Posts tagged ‘work’

This job thing is interesting. It raises all sorts of questions and issues, and has answered a few as well. The answers are almost all very relieving. It turns out that I had not, in fact, become painfully indolent as I was beginning to fear. I just didn’t have enough work, or enough responsibility.

Not that my responsibilities are particularly lofty now, but there’s something oddly satisfying about having them, regardless. Even getting shouted at for a failure of a system that I’m now responsible for (but wasn’t when the problem occurred) was vaguely enjoyable. I found that quite surprising. I also find that I get great satisfaction from finding better ways to do things, and fixing processes. In normal life, this urge has been manifested in a desire to switch everyone to Firefox, which hasn’t always been popular; but people are far more interested in your meddling when you’re offering to optimise something they’re paid to do every day.

Amongst the downsides to a proper, nine to five job are the trains. In the past, I’ve avoided peak hour, and now I find that peak hour is doing its darndest to avoid me. Cancellations, late trains, full trains, slow trains, trains with sick people on them, trains stopped because of suicidal gymnasts… Give me another month, and I shall be that horrid person writing incessantly to the Mx about how crap everything about our public transport is.

Meanwhile, my disturbing myspace dalliance has been all but supplanted by facebook. Draggable modules. Tagging photos. Interactions with ma.gnolia, last.fm and picnik. It appeals to almost every aspect of my web-nerd psyche. However, occasional reviewer (sob) Andy Cocker still scorns my interest in social websites.

In atypicalreview.com’s future, I see more Who reviews, a late Spider-Man 3 review, a brief rant on Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, and a new writer’s take on the best 10 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When I find the time.

Oh, goodbye Urinetown. Never again will I throw a briefcase at Emile and shout at him. Never again will I spit in Jackson’s face. Never again will I be Kate’s father. Never again will I share a musical love sting with Rik.

Well, alright, all these are possible but unlikely. Looking at our lovely cast photo the other day, I was struck for the first time with sadness. This may overcome the delight at having an actual evening free to actually do stuff I want to do. But not yet. Soon, I imagine.

The end of the show has coincided with my first full-time job beginning, in the Human Resources department at AMES. Which means that I’m finally starting to repay my HECS debt. This is both nice (less debt) and irritating (less money). But the people are nice and I have my own desk. Ooooh. In fact, I have my own cubicle! Oooooooooh. Now comes the difficult task of interior decoration; I have no pictures of children or nephews so my task is more difficult than most.

Oh, and I’ve started a myspace page. Yes, I’m as ashamed of myself as you are scornful. I’m in the process of trying to pimp it up, atypicalreview style, as it’s somewhat embarassing having a page that looks as gross as a myspace one does by default. I shall then lose interest in the whole business.

Ye gods, I am tired. And behind on reviews. And behind on sleep.

There are traces of glue under my nose. It’s not a good look. The next time I see someone with what appears to be a horrid skin condition caused by excessive nose-blowing, I shall give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it instead to be the residue of a giant moustache.

For I have been running around all evening in a bright red suit with a big italian moustache. And yet; I am not Mario. I know, because I tried to smash some bricks with my head.

The Leonardian Players’ production of Urinetown is on this week. I encourage everyone and anyone to see it. It’s a post-modern, highly silly piece of comedy with a sprinkle of social commentary. And bunnies.

Oh, and I have a new job. At the same old place, but in a different department. I’m now in Human Resources and wondering how long I have to leave it before I steal the “this time it’s personnel” gag.

Firstly — go see Pan’s Labyrinth. If my review hasn’t convinced you then I have failed, but don’t make my failure yours as well.

Woah. I’ve been tagged! By a meme. For those who don’t read many blogs, getting tagged by a meme is like receiving those irritating emails that ask you to answer a bunch of questions and pass it on. Except memes are better. Bloggier. Usually. This one isn’t bad.

But before I get to it, some quick, incidental news; there’s now one handy feed for all updates at atypicalreview.com. Reviews, blog posts and notables, all included. For the 3 people who actually subscribe to the feed, I’m sure this will be helpful.

Now, let us proceed to five things you don’t know about me. Luckily I haven’t been blogging as much as reviewing recently so this should be easy.

1. Part time work at AMES isn’t as boring as it used to be. There’s new people about and a slightly happier attitude. In short, it’s starting to shake off that “we’ll be shut down by the end of the year” feel. Having said that, of course, I assume we’ll be shut down by the end of the year.

2. I’m playing one of the lead roles — Caldwell B. Cladwell in a production of Urinetown. Some people do know this but it’s already becoming apparent that I’ll be stretching to get five things.

3. I used to have dreadful night terrors about near-infinite tasks. Not actually infinite, mind — the scary thing (somehow) was that I knew I could do it but that it’d take, say, a few years non-stop work. The most public example was when I woke up at school camp convinced I was going to have to wash billions of dishes, and consequently looked like a big whimp.

4. I have never watched any of the Terminator films, and until recently had never seen any of the Alien films. I’m probably the first person to watch Alien and think “Gosh, this looks so much like ‘The Impossible Planet’ rather than the other way round.

5. I hate seafood, but I ate a baby octopus at a yum cha the other day and it wasn’t bad. Until I ate the legs. They were gross. In conclusion, seafood has some redeeming features, but ultimately still stinks.

It’s traditional to tag more people to do the meme now. Luckily (coz I really don’t know that many bloggers) this here’s a group blog, so I don’t have to look far. I tag Jackson, Andy, Andrew and Sam.

Here’s a picture of my desk at work. On the left is our printer that rarely works. To my right is a VoiP phone that remembers it’s mine even when it strays. Irritatingly, to access messages you don’t press the ‘message’ button, oh no, you press ‘6’ and then ‘1’ and then enter your PIN. Duh! My desk also contains sugar and stirring sticks for when people bring me unsugared coffee, in and out trays, and a usually empty biscuit jar. The picture is crummy because it was taken with my new phone’s camera, which is crummy. I don’t mind; I don’t take many pictures.

Things are busy round the grapefruit offices these days. We’re all racking our brains to come up with a new name for the site. The incorrect plural is really getting to me. But it seems almost every word in the english language has been taken, so we’ve either got to make one up or combine a few existing ones. Words implying that the website is inaccurate, wildly irrelevant and generally silly would be favoured. If anyone has any ideas go ahead and post them. Whoever comes up with the best gets to have come up with the best.

I’m giving up on ER, I reckon. This season’s premiere was piss-poor. House is way better. At least some of the doctors on that seem skilled. ER lacks a super-doctor, and has since Green died, really. Carter almost had the stripes but his smug air and irritating grin got in the way. I can’t pin exactly when I lost all respect for him but the part where he screwed up his relationship with the hot hot hot Hospital counsellor might have been it. Or when he screwed up his relationship with Abby. I like Abby but she’s not quite enough to get me to watch.

I have a few friends stuck in painfully boring jobs. I may be joining their ranks soon. Even more people I know don’t know where they’re going in life.

I think we should all start our own business. Submissions on my desk by the end of the year for what exactly we could do.

(Seriousness rating: 6.5, upgradable by solid ideas, downgradable by scorn)