October 2008 Archives

I looked at Play.com today. Here's a screenshot.

Seems pretty innocuous, right?

Then I noticed this:

Yeah Mr. Ross. At the moment, I bet you are wondering why you say these things.

You see, I don't complain about the place we live in so much anymore. Before the reincarnation of this blog I used to complain at length about the last place we lived in. In truth, it was pretty nasty and so much had to be done to it. Upon moving into a house, we thought that were were home and dry in terms of somewhere nice, warm and homely to live. We were a little bit wrong on that count.

Perhaps we have a strange set-up? We get a house along with The Boss's job. I have to say, that's pretty cool. It means that we don't have to worry so much about finding a place to live, and we're not paying £1000+ a month for the going rate of houses in this area. Some people would probably wonder what dare we complain about? I'll point out a few good things about this place.

The good

• A nice, large garden


• A driveway


• A spare bedroom


• It's quiet


• It's not on-site

That's all good. And at first glance, it seemed like a nice place. However, shortly after we moved in, we noticed the enormous cracks in the walls around the doors. We saw how the internal doors no longer close, or in some cases open, because the house shifts so much. We could also see how the doors have been adjusted for this - there are massive gaps (in one door, big enough for me to get my arm through) at the top and bottom of the doors. The front door needs regular adjustment by the glaziers. The kitchen floor has separated from the wall, and thus there is a huge gap. Mold grows on the bathroom walls because it is plagued by damp. The garage is falling down.

Almost two years ago we brought most of these things to the attention of, what we will call, the maintenance department. Our particular concerns were with the internal doors, the garage, and the drastic shifting of the building after a little rain. So we waited...and we waited...and we waited harder...and we waited longer...and longer...and longer...until now.

About a month ago the new guy in charge of the maintenance department promised to come round and have a look at our biggest concerns. We thought something may get done as he was new, thus a good rapport could be struck up with him. He never fucking turned up. So, cue me being rather pissed off (since when is that different to normal?). There was no apology from him, he just didn't bother to turn up. Nice, eh?

Today, I was told that he was going to turn up this morning to have a look around. Then I was told it would be this afternoon, or rather "after lunch". As someone who works much the same times as the maintenance department, I know that after lunch would normally mean after 12.30. I'm still waiting, and it's 1pm. Not long, I grant you, but I don't think he will come round at all.

The problem with living in accommodation that belongs to your employer is that they can and do demand to come into your house for various reasons, at any given time. If that got things done, I would be fine with it. Instead, it gets nothing done. It is almost an exercise for them to come and have a snoop round at how other people live. Later this week, someone is coming to value the house. Not a good time to be selling, and an even worse time when they see the problems with it - of course, it doesn't belong to the people who are getting the estate agents in, so they can't sell it. Who would want to buy a place looking like this? Or more importantly, who would want to buy a place after hearing such scathing things about it?

I do not think that anything will be done to this place while we are living here. It is quite obviously not on anyone's agenda, despite the dire need. And while I appreciate that there are more important things - we have been asking for these things to be done for 2 years. Some people stride in and get things done with a few days. Our house has not seen anyone from that department in two years, and even then it was only someone painting a wall.

Nothing will ever get done to this place. Why? Because the new guy won't even bother to turn up. Again.
So much for an Englishman's home being his castle.

Edited to add: Fuck me. He did come round. That was a turn up for the books indeed. He has made all sorts of promises about the problems and how they will be fixed. We'll see...

Left.

It certainly has been a while. Laziness strikes. Especially after two holidays. I believe that the last time I wrote anything was just before we went away for the second time? MT tells me it was 22nd September, which was the day before. Goodo. Our holidays were nice. Both of them. The second place we stayed had a hot tub and a sauna. I used both. I got the sauna up to a little above 50ºC. I was sweating at that point, but wasn't feeling light headed. I got out because I had been in for half an hour at that point, and I didn't want to overdo it, as it was an infrared sauna. And the hot tub? Well, that was outside, and I used it on our last night there as it was a pleasant evening. I was glad that it wasn't windy - the cover was hard, and if that had blown onto me while I was in there...not good.

The place that we stayed second time round was on a private road. Yeah. A private road that was over a mile from the public highway to the lodge. Good stuff. So quiet. All that we heard was fighter jets and geese. Good stuff - we will return there.

