Learn from my mistakes

Well, I could write a hundred blog entries under this title!

But today's lesson is: make sure you close the car door properly.

If you do not close the door properly, the internal light will be left on.

If you don't use the car for three days, this will run the battery flat. Dead flat.

If you are on your way to a meeting, this is not what you want to discover.

Then you will have to catch a cab to and from the meeting at a cost of $30, call your dad and admit your stupidity, spend $140 joining RACQ, wait for the nice RACQ man to jump start your car, drive around for an hour in a thunderstorm to recharge the battery, then spend $50 to get an auto electrician to properly charge the battery, plus spend $15 on a cab to get back to collect your car.

In summary, not closing the car door properly will cost you more than $200, waste hours of your time, and make you feel like an idiot.

Well travelled

Colleague: Have you been to Switzerland?

Moi: I went to Stockholm a couple of weeks ago remember!

Colleague: No, that's in Sweden Amanda.

Moi: Yeah...

Over it

Okay, I’m over the snow now.

It has slightly melted so that there is a thin layer of it on the footpaths; however the freezing temperatures at night have turned this into ice. Comically slippery ice.

While I was precariously tip toeing down my street last night I saw a man skid and run into a tree.

This morning, I slid into a parked car. After which I abandoned the footpath and opted to walk down the middle of the road.

Slip and fall and break my back, or get hit by a car. Six of one, half a dozen of the other really.


“Slip sliding away, slip sliding away, you know the nearer your destination the more you’re slip sliding away”
Slip Sliding Away, Paul Simon

Exhibit C

We have further evidence in the case of Amanda vs. her own idiotness.

I won tickets to The Last Days of Summer music festival, featuring Supergrass, Richard Ashcroft, Black Kids, Fun Lovin Criminals and more.

However, the above sentence is missing the exclamation mark that should punctuate it because I didn't check the mail and only found out that I won the tickets the day after the event.

My stupidity really hurts sometimes.

Office jargon

In addition to scheduling pointless and tiresome meetings, the Brits also like to use a lot of wanky jargon around the office.

"Let's discuss that offline" means we'll talk about that later.

"Marginal hours" refers to your spare time.

"Managing expectations" means you don't want people to expect too much of your work.

"Pen portraits" is the new way of saying case studies.

Idiots...

How do I do it?

So, I am sitting at my desk enjoying my takeaway coffee out of one of these…

When I take a sip and suddenly there is a back-splash out of the 1cm sipping slit and I end up with coffee UP my nose?

How does that happen?

Welcome to Idiotsville!

Population: me.

Silly little me got on the wrong train when I left work today, didn't I?

I don't know left from right, and it would seem that I don't know east from west either. It was only at the second stop that I realised, so I quickly alighted, changed platforms and squeezed myself on to a west bound Jubilee train. Only for it to be removed from service at the next stop because the Jubilee line was now closed. So I changed to the Northern line, amidst a crush of people, past a bagpipe player, and alongside a woman hell bent on elbowing me out of the way. Another packed train and another change over, and finally I was heading home on the District line. And then the hens party got on, with their too-short dresses and their cork wedge heels and their shrieks.

I'm not as smart as I look. Nowhere near.