Weekend, do what you wanna do, weekend!

Oi! Going back to work after two month's of nothing but lazing about and reading really helps you appreciate a day off!

I think I may have failed to mention it directly but I actually worked this week. :P Five days of data entry out in Waterbeach. Ye gads! Not even Waterbeach - the frikkin Research Park!

In the words of Inigo Montoya "Lemme 'splain. No, it take too long. Lemme sum up".

The Cambridge Research Park is over half an hour away from Cambridge proper by bus. The bus departs from the Drummer Street bus station once every hour. The Drummer Street bus station is a 10 minute cycle from Wolfson, 15 minutes if you're a sick duck, which I am. So I've been up after six each day this week to get dressed in the dark, so as not to wake sensitive, light-sleeping eat cereal alone in the servery, cycle to the bus station, and then catch the bus to the Research Park by 8.

Hey, this short story is turning into quite a long one. Ignore the Inigo Montoya quote above, I was just trying to get a Princess Bride reference in somewhere.

So, firstly, cold much. And secondly, being sick and cycling in the cold is also not so good but I didn't want to turn down the first substantial job I got offered, especially when it's something as simple as data entry, which I can pretty much do in my sleep. Easy money, and most pathetically, on an hour by hour basis, it pays about the same as my job at Laragh. Freaky and slightly depressing.

So anyway, the place was interesting enough. It was called Elecheck which I, thinking logically, pronounced Ele-check. I get there, and people are answering phones saying "Good morning, Elec Check, how may I help you?" And I was like, huh? Did I miss a C or a squared sign?

So what they do is send "engineers" out to test portable equipment for faults and electrical problems. Well, being married to an engineer, I know that this is not what engineers actually do. These people are actually electricians with delusions of grandeur. I mean, Sameer is a proper engineer. His job at Koeberg was to go out each morning and check that all the batteries were working but that's different. Those were bigger batteries, house sized ones, hence there was actual grandeur, not imaginary ones.

Anyway, lets move on. My job was to type of the job sheets, which are written out by the engineers. Some have lovely handwriting, and some, well oi. Indeciferable much. So, it was alright. Lots of the old "typety-type" ala HomeChoice and also, since I had my iPod playing all the music I used to work at Laragh, there were some nostalgic moments too. I especially realized how much I missed the quirky people at Laragh, and the laid back attitude. You know, the one we had back in 2006. ;)

It had a very HomeChoicy atmosphere with a few odd quirks, such as:
1. The Sales Director, Marco, would come in each morning and, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, call out "Good morning people, remember - Don't just check it. Elec-check it!"
2. The women in admin would react to this with varying degrees of amusement and irritation.
3. They had a "Banana Bread Challenge" on Friday. Someone had challenged someone else concerning the quality of their banana bread. So they both baked, cut the cake, put it on separate platters labelled A and B, then offered everyone a piece of each. They also gave us color-printed ballot forms that said "Banana Bread Challenge Voting Form" and had two check boxes - A and B. We had to tick one and place it in the ballot box by end of day.
4. The ladies bathroom had intimate wipes. Nifty. I've never seen that before in a bathroom but I'm all in favour of it catching on. :P
5. Their server only backs things up at the end of the day. By G_d that is a recipe for disaster! I accidentally deleted a spreadsheet that listed 1050 items on it and found that it wasn't in my Recycle Bin coz everything runs off remote servers! They had to call their IT people to retrieve it for me, which thankfully they were able to do but come on - asking for trouble much?
6. It turned out that the woman who was overseeing us temps used to be married to a South African, lived there for about 15 years, and both her kids still live there. Not only that but her son, Shane, converted to Islam and married a Muslim girl named Tasneem, from some place north of Durban! Small world and weird co-incidences! Through my woefully inadequate iPod headphones, I heard her scolding some of the girls in Zulu at one point. It was so strange and interesting.

So anyway, being me, instead of getting better and better, I just got sicker and sicker. Feeling phlegmy and cycling to work at a leasurely clip, not bad. Running from the office at 17:00 to make your 17:05 bus, not so much fun. (The bus stops quite a distance from the office.) I was in some serious pain each afternoon, knife in the chest like pain, and that one simple factor was what put me off the whole thing. (For some obscure reason they are not very pro letting you leave early at this place.)

Anyway, it's over now. Except that I may be asked to go back in the week again. :P I'm a sucker for money so I might actually say yes but it all depends on how I feel. Or on how badly I want the complete Angel DVD boxed set... Gotto say, right now I want it pretty bad. I have absolutely no resistance to temptation. It's a failing. Thank G_d I don't drink or do drugs. I would be such an addict.

I think I'd be a terrible druggy. I'd wander around in a stupor, all red eyed, with Shreddies crumbs down my shirt, shouting at random passerbys in off kilter gam. "Jou ma! Verby vannie yaad af! Haal uit en wys, wat kine?"

Yes, it is late now. And it being weekend, I can sleep in and have brunch that does not consist of Frosted Shreddies and reconstituted milk.

[There needs to be a whole 'nother post about the glory of Shreddies. But 'tis for another day.]

In lieu of pictures (coz I haven't taken any since last week), I leave you with this strange but amusing YouTube video - the Obama/Guiliani dancing girl face off - hi-larious!