Betty goes postal!

My extended absence from the blogosphere may have been mistakenly interpreted to mean that I had nothing to write about – wrong!!! I’ve been frantically engaged in developing ‘income streams’ (what a wanky term that is!) earning a living, socialising and trying to relax when I can.

Reality check time. There are some rather creaky limbs in my family tree and I think that’s the root of my problems, dammit. All my other systems are disgustingly healthy, but my joints have let me down rather badly. BIG SIGH.

Many weeks back, in my role as Faithful Sidekick to TJ (a local cleaning contractor) I took over so that TJ could have a well-earned break for the first time in a year. Coincidentally, I’d just scored a casual gig at the local Post Office, sorting mail. Oops! All of a sudden I spent the mornings at the Post Office and the remaining daylight hours (yes, all of them!) cleaning holiday houses, cabins and commercial premises.

The consequence? Exhaustion and cripplitude. Not that I’m complaining. This is the time of year in Mallacoota when employment is hard to come by, and I was embarrassingly over-employed. I even had to knock back a couple of days of teaching!

The toll on my ageing body, however, has been a bit dramatic. Sleepless hours of agonising aches really suck elephant bums. So…. After TJ returned, I pulled back a bit from the unrelenting dunny-cleaning/shower-scrubbing/floor-mopping/bed-changing treadmill. After a few days I could sleep properly and walk normally again, and hold a knife and fork without experiencing electric shocks sizzling up and down my arms (YARK!!!)

So…. I’ve had to be sensible, and limit the amount of cleaning work I do. Of course, I can’t possibly live on the earnings from 3 or 4 hours of cleaning each week, so……

Betty’s gone postal! *maniacal laughter* Look out, world! My steady work at the moment is at the Post Office, and I’m loving it. I'm working the counter as well as mail-sorting - a very steep learning-curve. Post Offices do so many different things. I’m getting to know the people around town, I don’t have to take work home and it’s a steady income. I work with lovely people and I knock off around the middle of the day – and I don’t have to make bloody BUNK BEDS all the time! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

The view from the office...

Armed and dangerous, and ready for the best views from whichever 'office'
I happen to be calling home for a couple of hours. So - why so serious??? 

I used to think I had a fabulous view from Level 6 in Infrastructure House in Canberra. I did. The Canberra skyline gave way to a view of the Brindabellas that was quite a restorative when I got into wrist-slashing mode during weekly reporting time. It was pretty damned good, I have to say.As lovely as it was, though, it was the same view every day, even allowing for variations in the time of day/season/weather.

My view from work these days, however, leaves that view  (those views???) for dead. As pictures speak louder than words, this will be a pictorial post. Try not to be too envious!

The view of the back yard at Bruce's 'Fisherman's Cottage'.
This is what I see if I look up from cleaning the dunny.  Noice.

Flat 6, Bruce's Waterside Flats

'Raheen'

'Oli's'

'Coota Views' (downstairs)

'Coota Views' (downstairs)

'Coota Views' (upstairs kitchen) Imagine seeing this every time you put the kettle on!

'Chez Tredgold'

'Chez Tredgold' again

'Tangara'

'Sylvan Waters'

Adobe Mudbrick Holiday Fats

Adobe Mudbrick Flats again

 So anyway - my extremely hard life is probably making you cry into your coffee, so I'll stop now. Sorry folks... Have a good one! 

Dunnies are my currency

At Betka Beach just after first light. Stunning.

Sitting here in front of a roaring fire, kitten on my lap, Emma Kirkby singing Hildegard of Bingen’s greatest hits on the cd player, it’s hard to remember that times are a bit tough. I'm having far too much fun.

My meditation on money the other day was a little unsettling, but I live in Paradise, and I guess that’s the trade-off. Traffic jams/stress/no time to think vs bliss/no money. A no-brainer really. So, to stop myself thinking in dollars and getting all agitated, I think in dunnies now, and that is far more fun and less scary. Here in the Republic of Betty, dunnies have become my currency, and of course that makes me giggle. 

