Life in the fast lane

Just when I thought things were looking up, I figured I was safe to go out of the house heading somewhere other than work this weekend. So I spent the better part of yesterday doing the rounds of various fabric outlets, spending far more than I should have on some beautiful materials which will someday be turned into something equally beautiful. As if lugging a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff around wasn't enough to test my back out, I decided to really push my luck and play with my niece.

She's two, but she's about the size of the average four year old, a mini giant who will one day be a seriously tall one. Imagine a slightly less coherent but far more opinionated Dora the Explorer, and you're getting pretty close to the hyperactive bundle of energy that my brother helped bring into this world. Ever the optimist, I thought I'd be able to manage some of our usual games - the catch and spin, the whizzy dizzy, the throw over the shoulder, the threaten to throw in the bin. It was only the last one that made me certain it probably wasn't one of my better ideas. But there's no easy way out when your arms are full of squirming, shrieking little girl and you're standing on concrete. Not like the moment when you first began to doubt your own wisdom and simply made it more fun by dropping her on the conveniently located bed.

Not content with that, I headed out and about today, driving to various locations around town. The true lightening bolt moment of the day came as I was driving on the Ring Road, along one of the three lane stretches. Driving down the left lane, I noticed signs telling me to merge right. Checking the mirrors, I waited for a speeding car to pass me, then moved over at about the same time as the car in front of me pulled in front of the speeder. Funny, it was kind of like it happens in the movies - slow motion, obvious what the next step would be at every stage. Rather than braking, the speeder began to shift into the right lane. They didn't check their mirrors, or look out their window, even, and didn't see the car that was already in that lane until it was almost too late. With bare millimetres between the two cars, they both suddenly became aware of what was going on. The car already in the right lane swerved a little away, but the speeder, as they had done all along, completely over reacted. Braking hard and wrenching left, the driver lost control of their car. Smoke was screaming from the locked wheels as they skidded and spun across my lane and the left lane which had not yet ended. By the time they reached the emergency lane, they were facing the wrong way and started to cross back into the left lane before coming to a stop, at last.

You can imagine what braking from 100 in a hurry did to my back. Even the adrenaline kick from being so close to potential serious danger didn't stop it hurting as I watched the speeder once again getting back up to and then beyond the speed limit. The few things that I had to get at the supermarket were almost the end of me, or that's how it felt. I've been back in the horizontal position on the couch again since I got home. The pinging sensation that I felt when I got up earlier tonight make me think I'm still going to be sore tomorrow. The cars avoided damage, but I apparently did not. The car that had sparked all the drama in the first place probably hadn't even noticed what was going on, disappearing around a bend before the speeder had even finished spinning.

Just one of those days

Some days, you wonder why you bother. The days when you don't want to get out of bed. When you don't want to leave the house. You don't want to spend two hours standing talking in circles with one of the world's most persistently annoying people, while his wife is in tears beside him protesting that you don't know what she's going through. Actually, you know in excruciating detail what she's going through, because you've heard it for the past two hours. And that's just on this one day, in this one meeting. When he husband called you four times the day before, you heard it again then. And when he comes back into the office later that afternoon for another crack, you know exactly what he's going to say. Because part of his persistent annoyance is his ability to say exactly the say thing, over and over again, without even varying the wording.

This particular man is one of those people who is a shade of grey. Not even a shade with an exotic of impressive name, like French Grey. He's just grey. You get the feeling that he repeats himself so often, because experience has shown him that nobody really listens to him the first time around. He's one of life's victims, the sort of person that nothing ever goes right for. I have to wonder if it's a chicken or the egg situation though; which came first, him being a boring, anal retentive, leech, or his inability to get people on-side? Scratch the wondering, I think I know.

So, it was one of those days. The kind where you work hard all day, even if it's just prying lose the tick of a purchaser who has burrowed into your skin and is slowly poisoning you, but don't actually achieve anything - not even getting rid of the tick, or any of the others like him who have filled your voicemail box while you've been dealing with him. A day where you get home and want to have a drink to get rid of the day, only to find that there is nothing in the house to drink, not even the dregs of a month old bottle of wine in the fridge that was saved for cooking.