The entire time we were there, I was waiting for my period to start. Did it? Of course it freaking didn't. I have a problem with my periods. It finally started last night, some two and a half months after my last period, in July. Dude, please, sort it out. I would much rather not have any at all. Fuck me, does this one hurt. Painkillers required. If it hadn't have been for the painkillers that I took this morning, I may not have gone to work. It really was bad, I couldn't believe how painful it was. One hysterectomy please, Mr. Gynaecologist!

Then it was time to come back to work, and that happened last week. Eugh is all that I can say about that. I don't like working. Does anyone? Well sometimes I do, but not at the moment.

I need a cup of tea.
[Pause...]

We just seem to have had such a shower of bastards coming in or demanding our help. From the stupid new knob head of department who decided to set his own date on when something must be done by us, and continued to push us for that date, despite our department never agreeing to that date. To stupid retards being handed the items that they ordered, and then saying "I ordered 'blah blah blah'. Err, no you put down "blah blah", you never mentioned "blah blah blah". Fuckwit. And to the dude who must weight at least 30 stone and is such a pompous twat. I can barely stand to look at him, let alone be in the same room as him. He either stinks of BO or shite. Today it was shite. He's worse than the drunk retiree who keeps coming in, twitching and utterly pissed as well as stinking as though something crawled into his throat and died.

For fuck's sake, would a gentle return have been so difficult? We had a nice holiday, and what could have been a nice, quiet return to work was plagued by stupid fucks simply existing. While I realise that the start of term is "busy", it is not just busy for the academic departments. In fact, the start of term would not be busy for the academic departments if any of them had good teachers who did planning during the holidays. They just fuck off to their far flung countries for 8 weeks each summer and do sweet FA. While we, the support staff come in during the holidays, or in the case of The Boss, ends up spending half a day while he is in deepest, darkest Norfolk fixing a problem at work because they just can't cope without him. Teachers have it so fucking easy. Sure the kids can be a handful, but they only work part time, and have about 16-20 weeks holiday per year. While the support staff do not, and we get abused, bitched at, have people try to go above us, and generally get treated like utter shit by these "teachers".

A nice little message to all the teachers out there. Not only: Fuck you, for the most part, but also, you need to realise that without us, you really would be fucked. Treat us with a little respect for once, and you might get good, clean, nice service from people who want to help you. A smile, a please and a thank you go a long way. Stop thinking that you are the only reason that schools exist. You forget - the only reason that schools open after each holiday is because we, the support staff have been slaving our arses off to get 3 times our normal workload finished before you lazy cunts return. As soon as teachers start respecting me, I will return the respect. At the moment, respect is pretty thin on the ground.

What else? Oh yes, I started my course last week. I'm a week ahead of schedule. And I went to the first tutorial last Tuesday. It was in Chelmsford, I was late because I couldn't find the building, and the room was full. There must have been almost 15 people there. I'm used to just me and tutor in the sociology ones. I realised that while I was there, I seemed to be the only one who had any knowledge of, well anything. I know it sounds like I'm blowing my own trumpet there, but as I sat amongst all of these other people (about 95% of whom said they were doing the course because they wanted to be a teacher. FFS.) I realised that this course was the kind of stuff I did at primary school. Hell, Doctor Faustus? - I read the Canterbury Tales in Middle English without a translation when I was in my first year at Grammar school - I was 11!

There were also people there who obviously didn't listen as one particular question about referencing was asked by someone next to me. That person listened and took notes. Then, someone behind me got the tutor to repeat his answer. FFS - seriously. He spoke loudly and clearly the first time round, and the second time he said exactly the same thing. How could that have made such a difference? At times it really felt like being in a class back at primary school. Particularly so when I realised I was the only person understanding a lot of my tutors references to other things in the arts/humanities. I know, that really does sound as though I am three miles up my own arse. But...ugh, I can just feel that subsequent tutorials are going to be painful. Maybe next time I will pipe up with stuff that I know, especially as we should be getting onto iambic pentameters, and Christopher Marlowe.

Maybe it will get better? Maybe some people will drop out, or no longer come to the tutorials? I wish I could skip OU Level 1 courses completely. That way, I could just go onto A210 or U211. It is one of these moments when I wish there was a bit of an OU selective entrance exam. If you can pass to a certain standard, you can begin at Level 2 and get your degree from there. If you can't pass at that standard, you can starting with the groundings in Level 1. Bleh. Just keep reminding yourself, young lady, that it will be over by June.