***For non-Aussies, ‘dunny’ is a slang term for toilet, specifically the long-drop or can-type affair that stands in a vine-covered shed in old-style Aussie back yards, and hosts redback spiders beneath its seat. That’s not the sort of dunny I’m referring to here. My dunnies are more modern and less spiderous. Made of gleaming porcelain or ceramic goodness, my dunnies half-flush or full-flush. This is quite a relief, as I clean several of them each week.

A load of firewood is a 5 dunny expense, but will last almost half the winter if I’m careful. So really, a winter of glowing warmth is about a dozen dunnies’ worth. Not bad. A bottle of gas for cooking that will probably last a year? 5 dunnies.

A bottle of wine is around half a dunny, unless I go for the expensive full-dunny quality stuff (which I don’t). It’s still a kind of expensive purchase though.

A trip to the doctor is about 2 ½  dunnies, and Medicare refunds one of them. A kilo of chicken breast fillets will set me back about two-thirds of a dunny (i.e., I have to clean for about 40 minutes). 5-6 weeks worth of cat bickies for Basil is a 2 ½ dunny purchase. (Perhaps I could save on that if I let him catch his own dinner….. *slapping self*) A tank of petrol? Two dunnies, but it’ll last me for weeks around Mallacoota.

A not-too-flash entry-level DSLR camera with a couple of lenses is roughly a three dozen dunny purchase, and won’t be happening in the foreseeable future.  Why would I bother, though, when my humble phone (bought in the old currency when I was still a half-mad fulltime teacher) takes photos like these:

*sigh* I LOVE this place so so much!

My friend Deb was here over the Anzac weekend, and we went to Betka Beach for some beautiful free sunrise viewing. We arrived a little after first light and stayed a couple of hours, and played photographers with our phones. What fabulous dunny-free chicken soup for the soul it was!

Of course, with the amount of free time I have complementing my cleaning gigs, I probably have time to write a best-seller that will earn me mega-dunnies – in which case I’ll get one of those snazzy cameras to capture some really good pics of the birds around here.

Life is good.

My Brillo(TM) Career

In this latest recreation of myself I am, as you know, a cleaner of holiday accommodation. Ironically, when I applied for a job as a cleaner in Sydney about 35 years ago, armed only with  my HSC, I was turned away with a “Sorry, but you’re overqualified.” Nowadays, with university quals and careers as a high school teacher and a public servant under my belt, I am somehow no longer overqualified, and have been let into a secret that I’m now going to let you into as well – cleaning is a great job!

Far from feeling menial or insignificant in my ‘humble’ new career, I proudly shoulder my broom and strike out to meet whatever stains and challenges the day holds – with a song, a laugh and a car full of cleaning products.

It’s a job of contrasts. One minute my gaze is firmly fixed down a loo at unspeakable things, and the next, I’m enjoying some of the most spectacular water views in Mallacoota. This “chicken soup for the eyeballs” is a powerful remedy for the vilest visuals in the bathrooms and on the balconies around town. The greasiest stalactites sprouting from the underside of BBQ grills cannot dampen my enthusiasm, when all I need to do is raise my eyes from the gruesomeness and feast upon a silver-sequinned expanse of clear blue water; on squadrons of pelicans wheeling overhead, and on many-pointed stars of sunlight bouncing off boats bobbling or chugging about on the inlet. Pure magic.

Perhaps cleaning’s not for everybody. There are certain universals in holiday accommodation that can be a bit confronting at first:

• Toenails – I don’t know why, but every holiday flat has them, clipped or ripped. Yuk.
• The pubic hairs of strangers. Yuk again.
• Toothpaste spatter on the mirrors. Ditto.

Notice I haven’t mentioned poo or spew – that’s because they are fairly rare! Most people have enough pride to leave their accommodation in pretty good shape.

So – how does cleaning compare with teaching? Here are some things I’ve realised.

