London Calling.....

I spent last week in England for work. A small village called Bracknell. England is a cool place, but there were some noticeable differences. For example I would leave the office around 5:30 and all the shops were closed. The only place open was the local pub, The Manor.

The Manor is great. It's like the Winchester in Shaun of the Dead. There were four older men at the bar. This was obviously "their pub". They had been coming here for years and were friends for even longer.

One of them had to leave. As he was saying his goodbyes one of his friends grabs his own crotch and says "Give my love to the wife for me wouldja?".

This was my kind of place. It was the british version of my all time favorite bar from college, Julios.
It was a fucking dive and it made me feel at home when I was so very far from it.
The odd thing about the pub was there was no concept of a tab. I wanted dinner and drinks. I had to pay up front. Now if I wanted more to drink I would have to pay again.
I had no cash on me and only my corporate card. So after dinner I order another pint and hand out my credit card.

The pint is about two pounds. I offer up my card and they tell me it is a five pound minimum. My meal came with a free drink and I had already had a pint to go with that as well.
Instead of not getting the pint I said "Oh ok five pound minimum? I'll take three pints then."

Ahh American excess.
After my 5 drinks I made my way to the hotel. My hotel was in this plaza and the only way (or so I thought) in was to take an escalator from the plaza to the hotel.
It was about 8pm. The doors to the escalator were locked and I was somewhat drunk and having to piss.

An emergency if there ever was one. The lights are out. The town is deserted and I have no idea where to go to make it to my hotel. I wander around and find a Royal British club and ask the kind ladies if they can tell me how to get back to my hotel.

They group up like I am about to mug them (this becomes a trend throughout my trip) and provide directions. I thank them and make off like the wind. I have to go through a car park and up a few flights of stairs before I make it to the hotel, but make it I do.

I tell the concierge that he really screwed me over with the whole locking up of the escalators and he should get on that. He nods and I go to my room for a piss and sleep.

Part two soon.

I can't....I have a headache

It's been a busy few weeks. I am starting to catch up on school work, but am still a bit behind. A big part of that is work. This guy I work with is based in England.

I work with european customers and this guy was hired to help out.

He sucks so bad.

He is a horrible worker.

He tries to be nice and tell jokes to get you on his good side to make up for his complete lack of knowledge and work ethic.

When you first start here you get a bit of a pass because the technology is new and our products are not the easiest to use. Eventually more responsibility is sent your way until you are able to do your job by yourself. I was supposed to be his point of escalation in case he hit a roadblock.

I was not being utilized that way.

He was always asking for help. That in and of itself is fine, but he would have me do all of the work and not take notes when I did it. What was happening was the same problems were appearing but he wasn't learning from it.

I started getting frustrated. I started giving him a checklist of things I wanted done before I would even look at the issue. He did not like that at all.

He would tell me he was nervous about helping out customers when he didn't know what he was doing.

I told him I never knew what I was doing, but the beauty is that neither does the customer.

That didn't work for him.

He went to my boss and told him that when I helped him with his problems I moved too fast and he didn't know what I was doing. He did this in spite of me asking him each step of the way if he understood what was going on. His reply was always yes. He said he was taking notes the whole time too.

So my boss tells me from now on I am to instruct him and monitor him when he has an issue.

I say fine.

Then he calls in for two weeks with a headache.

He calls in saying he has a stress headache and his doctor said he will be unable to work for two weeks.

Can you believe that shit? That is balls. If I wasn't so pissed at what a pussy move that was I'd almost be impressed.

So while he is gone I am working all of his issues and mine.

I have the boys during the week and homework is piling on.

In short this happened at the worst possible time.

He comes back last Friday. I am working an issue and tell him to work a different one.

He logs on and calls me saying he is in the customer system but has no idea what to do and can I help him.

Unfuckingreal.

God damn lazy asshole.

So I log in and tell him that I will tell him what to do so he can learn.

He says no. He says that if he works the issue he will get another stress headache. He wants me to do it and he will take notes.
Now this prick told my boss that when we did just that, I was moving too fast for him. He said that he couldn't pick up what I was doing.

I fucking hate people. I call my boss and am like "Listen this dude you hired has sand in his vagina and needs to get some balls ASAP because he is killing me."

Although when he heard me it sounded more like "This guy says he's going to get a headache if he works and wants me to do it for him. What the fuck is wrong with this guy and can you see that this is unacceptable?"

My boss did understand my plight but wanted the customer taken care of. He talked to my co-worker yesterday. The dude actually resigned and my boss just cut him loose instead of having him work his final two weeks.

I'm actually surprised he quit. I figured he was looking for another job when he had headaches, but I wasn't sure. Guys like that tend to milk jobs all the time.

Thank christ he is gone but my job just got a lot harder.

Swing batta batta...

Had one full week at work. Its like nothing changed. My foot feels awesome. I'm seeing the doctor today to see if I can start jogging again.

