve got to stop hitting that friggin’ bottle.)
• Drugs
•  MacDonalds / Burger King / KFC / Fish and Chips Etc. (The UK is obese for a reason.)
•  Prostitutes (bad for wives, genitals, society, morale…)
• Day-time television…(Debatable, but judging from the general intelligence levels of most sit-at-home, day-time television watchers, it really does appear to melt your grey matter.)

With the amount of reckless and harmful things we do on a daily basis to ourselves and others, I’m surprised we haven’t devolved into a race of kamikaze lemmings.

(Does anyone else get the impression that I really, really believe the human race is about to devolve?)

………

Breathe…

You can tell I’m sitting indoors, in a depressing, windowless office on one of the most beautiful, sunny days of the year so far…

 

Many thanks for reading!  I promise to try and update more regularly… and in other news I’m about to re-embark on my Weight Blog, so please keep your eyes peeled! xxx

 

del.icio.us Tags: sun,heat,stupidity,tanning

What is a Calamari?

Hello again people; I wonder what new things have happened to you all in these last few weeks since I’ve been gone?  Ever since I’ve started working a 5-day week again I have found less and less time to do the things I love, including blogging.  But, all this hard work is for a good cause, I assure you.  But more about that later.

So a few weeks ago, a middle-aged man approached the reception desk, brandishing a small box of Louwhiss Brand Fried Cuttlefish Fingers.  With a very serious look on his face, he pointed to the ingredients list and asked, “what is this thing here, this…calamari?”  So I told him that it was squid.

THE END.

Ok no, not really – that would have been too easy, and we all know that nothing in customer services is ever easy.  From the confused look on his face I could tell that this man didn’t understand what ‘squid’ was, and when I tried ‘cuttlefish’ it was met with the dubious response of, “Oh, er…fish?’ 

Most other people probably would have just given up at this point; I mean, it’s barely worth the effort really.  But no, me, being the moron that I am of course, thought it would be a brilliant idea to DRAW IT.  So I set about with pen and paper to illustrate this illusive creature, the Calamari.

Initially I honestly thought I did a good job of it.  I picked up my masterpiece and waved it excitedly in front of him, expecting the look of recognition to sparkle in his eyes.  Instead, I got a mixture of shock, embarrassment and a mumbled “oh…k…never mind” before he quickly left the desk.

Bewildered, I looked at my picture again, about to launch into an internal rant with myself about how people can possibly be so ignorant as to not know what a squid looks like, even after I’ve drawn it for them…when I glanced again at the paper in front of me.     

 

 

………………………………………

 

I should probably apologise to the poor man who now thinks that there’s deformed penis-meat in our fried goods.

D’oh!

 

Note to self: You are NOT good at drawing squid.    

del.icio.us Tags: Humour,Calamari,Illustrations,Penis

Defecation Schedule…

It’s not everyday that you get to work to realise that you have been renamed.  This morning at work I was greeted by an older, female colleague who is renowned for her capacity to complain…and apparently, today I was going to be called Linda.

“Linda,” she says, “can we put a sign up in the ladies’ toilets, forbidding people to do a sh*t first thing in the morning?  Because I am fed up of being suffocated by the stink!”

I am sure I laughed out loud, but more because I wasn’t sure what the appropriate reaction was.  To be fair, our staff toilets are indeed reminiscent of two cubby-holes with a flush; the room is artificially lit with no windows and not even an extractor fan.  It also happens to be connected to the locker room, which you have to walk through before you can exit or enter the toilets themselves, meaning that if someone were to drop a turd in that near air-tight space, then anyone entering the toilets would definitely be getting some.

Is it inconsiderate to sh*t in the staff toilets knowing full well that for the next 3 hours at least, the air in there would be near toxic?  I mean if you have to go, you have to go, right?  I don’t really think it’s much of a choice thing.  Unless it’s that really strange, freaky woman who packs the vegetables; if it was her then I would hedge my bets that she was doing it for the thrill(?).

Of course I never did end up writing a sign for the toilets, but I did consider what I might have written if I did:

To All Staff:

As a courtesy to your fellow colleagues, please refrain from producing a stool in these toilets between the hours of 9.00am and 12.00pm.

Thank you for your co-operation in this matter.

Should it matter what time of the day it is?  Surely if the sneaky offender started emptying his bowels every afternoon at 2pm it would be just as pungent?  I then looked at the wording again and wondered if it could be taken too literally and we’d end up with sh*ts all over the floor.

