h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi there! Haven't chatted much- I assume you've been extremely busy and knackered, since it's end of month, and even I've been rather busy of late- but wanted to stop by and tease you a bit about your latest teenage vampire crush. Wasn't there another, in a book or series of books, before this?

Hope you're hanging in there all right. I think of you (and and Gruesomes) often and hope that you're not being jerked around too much at work.

oh hi you!
work is jerking me around - basically because of the new system we have, I'm knackered when I get home!!

The teenage vampire is one and the same. Now there is a film of the first book, and I dragged Gruesome #1 to see it so that I wouldn't stick out among the teenage girls like a sore thumb.

and how are you and Mr.PC?

New systems at work can be a big pain- I sure hope things settle down soon!

I didn't realize it was the same teenage vampire- I should have guessed.

We're doing well, thanks. I'd been a bit busy and did some O/T this past week, but nothing too bad. Other than that, not much has been happening, other than that my uncle and grandma gave me a sewing machine that belonged to my great-grandma before she died when I was little.

I saw the sewing machine thread - (hehe) that's great! Did you get the belt fixed?

Here's the vampire. If I were 20 (25...) years younger...

http://api.ning.com/files/HX2HJ5zFz1V8NarAOgaL6pAYOZtWCV*6bT2lcXeBfbNUy2xDufWvx0yjS8bgrPVgunC5EYCH7AxRywPrZYG9PtDGaz-JnNKa/twilightposter.jpg

You sure do like to don't you?

I haven't gotten the belt yet. I'll have to locate a Singer store during the week and see if they have one. That, and some oil. I'm quite pleased about getting the machine- I really wanted it but didn't know how to ask without seeming tacky.

Often it's better to ask because some people don't offer in case you're offended

I do like to . The thing is seeing young Rob Pattinson like that (all pale and interesting) takes me right back to when I was 17/18 - during the time of the New Romantics. Everyone I knew (boys and all) were totally in lurve with John Taylor from Duran Duran. He had that look just right. As did David Sylvian from the group Japan.

On the other hand, I will drool anything with a pulse if I can find anything remotely -worthy about them. From wee vampires, to George Clooney via Johnny Depp and beyond.

I did some ing as a high school girl, too- always had a thing for a tall, dark boy in a leather jacket. Not so much these days, though there are one or two cuties I do about.

Johnny Depp, of course, will always be handsome. Gosh, I used to watch that insanely stupid cop show, "21 Jump Street", even though I was probably a couple years too old for it already by the time it was on TV, because Johnny Depp *and* Richard Grieco was a lot of eye candy. Now, I still think Johnny was cute back then, but Grieco had this weird unibrow thing going on.

I never saw it - way too old. Even though the Deppster is actually older than me (and therefore a legitimate target)

Currently I'm off work with a sick Gruesome. We're watching that fest of eye-candy: Stardust.

I hope the sick Gruesome is well again soon. Though staying home watching movies with Mum sounds like a great way to spend a day.

I knew I was getting old when I stopped ing over guys a decade or so older than me, and started ing over guys a decade or so younger.

I'll be home again today... I hope everything is ok at work without me. And if it isn't... tough luck!

There are very few men older than me that I letch, but there are some. Viggo Mortenson, Sean Bean (although he's starting to look much older now, is voice is so sexy), Johnny Depp and George Clooney.

But the younger ones... mmmmmhhhh.

I've got to get myself into that mindset, if I decide not to be at work and things aren't OK without me, it's not my fault. Last week I *should* have taken at least one sick day, and I worked at least an hour or two extra Monday through Wednesday.

It has taken a lot of work and struggle to get this far for me. And I'm still not totally there yet.

Working when you're sick is the biggest thing that both of us have to get over.

We have to have a back-up at our office. Basically we're not allowed to be away from our desk without a back-up. only my back-up (the promoted one) can't do anything, so unofficially one of my other coleagues does the work. I love her for it - but i wish she'd say no and let it all collapse.

Ah. I don't really have a back-up, except that one person has offered to take care of requesting emergency maintenance in my absence (electrical, plumbing, stuff that can't wait). But if I were out and my boss needed something, he'd delegate to someone else, and one thing I do every day would be covered by the A/P manager, because I actually only do it to help her out.

The issue last week was that there was an annual board meeting this week, the person who normally prepares the reports for the board was out, and I was asked to do it. Of course if I was out, someone else would have had to suck it up and do it. My problem is that when it's something critical like that, I personally feel like I'm slacking if I don't step up to the plate. Just like I always feel responsible for covering for anyone who's out sick. It's that damned Scandinavian Protestant work ethic I inherited frommy father's genes. I'll probably be at work when I fall over dead.

Oh, and your back-up sounds like a real moron. It must be hard to get her work done with her head so far up her own ass.

she doesn't get her work done... last time I was on vacation she told the people I work with (logistics, etc) that she couldn't do my stuff because she was snowed under with her own... meanwhile she told the poor lass who works with her that she couldn't do her own stuff because she was sooooo busy with mine. and then left work every day at 5pm...

Actually, most of us there have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. And it bites us when we're sick .

Oh, we have one of those who goes on and on about how busy she is, and how she can never help anyone else out when they're snowed under. Or else she'll volunteer to help within earshot of her boss or someone else important (we're all in positions which report directly to executives) and then back out on you later.

But she sure does find time to wander the office, parking herself in people's offices and making idle gossip and chitchat and moaning about her apparently myriad personal issues. I just ignore her- refuse to engage or even acknowledge her- when she does this to me. But just once it'd be nice to see her show up before 8 or stay past 3.

Oh gawd yes! When it's visibility you can't keep her down - she really does know how to schmooze the directors.

one of them said to me that "it was good that we promoted her, she is great with the customers"

So great that her customers sometimes phone me to get a straight answer, and mine fell weeping on my shoulder that they could finally get some answers.

Oh well - we live and learn (to cope with people like that)

I deal with one which will be the death of me if I don't find a better way of not letting her annoy me so. A couple of weeks ago she did something so stupid I literally popped a blood vessel in my eye. That can't be good for my blood pressure. I've normally got a grip on avoiding or not letting people like this get to me, but this one is killing me- and a number of other people in this office have the same problems with her. She's just too stupid for words, and gets away with it.

Give her the rope and let her hang herself.

It's intolerable, but to be honest, I've no ideas how to get out of situations like that. I mean, with mine, several of us have been complaining about her for years. Really, almost literally since the day she started.

I'll have to find a way to not let her get to me so much. I may even need to read one of those "dealing with impossible people" books or something. I refuse to go home with another migraine on account of that woman.

Meanwhile, my boss is back in the office and all is . Has the Gruesome recovered enough to return to school (and you to work)? Hopefully neither you nor the other Gruesome nor will come down with whatever it was.