Now regarding work. I get here and my co-worker is telling me a story Kat told him. Apparently the older lady I work with, not Kat, an older woman with two teenage sons likes to swing.

This blows my mind. First of all here are the details. She and her boyfriend have other couples come over and they play a game. The game is that all of the guys put on blind folds and all of the women give the men blow jobs.

Now the men who are blindfolded need to guess who is giving them head. Regarding this I really don't care. What you do behind closed doors is really your own business. Now looking at this woman I'm not sure I would want to play that game with her, but what I really want to know is how do you get to the point with your mate where you can say:

"Hey lets have the Smiths over and John and I get blindfolded while you and his wife go down on us and we pick who is doing it!"

Personally I would not be able to share my wife. I don't know how a husband or boyfriend could let that happen. So that's my roadblock. Second you have to convince your wife to do this. I have no idea how you even HAVE that conversation.

Lets say you are get past those issues. I am 31 years old and now have friends in my life that I have known for about 16 years now. These are close friends. Friends that I consider to be brothers.

My kids call them uncle and aunt. I mean They are like family. That said, I can't even imagine how I would even ask if they swing.

I guess a lot of booze is involved. Again I'm not judging this at all. I'm really curious how you even get another couple to do this. I mean I just don't think that even if I wanted to swing, (which I don't) how you would even go about getting another couple involved.

The real thing is that for the past month I have been unable to drive because of my foot so I have been working from home.

My first day back I hear about this 42 year old woman who goes down on her and her boyfriends friends while they are blindfolded.

Why am I not more shocked by this?

Toe the line....

I type this stoned out of my mind on Oxycodone. The surgery went well or so my doctor says. I always try to stay awake when they put me under, but everytime the surgery is completed before I even know it has started. This time was no different.

I'm fairly certain that I tried to convince the nurses that the anethesia had worn off when I got out of surgery by telling them I worked in telecom and I was a smart guy.
In hindsight I'm pretty sure that the effect was opposite what I was going for. The toe feels fine except for the pain that my good friend the prescription drugs help numb. Before I left they put my on crutches. I'm not the most coordinated person to begin with so this will be an interesting 10 days with no pressure on the foot. It's a weird thing because you take walking for granted. Now I can't even grab a can of seltzer because I need both hands for these crutches.
I can't walk and hold Cole. I can't play soccer with Jack. It kinda blows. I've caught up on everything on my DVR and even finished the excellent Brotherhood on DVD.
The plus side was having Friday and Monday off from work. It allowed me to help Faith out with Cole. The drugs make me tired but sleep doesn't come easy, so 2 am feedings are not the nightmare they normally would be.
My neck is killing me though. I suck at the crutches and have been sleeping on the couch because I can't consistently get upstairs to my bed. This does help with the baby because it's just him and I for the most part at night. I pass him off around 2 or 3 so I can get some sleep before work at 5.
Of course my first day back at work is not fun. I'm working from home for the next month or so. The weekend with the foot was fine. I was able to put some weight on it. It still hurts pretty much all the time but it was manageable because it was always elevated.
Now I am working at my dining room table and can't keep my foot up. I must have bumped this thing like 100 times in my first hour back at work. It is THROBBING.
Funny thing about the drugs. They make me way more affectionate. I'm not made of stone, I always kiss my wife and kids and tell them I love them, but I'm such a chick flick when I'm on drugs.
Part of it is being fairly helpless. I have to rely on my wife for everything right now. She is a champ about it, but I want to help as much as I can hence me taking Cole for most of the night. You really appreciate the people in your life when you don't have a leg to stand on.

Side note:

Once my vacation was over I went back to work and there was a big company meeting. We all had to go to this hotel conference room. I got there and sat next to a co-worker. I started making small talk and they ignored me.
No worries. People have stuff going on and it was just small talk.

After the meeting we went back to the office and my colleagues were talking about all going to lunch. Next thing I know they are all gone.

No one asked me. Everyone was ignoring me. No one asked about the baby. No one asked how my wife was doing.
It was awesome. Finally people got the hint. Work Jay and personal life Jay no longer had to meet.

Then I woke up. It seriously was a dream where my co-workers minded their own business.
When I really got back to work I got hit with the questions about the baby.
They asked if I had pictures. I told them I didn't They asked me before I left if I was going to email them pictures of Cole when he was born.

I told them I would not.

This is not to be a dick. First off these are co-workers who I do not know socially. Secondly I have this unnatural fear of pictures of my kids on the internet. I hate it. The world is full of perverts. I wouldn't email co-workers pictures of my kids because in my mind they can then forward those pictures to the world.
It's an insane thought, but I'm on prescription drugs right now. They then said how come you won't have pictures of the kids at your desk. I've said this before.
"I know what my kids look like. If I were to have their pictures there it would be for you to come and see and strike up a conversation."

People don't like that response. Oh well. It is also part of my unnatural fear of layoff. I don't want anything at my desk that I can't get rid of with one trip because there is no way I am taking two trips after being shit canned.