Coincidentally, sh*tting on the floor is something else I wanted to talk about.  Some of you may or may not know that in various parts of China, toilets are still nothing more than a peg-shaped hole in the ground.  They are separated into cubicles, most of them with lockable doors, but other than that you may as well do your business into a drain in the street because that’s about as much comfort and hygiene as you will be getting.  You also have as much chance of peeing on your leg or sh*tting on your foot as the drain option as well.  But the theory is that because your privates are not touching a surface shared by millions, it is the healthier option.  It would appear then, that the smarty-pants who invented this hole forgot that not everyone can aim straight.

Consequently a lot of the workers (who come from China) are still convinced that regular, seated toilets are dirty and unhygienic (you know, as opposed to the much more sanitary option of sh*tting on your socks).  In order to combat this, many of them opt to hover over the seat in a bid to minimise contact with the toilet surface and this, in my opinion is probably the most acceptable, alternative method when sharing the same toilets with others who prefer to sit.  However, there are some individuals at my workplace who feel compelled to squat onto the toilet, feet planted either side of the seat whilst they do their business.  This offends me on too many levels; firstly this method of usage often results in big, dirty shoeprints on the seat that us sitters then have to sit on.  They could lift the seat before squatting, but for some bizarre reason they don’t.  Secondly, due to the various laws of physics the toilet is frequently assaulted by piss and sh*t that ends up everywhere other than where it should go.  And as if these two things combined are not filthy enough, the offender never cleans up after themselves, leaving the next person to contend with suspicious-looking, yellow puddles and brown smears half-way up the bowl.  For this reason alone I avoid the toilet as much as possible because I find it both revolting and infuriating when people are so inconsiderate with their mess.  On occasions where I have had to walk in on somebody’s leftovers I imagine writing a sign of my own:

Dear Toilet-Squatter,

Please refrain from sh*tting like a chimp; your continued assault on the toilet seat / floor / door, is akin to me wiping my arse with the whole toilet roll and then putting it back on the rail for you to use afterwards.  You wouldn’t like it, so don’t do it to me.

Thank you for your co-operation.

I waips my buttz widdis whole roll!

del.icio.us Tags: Toilet,Crap,humour

Work Wanted: Babysitter/Nanny/PROSTITUTE?!

First of all, a quick apology for being away for so long; I have been insanely busy lately and haven’t had any chance or energy to blog about anything!

In the latest news, I was offered some kind of bizarre promotion at work which turned out to be more of a con (and so I plan to decline), and then the strangest of things happened.

As fate would have it, I landed a very nice job with a very lovely family – but moreover I wanted to discuss the advertisement I placed which lead me to this job.  Babysitter/Nanny/Home Help was the title of my ad; aside from a brief description of myself and some photos, the main duties I outlined included taking care of children, keeping the household organised and helping out with any ad-hoc duties related to the home and family.  Since launching the ad, I have been inundated with offers and responses, most of which seem genuine and sincere.

Today, however, when checking my email I came across one particular offer that had me belly-laughing in disbelief.  I present to you the email as received (typos and all): 

 

Hi,
I am a business man and based in canary wharf. I am natively Pakistani British born of 35 yrs age. married with 3 kidz.

I am looking for a non office based social PA.

Role:
Social discussion for stress theropy in social places e.g. Pubs and resturants (free excluding salary).

Nicely dress and decent chatter, must drink at least a pint or 2 of beer.

Meeting will be always at social places.

It is not a Sex offer as job role explained above.

Must be very social and confident to hug and greeting kiss.

Reward: £60 pounds for 3 hours meeting + travel + free drinks and food.

If you appriciate the offer you can contact me.

meetings will be mostly at Canary Wharf social places and after meeting i will go home to spend time with my family and kidz.

 

As I scanned my way through the email once, and then again (to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating) I wondered where on earth in my advert had I included ‘Female Escort’ into the job description.  Looking over the email, my first thought was not how this ‘business man’ had overlooked the blatantly offensive spelling errors in the email, nor was it that he expected me to guzzle 2 pints of beer whilst chatting decently and NOT giving him sex; but rather it was how he insisted on spelling the word, ‘kids’ with a ‘z’ instead of an ‘s’.  Clearly in the case of the other words, he just wasn’t able to spell them – but this ‘z’ business was deliberate and totally obnoxious. 

Did he think it would make him look cool?  Modern and trendy perhaps?  Or maybe his 3 imaginary kidz are a little bit ‘street’ and have subsequently rubbed-off on him.  Whatever the reason, nothing he wrote after ‘I am a business man’ succeeded in making me believe he was even remotely human, let alone genuine.   