Cleaning	Teaching
Instant results	(Very) delayed gratification – it’s usually weeks, often months or even YEARS till you realise you’ve done an amazing job!
No homework	More homework than schoolwork *sigh*
Flexibility	An institutionalised life dictated by bells
Brain is free to indulge in flights of fancy	Brain explodes - frequently

I saved the best thing about this job till last – it’s right here in Mallacoota! I may be cleaning up the toenails and left-behind pubes of holidaymakers, but at the end of the day, those poor suckers have had to go back to their stressful lives elsewhere, while I’m already Hone Sweet Home! Wheeeeeee!

It's happened! (Actually, it happened a couple of weeks ago, but I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to blog it, so let me try and drum up an air of spontaneity anyway, ok?)

It's happened – wheeeeeeeeeee! I have a new job! (It's not strictly a new job, coz it's where I worked for 8 years before I took a break from teaching – but it's sort of new, so let me pretend, ok?)

My return to teaching has been a bit of a mixed bag. The biggest change has been trying to get used to the ACT college system, and while it certainly has its good points, things like the BSSS website have done my head in.

Canberra is a Public Service city, and the BSSS is a kick-in-the-guts reminder of that. The bureaucracy that underpins the college system, and the website that is its government-to-teacher interface, is the most user-unfriendly, totally unintuitive, faceless, soulless juggernaut in the whole of the National Capital.

The school where I currently teach began as a small community school. It's now a lot bigger than that, but it still has a warm fuzzy small-community-school feel that is at odds with the hard-edged bureaucratic bullshit that it has to work within. (sorry – “within which it has to work”.) Its clientele isn't sure whether it wants to be 'small-town' or 'big city' – but, trust me, the two make uncomfortable bedfellows.

So I'm moving on. Or rather, moving back. Going back to the place where I taught for eight years. Back to a system I know and feel comfortable with (with which I feel comfortable. I know proper grammar lol).

Am I going round in circles? Is it ever really possible to 'go back'? Well - I'm about to find out, and I'm quite excited in a sort of bittersweet way. One of my lovely students gave me choccies and a card yesterday. It read "Thank you for being such an awesome, down to earth, friendly teacher. I will miss you heaps but I wish you the very best in your new school."

Watch this space.

After the Panic...

Something very strange happened today.

Last week was not a good week. It was, in fact, double-plus ungood, and then some. After Tuesday's panic attack I came home and let the poison out – all the crap that I'd bottled up came pouring out in a torrent of tears. On Wednesday morning I was wearing my Scare the Children face – big puffy froggy eyes – and felt as drained as one of Dracula's favourites, so I stayed home, exhausted. Same on Thursday.

By Friday I was physically, if not mentally, in a fit state to return to school. On playground duty I tried to stay close to the walls, so no-one could come up behind me. It was shithouse. No Year 10 on the timetable for that day, though, which was a plus. And then there was the weekend.

After lunch on Saturday with some ex-teaching colleagues, affectionately termed 'the coven', I went to school today, reassured, and armed with an arsenal of strategies, 'just in case'. (Thanks, ladies – you are wonderful!) Nice Mark took me out for dinner on Saturday night, and on Sunday I declared war on Cat Piddle in my house. Quite a productive weekend, it was...

And then... I taught Year 10 this morning. Yes, I was nervous – how would they behave after last week's disaster? How would I behave? Could we face each other, or would one/some of us run screaming from the room?

This is where the weird thing happened.

It's very hard to explain – there was nothing tangible – and yet I felt somehow closer to the class. It was as if a barrier of some sort had been removed, and they were more accepting of me. All I can think is that suddenly, after I explained to them what triggers my panic attacks, they saw me as a real person rather than an authority figure? Who knows...very very weird.