It's the kind of day that can make you start looking for a new job, only to realise that your references are all out of date, and you don't think putting your current boss down would do the trick. Where you find quite a few jobs that seem pretty well paid that you think you're qualified for, but you also don't think you should apply for them because you know you're studying and that you're going to need to take some time off soon to deal with the practical rounds of teaching that will be coming up soon - something that new employers won't like at all.

Yep. It's just one of those days.

Monumental Stupidity

One of the hazards - or perks, depending on your point of view - of my work is that I get to deal with the public on a semi-regular basis. Most of the people I deal with are just ordinary folk, going about their business and interacting with me in the way you'd expect as they attempt to get the designs for their homes approved. Some, though, are special.

Take the phone call I had late last week. It was on my direct line - you have to have been running an office on a mobile phone connection for more than 6 months to know just how exciting that statement is! Direct line! Luxury! - and I answered with the usual greeting.

"I was just wondering if you're back from the Christmas break yet?" asked the dimwit on the other end of the line. He is, to date, the most ridiculous person I've dealt with. One of my colleagues snorted when she heard. And fair enough too.

Then there was the landscaper who came into the office today to tell me that someone else had damaged the storm water system, and water was gushing down the hill near where he'd been working. I went up to take a look and discovered that a neighbouring developer had tapped into the water mains on that street and yes, water was gushing down the street, but not from the point where the main had been tapped. It was burbling up from the middle of a nature strip, right about the point where I could see signs that the landscaper's backhoe had been operating. I haven't confirmed anything yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it might not have been solely the neighbours' fault that the water was flowing so freely.

There's the serial complainer, who comes in every Monday with a variation on the themes of 'cut the grass so my kid can play in land that doesn't belong to me without me worrying that he'll get bitten by a snake that I'm the only one to have seen', or 'can't you make that person build on their land?' Or perhaps my personal favorite, when is the phone going to be connected? Because I have a crystal ball, and more clout than him in this area, even though for the past 6 months he has been told that we don't know any more about it than he does.

There's the couple who called me back in November to complain that someone had been dumping soil on their (unfenced) lot. I arranged to get the dumper to clear it, but in the meantime it rained. And it kept on raining. Every time a bobcat appeared on site, down came the rain. Until eventually, someone else started dumping. It was inevitable, really. Vacant land in an estate under construction is always treated as a dumping ground for its neighbours. You'd think they'd have learnt from the first lot. But no. A third lot was dumped there over the Christmas break. And suddenly, after I'd done the hard yards and gotten 2 of the 3 dumpers to clear their spoil, it was my fault. I was supposed to advise this couple where they could send the invoice for having the remaining gravel cleared. It was disappointing that they hadn't been aware that we did not undertake the maintenance and security of the land that they were the proud owner of. Have they never looked across the road and seen the mountain of crap that is growing at the dead-end of a street? Or perhaps they might have noticed that our maintenance guys struggle with the land that we still do own, let alone the stuff that we've sold. She should talk to the serial complainer. He's certainly noticed.

Honestly, apart from the stupidity - which is rampant - I've never met a pettier bunch of people than some of the residents of this estate. They complain to each other about us. They complain to us about each other. Occasionally, they will band together and just complain. Loudly. Over and over again. Because apparently, repeating the abuse changes the response into something more favourable to your cause. Yelling at me, yeah, that's going to make me continue to go above and beyond in an attempt to help you. Abuse me now, and then expect me to speed up the approval process for you? It's only going to end in tears. And I think they might be mine.

Yes, I've got January-itus, the illness that afflicts those who have not had more than a week off work in six months. The disease that grabs you when you walk back into the office that first day of the new year, knowing that most people you know are still lazing at home for another week. Knowing that you'll run out of things to do because your industry doesn't fir up until the third week of the year. I've also got off-probation blues, a sense that perhaps I could be doing better elsewhere now I've got a whole six months of experience behind me. The uncertainty that if I jumped ship, like I'm tempted to do, I would end up somewhere that made me actually think, that challenged me, that demanded I put in the hours that I have always hated and avoided.

And in all of this, only one thing is certain. By this time next week, I will have dealt with more people. And more of them will be completely batty than will be sane. Oh the humanity.