And then the icing on the cake had to be my REWARD.  My REWARD, for giving him a confident hug and a greeting kiss, and chatting drunkenly over some cheap alcohol whilst engaging in non-sex related stress therapy was £60.  After which he would toddle off home, fully satisfied to spend some quality time with his…kidz.

Like a good girl should, I will ignore his email.  But I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to reply:

Dear Business Man,

I would rather disembowel myself with a plastic spork than engage in 3 hours of lager-laced non-sex with you.  Please note for future reference that babysitters offer their services as caretakers of children, and not adult deviants with too much money.  Do not assume that by including the word ‘kidz’ in your job description that I will somehow be fooled into thinking that the job is relevant.  The very notion that you would confuse a babysitter with a personal escort makes me want to puke into your mouth.  Go home and apologise to your wife and spend that money on her, you bleeding anal passage.

Regards.

 

del.icio.us Tags: Jobs,Perverts,Babysitting

Please, Take One…

Permanent fake smile pasted on face; check.  Feet dangling from way-too-high stool; check.  Watching strange-looking people do even stranger-looking things; check.  I am definitely at work.

Chinese New Year is soon to be upon us and with that comes an array of celebrations, decorations and festivities.  At work today, we have prepared a plate of candied fruit and nuts for our customers; a traditional custom during our New Year.  Out of sheer boredom I am topping it up, alongside the plate of fortune cookies we have put out.  So far, so good.  People are enjoying the assorted fruits very much it seems, so much so that they may as well bring a doggy bag for the amount that some people are taking.

The most amusing thing though, is the fortune cookies.  For once I do not mind how many people take each, and in fact I am actively encouraging people to take as many as they would like – within reason.  But this act of generosity is revealing a very bizarre phenomenon; people are making up all sorts of stories to justify why they feel they need ten fortune cookies each.  A man stuffs five cookies into his pocket and then takes another five whilst I smile bemusedly at him.

“My son loves them,” he explains without me even asking.

“Ah, that’s nice,” I tell him. 

I suppose his son really ought to eat ten if he loves them.  Then a woman walks past and takes just one cookie, walks halfway towards the exit and feels she has to come back and tell me it’s because she has ‘three daughters.’  Again, I might have already mentioned that maths is not my strong point, but that got me really confused.

 

 

The highlight of my day happens when one lady takes a fortune cookie and presents it to her very small, very cute son.  The delight on his face at the shiny, wrapped confection is absolutely priceless.  Eyes wide, mouth gaping; his mother may as well have told him all his Christmases were coming at once.  It made me reflect on those wonderful days in my childhood where the most ordinary and mundane things would have me squealing with glee, and how things change over time.  I am almost certain that if my mother turned around whilst shopping and offered me a fortune cookie now, I would assume she’d finally lost her last marble.

All things considered, it has been a reasonably ‘normal’ day; I begin to think that I might actually go home with nothing to talk about when I get a phone call from someone, who wants to know if I ‘have the ability to slice meat thinly’.  Despite the overwhelming urge I have to describe in glorious detail, how I would go about demonstrating my ‘ability to slice meat thinly’, I opt for the usual response of, “erm…no.”  Putting down the receiver after more minutes of the same, retarded dialogue, I then get a customer who insists that I sell him a ‘Chinese suitcase’.  I try to explain to him over and over (with no visible success) that we do not sell suitcases or any travel items, let alone ‘Chinese ones’.  What is that anyway?  Some kind of bag that doubles up as a wok?  Does it squat in the corners of shopping malls and sell pirate DVDs?  After repeating myself for the fourth time, he decides to leave in a huff.

As the day draws to an end, I cross my fingers in hope as I watch a well dressed, smart-looking woman approach the reception desk.  I still don’t know why I expected anything other than complete shite to come from her mouth; perhaps it really does help to dress smartly, as long as you don’t give it away by speaking.  With a Blackberry in one hand and scribbling notes with the other, I anticipate from her a genuine question or that perhaps she has come to announce an appointment with one of the managers.  So just imagine my utter despair for mankind when she comes out with, “can I borrow your spare toilet?”  For a moment I seriously consider passing her the bin and saying, “here you are, madam; please kindly return it when you are done!”   

 

I haz a spares!

At the extraordinary rate that society is devolving, don’t be surprised if you wake up one day and find half the world has changed into monkeys. 

 

del.icio.us Tags: Chinese New Year,Stupidity,Humour