Here, I think, is one of the strengths of my school – a lot of the kids are not very academic; they struggle, and many of them actively resist the academic rigours of the place. BUT – amazingly, this group seems to have recognised that particular frailty of mine and decided that it makes me more real(?) human(?) or something. In many places that would be seen as an exploitable vulnerability. These kids didn't see it that way. There seemed to be a real 'connection' in our class discussion today. I'm not saying they were perfect little angels or anything like that – I still threatened them with Fatal Beatings and they still rolled their eyes – but it was different somehow. Hard to put my finger on it, but it was totally unexpected, and a huge relief.

Maybe I will survive my return to the classroom after all.

Post-Unaugural (black and) Blues

A week after my spill on the way to Unaugural 8.0, the cankle has reduced enough for me to get my bike boot on again, but has too many sore spots to make riding feasible right now. Besides, the lovely James has my bike safely stashed where I can do it no more harm for a little while. (You're a star, James!)

What a week it's been. My first thought after crashing was “Fark – my ankle!” The second was “Omigod, the soup!” (5 litres of the stuff in plastic bottles in my saddlebags) and the third was “Oh SHIT – how the hell am I going to get around at school? I've been in the job for only 2 weeks – I can't possibly take time off!”

So... in order of those concerns -

Number One - The ankle – or 'Cankle', as Julian Smee so correctly called it – nothing broken, apparently. Pretty colours though! Have a look at the pics, one week after the event.

The foot...and the Cankle...

Boomerang Boy hired me a set of crutches to get me through the week, and for a couple of days I worked at building biceps and deltoids that would give Arnie Schwarzenegger a run for his money. OUCH! After 2 days on crutches my shoulders were screaming. I was whimpering in a corner, trying to hide from the dreaded crutches and rubbing emu oil into my aching, screaming delts.

Number Two - the soup – those big plastic juice bottles are pretty robust. They did not explode on impact as 200kg of loaded motorbike flung me hard onto the gravel. They also did not prevent the ensuing lever and blinker carnage on the bike, dammit. The soup survived, and some of those ausmoto folk actually got to breakfast upon it – a hearty start to a foggy and hungover Sunday after our wild and raucous Saturday night.

And the biggie - Number Three - getting around at school... OMFG!

The staffroom is at the top of a rather steep flight of stairs. The school (as schools tend to be) is rather spread out. Most of my classes are in the one block, but up and down stairs. As for getting to the library for Year 9 Geography assignment research, or the chapel for, well, God-type things, or my post on the bloody school cross country circuit.... aaaaaaaaaagrh - it was agonising!

However – my lovely staffroom colleagues mothered me and swapped classrooms with me... most of them are half my age, and they figured the Old Girl needed looking after, and got playfully stroppy when I tried my Independent Tough Old Bird routine – thanks folks, you're wonderful. They found it highly amusing, though, when I hopped across the staffroom with a thermal mug full of coffee in the pocket of the Coles supermarket eco-friendly cloth bag that I hung around my neck to carry all my stuff in (so classy!), and didn't spill a drop!

Also – I was so incredibly moved and totally impressed by the lovely manners of the kids at my school. Kids I don't even teach would dash to hold doors open for me as I hopped about the place on my crutches. I heard it so often that the words “Do you need any help, miss?” and “Can I carry anything for you, miss?” are still echoing in my head. What beautiful, beautiful young people.

By about Wednesday I was ready for the moon-boot that the hospital sold me after The Willy-Willy Incident last year – just as well I kept it! The foot was still mega-swollen, but I could put a bit of weight on it. By Friday I could walk on the moon-boot without a crutch.

Today I can abandon the moon-boot. My foot will fit into my joggers. In fact, it fits into my bike boot again, which is great news. It is, however, still multicoloured and still too painful to be relied upon to hold me up, so I've extended my crutch hire for a week. Thank goodness the new job pays well – I've also had to extend the hire of that nice little red car for a week.

Betty Goes to School

Oh! I need a holiday!!

I knew the first week would be tough, and I was right. The fact that I'm still standing somehow is a miracle. I've had five years in which to learn how to slow down, after all – and now I need to start thinking and moving at warp speed again. Tough call.

