Chez Moi

I had imagined writing this post for the past two weeks, with the words “WAHEY! Sem 2 is officially over and I am F.R.E.E!!!” But this afternoon, on my return from the Uni, S gave me some shocking news he had kept from me for the past couple of days.

We knew this lovely desi couple - hubby worked with S, wife is a bubbly girl, very much non-interfering but fun types. They were expecting their first baby last Friday, May 2. Other friends who had seen her, M, absolutely weighed down with her child, stated that the baby would arrive well before the stipulated date. So we were all surprised when May 2 came and went but the baby didn’t put in her appearance. M was very much in my thoughts on the train home and I told myself sternly to ring and touch base with her this weekend and pass on some mental thoughts to the baby to come out of his/her cozy cocoon straightaway.

But something had gone horribly wrong.

The baby had died in-utero two days back and M was to be induced.

I haven’t spoken with her or other friends yet. I am too shocked for words. I do not know what I am going to say to her. What can anyone say? There was a similar story on Grey’s Anatomy last week, where a woman’s full term baby had died inside and she had to give birth to her stillborn son. I remember getting psyched watching it and wondering why I was doing so. But now, someone I know is going through that.

Please, when you pray next time, please keep M and her family in your thoughts. Somehow help her, her poor hubby and the rest of her family come to terms with this tragedy and find the strength to carry on.

P and his love of the hyperbole

This morn, P was given his usual mug of hot chocolate. Only, it was a few degrees hotter than normal, when it is more ‘warm chocolate’ than hot. He took one look at the wisps of steam coming from the mug and plonked it to the side. After due prodding, he deigned to touch it about 5 minutes later and withdrew his hand in a hurry.

“P, what’s the matter?”, says I.

“It’s the hot chocolate. You’ve made it too hot. It is hotter than even the sun!”

Right.

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On biting into a really ripe strawberry: “hmm, this is just like tasting wine!”"Really? How do you know what wine tastes like?” (lest you all think I slug some down his gullet each night!)

“Well, like strawberry wine”, clarifies he, as if that helps!

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During our weekly Tesco shop:

P kept  touching  one thing after another, with the statement, “ooh let’s take this one” or “can we buy this one pleaassseee?”  and after the fifth such suggestion, his tired dad  snapped:

“Let mummy choose, P, after all she’s the one who’s going to cook.”

Pat came the reply: “well, I’M the one who’s going to eat!”

“This is a job interview from hell!” - the dour voice intoning this stale statement has gone beyond getting on my nerves. It has gone to the stage where I can only watch Surallan’s rants when the telly is on mute. And the contestants - boy, if these are the brightest and best business minds in Britain today, then Lord help us all!

What the hell am I going on about? The latest installment of Apprentice, of course. The show that started off with so much promise. Week after week, we watched it to see what new task will be given to the bright sparks and what they do with it. The wide variety, the ideas that came thick and fast and of course, the discussion we had about it all made it unmissable telly.

Well that was then.

Now, ratings greed have swallowed the Unique Boss from Hell and spat out an irascible man, whom I wouldn’t work for, not even for the much vaunted six-figure salary. Hell, if he shouted and spat at me like that, I’ll be happy to chuck the job straight back in his face, thanks very much and exit with my head held high. Which is probably what the former winners have all done - not one of them seem to stick around for longer than the stipulated year.

Nowadays, the show has become a farce of the highest order. Project managers, who seem to think shouting, intimidating and bullying the rest of the team is the best way forward. A bunch of twats in power suits, who seem not to know what the word “team” means but somehow consider grim looks and bitchy attitudes are just the ticket. If this is the job interview from hell, then we have the perfect candidates!

Two things that are annoying the hell out of me this year - the gross ineptitude of the candidates and the amount of bullying that is going on, unchecked.

Task after task, we have these idiots running around like headless chickens, not knowing which way to go. Cooking task? The head chef is someone who eats out a lot but cooks shite. Photography? How about a chap who cannot take a decent photo and a lady who doesn’t know one end of a computer from another, in charge of the technical details. Laundry? We have ninnies who haven’t got a clue how much it costs to wash and clean clothes and pitch ridiculous amounts and even lose a few garments in the process.

And the bullying? The girls team has got Lucinda or Ladyribenaberet, as Ann Pickard of the Guardian has named her, as the pet scapegoat and generally piss on this weepy woman week after week. In the boys’ side, Simon was sniggered at cos he was common, I suppose and even Claire saw fit to treat him like shit. And she got away with it! That’s the way, Surallan!

None of these clowns seems to have a single redeeming quality amongst the whole lot of them - and that is saying something. Cliques, backstabbing and walking over a few heads to grab that trophy seems to be sufficient. This ain’t no all for one and one for all gig - it is every man for himself and woe betide any of you if you actually possess a heart.

Nice to know this is the kind of workplace attitude and ethics that are being promoted by one of Britain’s top employers. Maybe it ain’t just the interview that is from Hell - it may well be the blessed workplace too!

Tags: Apprentice

You’d think P would have his hands full, with the kind of stuff he gets up to. But no.
One of his favourite things to do is fool around with a camera, any camera. Be it the one in our phones, the digi, the camcorder or even the ones in our computers. Many a time have I logged onto the computer to find that my son had had an impromptu photo shoot all for himself. Never one to take a pic of him smiling nicely, he prefers to try out the Mac’s various zany settings.
Here’s one of him looking angelic, albeit in an oil-filmy way. Psychedelic is the word I’m look for!

Another one - imagine if there were two of him!

Tags: fooling around, Pratik

I have a biggo rant on the show coming up but I need to get this outta my system before I pop so here it is. This week the twats were given the task of coming up with a whole new ‘day’ for people to send greeting cards to. One gang of nitwits had their leader, the Sophocles chap, coming up with a “hey you’ve just had plastic surgery - many happies” card (or Happy Boob Job Day, as the Guardian’s Organ Grinder blog colourfully puts it) while the others come up with - wait for it - Save the Planet week.

How do they propose to do it? Oh by sending cards to one and all. The most hilarious bit is, it doesn’t occur to NOBODY what a self-defeating purpose it is to print CARDS (made, one thinks, by CUTTING TREES), put STAMPS on it, get  it delivered from POINT A to POINT B… well, you get my drift. And these, ladies and gentlemen, are the ‘finest business minds in Britain’ today. God save Britain.

Sophocles’ team finally decide on National Singles Day but are blown if they can figure out if there is an apostrophe in Singles and if yes, where it comes. They spend about 4 hours thrashing this about.

What neither team have stopped to consider - among other things - is the market. Who is going to buy the blessed cards? Who, for example, would buy a card that says “happy s’ingle’s’ day” and send it to their single friends? From one single friend to another? And then you’d hope to be alive after that?

And who would like to be the first chump to BUY a CARD that says “don’t waste water - take a shower” and GIVE it to someone.

Finest minds in Britain today people. Be afraid. Be very afraid.