highlights from work, part 2

“We know you are waiting. Please continue to hold.”

- the weirdness of this hold message cannot be conveyed in words without emphasising the petulance of the “we know!” part.

*

“I took a taxi from the airport. The others drove the rental car and got lost. This may have been due to V’s navigational skills.”

- from the feedback form for one of the tour hotels last year, under “Ease to find”

*

“Disconcerted by sight of PVC clad ♀ outside venue, although sight of fit runner ♀ in morning was calming! Grapefruit a bit tinny. Air not fresh. But we all slept well!”

- funniest hotel feedback form ever.

*

“Please note that to help us give you a better service, we may ask for certain details including your age, gender, race, marital status and religious beliefs.”

- why the @£$%! does a London borough town council telephone information service require these details under any circumstances?

*

“I don’t have 5 single rooms! Who gave you my number?”

- the most bizarrely accusational guest house owner I have ever spoken to. Lady, if you can’t accommodate 5 of us in separate rooms, you could just say so… also, your number is on the internet.

*

K (on phone): “Hi, could I speak to Mr M. Fox please? …Fox. …FOX. …F-O-X. Like, small, red animal. Yes… Fox. Thank you.“

- either the receptionist was profoundly deaf, or… I don’t know. I reckon even very stupid people should be able to hear to word “Fox”. But hey I may be wrong…

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highlights from work

(over the phone) “Forgive me for being personal, but are you South African?”

- a bizarre stage door receptionist chap from Leeds. I didn’t even know what to say.

*

D: I can’t make the scanner work! How does it work?
P: Okay you need to put your document here, then press…
D: (interrupting) Oh, it’s scanned already, but where has it gone?!

- somehow this cracked everyone in the office up.

*

(phone rings and I answer) “Good afternoon, XYZ*, how can I help?”
(voice coming simultaneously from phone and behind me) “Oh god, I’ve dialled the wrong number!”

- I turn around to see one of my managers on her mobile. We both die laughing.

* where XYZ represents my company name, withheld to protect the innocent

*

M, while labelling envelopes: Well this isn’t going to get anywhere… “N.B., Plymouth College, Plymouth College, Plymouth”.

*

Me: So is our budget for hotels higher since N is sorting out his own accommodation most nights?
Y: No because we still have to pay him that ridiculous allowance nonsense… -looks at boss- I mean, the very sensible allowance nonsense.

*

“The only potential problem with this room is that there are some pillars in the middle of it. Of course, since you’re holding auditions there, anyone who bumps into pillars can just be cut there and then…”

- a very perspicacious venue manager in London who rented us a dance hall

*

and my personal favourite:

Me (on phone with a dance school): Hi, I’m just calling to find out if we can send you some leaflets for your students, about auditions that we have coming up?
Admin guy: I don’t think you should, because the students do their own performances every summer…
Me: Oh okay, that’s fine then, thanks! -about to hang up-
Admin guy: …and they’re not very good.

- in D’s words, when I recounted this to her: “You don’t want our students, they’re shit.”

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back to basics

You know your sanity is at a low, low ebb when you find yourself opening your food cupboard in search of your green tea, murmuring “green tea green tea green tea green tea green tea” under your breath repeatedly while staring blankly at the open cupboard, and doing so for a few minutes on autopilot before actually getting the green tea out to make your drink.

-is mildly mortified-

*

It always comes down to the people, doesn’t it?

I like my colleagues. I very much like my marketing manager, who is acerbically wry and suitably jaded for someone whose job is to churn out appropriate rubbish for the press, while still managing to be really personable and easy to get along with - no mean feat for a cynical person - and this is fortunate, because he’s my line manager at the moment. The other interns, and the temp development officer who just started a week after I did, are very lovely. We chat easily on pub nights and are beginning those slow, slow agonising painful steps towards getting to know new people.

Nothing changes the fact, however, that my nakama are all far away. Some are closer - some are close enough for spur-of-the-moment visits, frequent or infrequent, and I am very grateful for that; more and more though my thoughts keep dwelling on the people I love who aren’t here with me in London, which is… all the people I love.

I keep thinking, I want to see ____, I want to be with ______, I wish _______ were here, I really want to hear from _______, I wonder what ________ is doing now (insert various names as thoughts wander). Sometimes it’s people I’ve not seen or talked to for ages, sometimes people I’ve chatted with just lately, sometimes, even, people I’ve seen lately; maybe it’s the recent memory of the meeting that puts them oddly in the forefront of my mind. There are friends with whom I feel I have only kept up a friendship because we have both made the effort to keep in contact somehow, there are friends with whom I know I’ll always fall right back into intimate conversation when we next speak even though we’ve not talked in months and months, there are friends (this category is largely Yorkies) whom I feel irrationally very fond of despite the short, short time we’ve had to get to know each other. I think of all of you, often. I miss you.

It’s a strange addiction: the more I keep thinking of people, the more I can’t stop. It’s like the thoughts themselves provide some phantom company; a summoned shadow of the person missed that makes me feel, for a moment, like they’re there.

You can’t make me dance around
But your two-step makes my chest pound
Just lay me down
As you float away into the shimmer lights

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strangely reconnected

I finally have internet at home again, after not having it for… well, I suppose it’s been nearly two months in total, since I only had it for one solid week while in York since coming back to this country in mid-September. It’s a really weird feeling. I’ve grown so adept at entertaining myself without internet, and have come so much to treasure this post-work evening period of me-time where I’m gloriously solitary and unaccountable to anyone, that being online again is just… really weird. I can’t say I’m not thrilled (I was counting down, even), but it is a strangely unexpected and sudden lifestyle shift. There’s something to be said for spending my evenings curled up in bed with library books and tea, after all.

I have so much to say about life in London so far that I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to break it into two posts - but work always leaves me exhausted and it will have to come this weekend instead. ♥

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brixton oval

I am sitting in Brixton library with 3 minutes left before the library closes to use their free internet and no time no time no time to write everything I want to - but in a tiny nutshell, my first week in London has been rife with ups and downs, my first day of work was slow but enjoyable, and I have been so amazingly and unstintingly supported by friends and family who have called, texted, emailed, walled, come down to London for me; ♥ particularly to Wee Zi and Kevin, and thank you, thank you all so much!

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