My first class was surreal. Shakespeare. Macbeth, to be precise. My heart was thumping as the Head of English introduced me to the class. And then Teacher Betty took over. It was so weird! Within minutes I was Shakespearing - Macbething like a pro, as if the intervening five years of public service had never happened.

In the four school days of last week I think I did more work than I had in the previous four weeks – four months, even. It was non-stop – dashing from one class to the next; trying to put names to faces; trying to retrain my bladder to only need to pee at recess or lunchtime if I didn't have a playground duty (I spent a lot of last week wondering when the hell I would get a minute to pee!); trying to jump into the shoes of the bloke who had just left; trying to get used to the routines, the personalities, the huge administrative workload. I had parent teacher interviews on Thursday night, playground duties on Thursday and Friday. I came home exhausted every afternoon, and by Friday was soooooo ready for the weekend! Pass the vitamins (and the Panadol!)

It's good to be back. I think.

Between Jobs

I shouldn't be gleeful, really I shouldn't – but between jobs is a nice place to be! I guess it helps that I actually have a new job to go to, otherwise I mightn't be feeling quite so jubilant.

My last day in the Public Service was spent filling out exit thingies and getting signatures from all over the place to say that I didn't have any library books, didn't owe the department any money and wouldn't blab any secrets (like I know any!)

After a lovely farewell afternoon tea I walked out of there for the last time, handing in my access pass to the security guards downstairs.

The Public Service is weird. There's always someone on leave and someone at work, so my feeling the next morning was not of unemployed glee – it was more like being on leave. How very deflating. I keep telling myself that I couldn't go back there even if I wanted to, but until the new job takes the place of the old one I think I am doomed to feel as if I am still just having a week off.

I've had a whole week to clear my head now, and in that time have: had a weekend in the Blue Mountains; spent a couple of days in Albury celebrating a 'significant' birthday (not mine!); done some reading; had a flu shot; pottered round the house - and the biggie - tried to clear a study space.

Hah! What a joke that's been - there is no space in my house! None! Every available cupboard is full. Every available surface is covered. My 'Chuck Ten' decluttering exercise several months ago was a dismal failure, and I have expanded to the limits of my space. In fact, the outer limits are bulging rather dangerously. My hovel is a bit like Mr Creosote, the World's Fattest Man, (cf Monty Python's Meaning of Life) and the most wafer thin addition to the clutterpile may well set off a hideous and messy Big Bang. Aaaargh! There goes the neighbourhood.

But now, despite all that, it's onto the next chapter. Next week looms. Next Tuesday morning I will walk into my new workplace, not knowing where the rolls are kept, where the photocopier is, who the kids are, where I'm supposed to be, who is who, what is what and what the heck my part in all of it is – and have to hit the ground running – adventures ahoy!

Stocktake

For the last five years I've worked in an office in the middle of the city. All that is about to change, and I'm doing that inevitable thing that I suppose everyone does when they know something is about to come to an end - taking stock.

Things I will miss:

The early morning crowd:
- the man who drives the street sweeper car who gives me a cheery wave every morning
- the man with the limp who delivers newspapers, and who always says hello
- the security guards at the front of my building
- the magpies in Garema Place
- the pigeons who do a great job of cleaning up puddles of drunken vomit (are they looking for the inevitable carrots as they paddle and peck through it?)

The interesting inner-city characters who haunt Garema Place:
- Rudy the Poem Man
- The Crouching Man. I never did discover what he was doing all day every day, crouching in the street, taking notes. I peered over his shoulder once, and he was looking at a sheaf of notes in his hand, written in red and blue marker pen. “They will see something that looks like the Flight Centre”, said the notes. They? Who? The returning Mother Ship? Invading aliens?
- The Statue Man
- The Backwards Walking Man
- The Crying Russian Lady

The egg & bacon rolls from Jina's Cafe
The salads from Chicken Gourmet
The L'Occitane shop

Things I won't miss:

The beggars in Garema Place who sit on the ground talking on their mobile phones, sipping coffee/coke and smoking cigarettes, while calling out to everyone who walks past "Excuse me, do you have any spare change?"

