the one where they have to jump 80 feet into the water to get to the diving bell
Things I've learnt over the past seven days in work:
The phrase "Man Up" is used with surprising frequency on a staff that's 95% women.
Sometimes making do is better than trying to reach for more without knowing a) what you're reaching for and b) whether it is at all obtainable.
You can make someone's day by telling them you've instigated a reprieve and you aren't going to kill them.
Well, not yet anyway.
On the reality of life outside of work the same is still the same. I.E. It is tetchy and odd and out of place and I feel all of these things in abundance when I don't feel in control.
Case in point. Me and some friends from the swim club went to see the fireworks last night, despite the weather and for the first time in 15 years I found myself walking down a spooky country path near where I grew up on the way to a field where there was a bonfire and fireworks set to go all provided by the local Scout Group. Scout Troup? Whatever the collective noun is for a group of congregating scouts.
The fire was AMAZING and the fireworks were really long and boomy considering it was a £3 fee on the gate.
Fireworks over the group decides to go to a local pub. this is a pub I never knew existed. it's stuck on the corner of a one-lane road with one street light. we go in. it's full of football (soccer) fans, the flatscreens are going and there's a scrum to get to the bar.
For a little insight on how I'm feeling I'm wearing a Penguins jersey and a University of Illinois snow cap, the one with the tassels. Tights, jeans, DM's, the usual stuff you wear to go to a bonfire/firework display in rural England. Not exactly pub weather. Not feeling too out of place I humour the gang and we stay for a little while. I was driving so I was on the OJ and we talk about nothing in particular, the highlight of my experience is tearing a Heineken beer mat into little tiny bits.
this is normal for me in pubs, back in the day when you could smoke in pubs I'd be the one playing with the matches.
Eventually we leave.
But now they want food. So we go through the alternatives. Chinese? Indian? more pub food??? They settle on Indian, so we drive to one nearby that is heaving. Heaving no doubt with the people who DIDN'T want to do bonefire night and went to the restaurant to get away from it all.
I'm uneasy, I've already said if they could drop me back where my car was I could get it and get back home and no one would be put out to much. that's ignored. I sigh.
The group completely ignore the restaurant front door and go in through the back entrance. I pity the Indian staff who not only didn't lock their back door but suddenly have to deal with 5 people appearing from the door marked "Staff Only". I apologise profusely. I'm the only one that does.
We get our seats and immediately the group wants food. not appetisers or starters proper Indian food. I still look like a hockey girl and not exactly 'posh restaurant' material. and I certainly don't feel like it compared to nearby tables where everyone looks well groomed. Great.
In the end its all too much. I ask for the keys to their house, where my own gear was and walked back to the house to pick up my stuff, leaving the keys on the worktop in the kitchen and booking back to my own place.
I mean, seriously???
And of course I'm walking in the wind and the dark, on my own, crying my eyes out. Feeling horrible. And knowing it's all my fault as usual.
I don't know what to do right now.
If I talk I'm talking wrong. either too loud, or too soft or saying the wrong thing or not being clear enough or not articulate enough.
So I'm keeping quiet. so then I'm not assertive enough or not communicative enough or not.. or not.. or not... or not...
This is why I drop F-bombs in work sometimes.
It gets people's attention to what I'm saying is important. I wouldn't say it otherwise. It's rude and uncouth says the moral majority. The moral majority can suck my hole. How people can chat about inane babble, soaps, reality TV and a hundred other pointless things is beyond me. But there you go. that's why you do what you do and I do what I do.
And so it will go on, until it doesn't. And that will be the end of it.
The phrase "Man Up" is used with surprising frequency on a staff that's 95% women.
Sometimes making do is better than trying to reach for more without knowing a) what you're reaching for and b) whether it is at all obtainable.
You can make someone's day by telling them you've instigated a reprieve and you aren't going to kill them.
Well, not yet anyway.
On the reality of life outside of work the same is still the same. I.E. It is tetchy and odd and out of place and I feel all of these things in abundance when I don't feel in control.
Case in point. Me and some friends from the swim club went to see the fireworks last night, despite the weather and for the first time in 15 years I found myself walking down a spooky country path near where I grew up on the way to a field where there was a bonfire and fireworks set to go all provided by the local Scout Group. Scout Troup? Whatever the collective noun is for a group of congregating scouts.
The fire was AMAZING and the fireworks were really long and boomy considering it was a £3 fee on the gate.
Fireworks over the group decides to go to a local pub. this is a pub I never knew existed. it's stuck on the corner of a one-lane road with one street light. we go in. it's full of football (soccer) fans, the flatscreens are going and there's a scrum to get to the bar.
For a little insight on how I'm feeling I'm wearing a Penguins jersey and a University of Illinois snow cap, the one with the tassels. Tights, jeans, DM's, the usual stuff you wear to go to a bonfire/firework display in rural England. Not exactly pub weather. Not feeling too out of place I humour the gang and we stay for a little while. I was driving so I was on the OJ and we talk about nothing in particular, the highlight of my experience is tearing a Heineken beer mat into little tiny bits.
this is normal for me in pubs, back in the day when you could smoke in pubs I'd be the one playing with the matches.
Eventually we leave.
But now they want food. So we go through the alternatives. Chinese? Indian? more pub food??? They settle on Indian, so we drive to one nearby that is heaving. Heaving no doubt with the people who DIDN'T want to do bonefire night and went to the restaurant to get away from it all.
I'm uneasy, I've already said if they could drop me back where my car was I could get it and get back home and no one would be put out to much. that's ignored. I sigh.
The group completely ignore the restaurant front door and go in through the back entrance. I pity the Indian staff who not only didn't lock their back door but suddenly have to deal with 5 people appearing from the door marked "Staff Only". I apologise profusely. I'm the only one that does.
We get our seats and immediately the group wants food. not appetisers or starters proper Indian food. I still look like a hockey girl and not exactly 'posh restaurant' material. and I certainly don't feel like it compared to nearby tables where everyone looks well groomed. Great.
In the end its all too much. I ask for the keys to their house, where my own gear was and walked back to the house to pick up my stuff, leaving the keys on the worktop in the kitchen and booking back to my own place.
I mean, seriously???
And of course I'm walking in the wind and the dark, on my own, crying my eyes out. Feeling horrible. And knowing it's all my fault as usual.
I don't know what to do right now.
If I talk I'm talking wrong. either too loud, or too soft or saying the wrong thing or not being clear enough or not articulate enough.
So I'm keeping quiet. so then I'm not assertive enough or not communicative enough or not.. or not.. or not... or not...
This is why I drop F-bombs in work sometimes.
It gets people's attention to what I'm saying is important. I wouldn't say it otherwise. It's rude and uncouth says the moral majority. The moral majority can suck my hole. How people can chat about inane babble, soaps, reality TV and a hundred other pointless things is beyond me. But there you go. that's why you do what you do and I do what I do.
And so it will go on, until it doesn't. And that will be the end of it.