The people who try to sell you things in Garema Place - Jesus, Socialism, Gym memberships...

The broken glass/mess that litters the streets early in the morning

Puddles of drunken vomit

My Public Service job (although I will miss a lot of the lovely people I work with)

After next Friday, it's Onwards and Upwards, so long to the city, and starting the next chapter in my life. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Adventures ahoy!

This little piggy went ennui ennui ennui...

It seems rather a long time since I said anything about my job situation. It still sucks. Didn’t even get an interview for the first teaching position I went for – not even an interview!

The ‘other government department’ I’d applied to back in January was resolutely silent. (Turns out, when I phoned them after weeks and weeks of silence, that they’d apparently undergone a restructure, and somehow neglected to tell me that the position was no longer available… Unfortunately, that is very typical Public Service stuff…) So anyway, I applied to another school, and BINGO – got an interview! A very positive interview it was, too, and I felt good about it until I heard, about a week later, from an ‘inside source’, that the boss wanted to hire someone else – someone who didn’t wear bike gear to a ride-in ride-out 45 minute interview at an unfamiliar place in the middle of a work day.

And then my inside source said, a few days later, after much intense lobbying, that things were looking a little more optimistic. That was last Thursday. There’s been a deathly silence since then, and you know what? I’m kind of over it. Do I really want to work for someone who’s silly enough to think that I would turn up in a classroom looking like some kind of Hell’s Angel? (and, quite apart from anything else, is more concerned about the way I might dress than the way I teach?)

So, as my optimism fades and I start looking forward to my next ride to Phillip Island, I wonder how to beat the ennui that characterises my current job. And the distinct lack of prospects that accompany said ennui.

Yet another government dept has shown a flicker of interest in me – no more money than I’m currently earning, but a change of scenery would be nice – the possibility of promotion at some later stage - and a transfer of leave benefits/superannuation and all that jazz… I think I shall encourage that flicker and see if I can fan it into a flame.

Watch this space. Again.

At the Crossroads - a dilemma

Dilemma dilemma dilemma. Here are the main points:

I’m miserable in my current job. Have been for a long time.

A teaching position (immediate start) has arisen unexpectedly. It’s full-time, ongoing, not far to travel.

I still miss some aspects of teaching (and still don’t miss some others).

Did I mention that I’m miserable in my current job?

I currently have an application in with another department. I just found out their recruitment process has been put ‘on hold’ and they hope to get around to short-listing for interview in 2-3 weeks (applications closed almost 2 weeks ago). That's the Public Service for you... a deadline is as elastic as - as elastic.

Do I apply for the teaching job and chuck in the glorious public service career? I took a ten grand pay cut to become a public servant five years ago, and the only thing it has going for it is flexibility – of working hours, of leave arrangements – that sort of thing. The other flexibility (one that really bugs me) is the approach to deadlines. As far as I'm concerned, a deadline is a deadline is a deadline. You have to be a teacher to get that, I guess.

I’m weighing up the pros and cons of returning to teaching…

PROs
Considerably more money.

Professional respect: I'm tired of the Powers That Be looking at my 'rank' here and assuming I must be mentally deficient. I don't need micro-managing and I am quite capable of writing a coherent sentence all by myself. I bloody taught kids how to do it for years.

Ownership of my work.

I love teaching.

Lots of holidays (even though you spend half of them catching up/planning ahead/doing professional development).

CONs
Lack of flexibility – you get leave during school holidays when things are more expensive and everywhere is full of kids and holidaying families. Your working hours are not-negotiable. The school bell, not your bladder, determines when you can go and pee – that’s an inflexibility that's hard to handle!

No more Phillip Island for me – both World Superbikes and motoGP happen during term time. Could also mean no Wintersun. Would put a big hole in my motorcycling social life – no, a HUGE one.

Have to take work home. Kiss your evenings and much of your weekends goodbye during term time.

So...
You know, that hasn’t helped one bit. I guess it won’t hurt to do an application for the teaching gig and leave it in the lap of the gods. If I get an interview, and if I am offered the job, I don’t have to take it. It mightn’t even get to that, right?

In the meantime, applications close next Monday - that's only six more nights of tossing and turning on the horns of this dilemma dilemma dilemma.

Deadbeats and Deadlines

Working in the public service - some people would call that a contradiction in terms, and there are times I'm inclined to agree.

Time travels at a different pace in the world of government. The people at the top apparently don't have enough of it, the people at the bottom are flat out with menial and mind-numbing administrative tasks that no-one else can be bothered with, and there appears to be a swathe of middle-ranking people who, as far as I can see, spend their days drinking coffee and swanning about looking busy and important, but not actually doing much. Some jobs have an unreasonably frantic pace, while others could be done easily by a snail on Valium (often a fairly highly-paid snail on Valium...)

I've noticed that the seriously busy people tend to be too busy to tell the world that they're drowning in work. It's the ones with nothing to do who make the most noise.

There's one person I know whose voice rises about 20 decibels whenever a phone call is related to work. It's deafening. The bellowing actually drowns out the loud music I have coming through the earphones that I have jammed into my ears as a last resort to try and block it out. One or two of the tasks I have in my hideously unengaging paid employment demand concentration. When the Bellower is in full flight I can't hear the conversation of a colleague who might be standing right next to me. I've developed an almost Pavlovian response to the ringing of the Bellower's phone, and leap for my earphones whenever she picks up the handset. Ah, the joys of an open plan office.

The same Bellower can be heard from the other side of the room when engaged in work-related talk - or when explaining to new staff what her very busy and important role in the organisation is. I began to think perhaps she had a hearing problem. Maybe she was unaware of how loud she actually was. Maybe I was being mean and unfair. Then one day she took a call that she clearly didn't want anybody else to hear. She really should have continued to bellow in her usual way. I would've headed straight for the earphones and cranked up the volume. Instead, I found myself straining to hear her very interesting secret conversation, and marvelling at how quiet she could be. No, I'm not going to reveal what the conversation was about. I only managed to catch a few key words here and there, and had to fill in the gaps for myself, with wild imaginings and great leaps of logic. It's probably safe to assume that there weren't really any pole-dancers, gerbils or cans of whipped cream in that conversation.

And then there's the Princess. The Princess has a demanding job keeping track of a very important person. This makes her every bit as important as her boss. This is why it's imperative that she takes some time out every hour to abandon her ringing phone and stand outside smoking. Or doing her make-up. Or shopping while deadlines come and go, and other people answer her phone for her. And she has this really intense way of interacting over the most trivial things. She drops her chin and stares up through her lashes, a la Princess Di, and says things like 'I think I'll get a coffee now. I can tell I'm going to need one before I can [answer this ringing phone, do this report etc etc etc]'

Speaking of deadlines... as an ex-teacher I have a very healthy respect for deadlines. They actually mean something to me. I can't imagine blithely wandering off to class 10 minutes late while 25 or 30 adolescents run riot, and then not having any work for them to do because I was too busy talking on the phone to prepare a lesson. I can't imagine not getting exams marked in time to get reports written. I can't imagine turning up late to a parent teacher interview and not having my material ready.

Civilisation might not fall if a deadline is missed (well, I suppose it could, if it involved heads of governments and nuclear weapons and so on), but at the very least it appears unprofessional - and it decreases the turnaround time for the poor sucker who gets the work after you. It's unfair. When that poor sucker happens to be me, week after week, I get mad. There's no way my job really needs me to be at work for 10 or 11 hours in a day. But 11 hour days happen when little TGs (Tinpot Gods) think they are too important to have to bother with deadlines.

And the next time a certain TG scowls in horror, to see a minion of my lowly level in his office (at my manager's request, mind you), I may just go postal.