Non-Travels aside. Mailbox shut down rant

Dear Mr Contractor,
I appreciate your need to bombard us with information proving that you are well and truely on top of your work and can spew forth detailed designs in mass quantities.

Yet did it occur to you that we introduced you to the FTP site and specified to use the FTP for large files for any particular purpose.

How many times must I tell you! Is 8MB files not big enough?!

Thanks for filling my mailbox with 50 MB of data in 3 days. I love not being able to send or recieve mail any more because the IT dept has shut down my account.

I will attend to your mountain of information on Monday when I return from leave. Is it not so very pleasantly professional to recieve messages from my server to say Frank can't recieve your terribly important emails right now. Her mailbox is too full.

There goes my reputation....

Sigh....

Regards,

Your non-functioning-correspondance Junior Engineer

..... And Back to the holiday. Ill deal with this on Monday.

Frankies Travels - RB day 5

It has been a quiet few days - but for the lack of blog posts - it has been an interwebs deprived few days.

On day 2 after sleeping for at least 12 hours we had a very slow day spent mostly in front of the TV. MrT's mum put together a smashing dinner of pork chops and wors for us - the guests.

On Monday morning we were woken up by the arrival of MrT's brother for a small wedding related family indaba (MrT's brother is getting married on Friday.. and on Saturday) This degenerated into a family indaba and I was left to first sit and listen to a lively not too friendly argument in Afrikaans and then, as each member stormed, out the room I was left with the African grey parrot to talk to.

Anyhow, we left shortly after that and drove to the Richards Bay harbour for some sight seeing and then towards Mtunzini - which is a tinny little village 50km southwards down the coast from Richards Bay - through the sugar fields..

We arrived before book in time for our B&B so we stopped off at The Fat Cat restaurant for pizza - mushroom, bacon and slices of chipolata - mmmmm good post-travelling food.

Our B&B was very very nice - not only chocolates and biscuits with the coffee tray but two cold beers and a bottle of wine in the fridge, ribbons on the towels and fancy soaps in the bathroom (which I scaled when we left hee hee hee). As well as a ridiculously friendly golden retriever to greet us at the door.

The day that we arrived in Mtunzini was not a very friendly weather day. So we pretty much chilled - read some beaded some and listened to the rain some. By the time we were peckish for some dinner it was close to 8pm and we ventured out to the four different restaurant locations only discover that (A) restaurants are usually closed on Mondays there and (B) the restaurants that were open, usually closed their kitchens at 8pm on a Monday. We stoped off finally at The Fat Cat again and the kind owner quickly whipped up some food for us (it helps tipping well the first time to get good service the second time)

On Tuesday we were given a splendid breakfast of fresh strawberries, coffee, bacon. eggs. sausage, tomato and garlic mushrooms. We then ventured down to the Mtunzini beach which was on the other side of a bird sanctuary and nature reserve.

We saw dassie, red duiker, zebra, kingfisher, weavers and robins. The beach was expansive and cold but we had some good exercise walking and playing in the waves. We also wandered up to the estuary but did not spy any hippo or crocodiles.

Again the weather turned inclement by afternoon and we made holiday-like for the remainder of the day.

This morning dawned sunny and warm but still windy. We decided to pop a further 100km down the coast to Ballito which is one of my favourite places on the KZN coast. (many happy family holiday memories there)

We shopped for some beach curios, walked the promenade, and then stopped off at the Spar for ice creams and juice. (Just like a Real Beach Holiday…)

We then turned towards (MrT’s) home and returned to Richards Bay.

We finished off the holiday vibe with slap chips on the beach and exploring the ‘burbs by sunset…. Which leads now finally to another bedtime well earned (well in fact MrT just remembered he needs to write a speech for Saturdays’s element of the wedding so he is stressing and typing a little like a fiend first)

What’s Afrikaans for a Grooms Best Man? A Strroijonker sounds a little… well.. uumm.. old school…

Frankie's Travels - RB day 2

We arrived in MrT's home town an hour later than scheduled because we had to wait for some road works ... In 11 different places!

Surprisingly Richards Bay was cold and cloudy and windy. (Everyone said it would be hot here)

I was introduced to MrT's mum then we freshened up then suited up for the Wedding.

We were ready a little early so we stopped off at McDonalds in our pretty wedding attire for a spot of lunch. Hey, who doesn't like being stared at?

Now before I talk about the wedding ceremony and reception, let's remember that I was the my own brothers wedding only 24 hours before.

The wedding ceremony was simple and short. As in less then 40 minutes in total short. (My brother's ceremony was easily over an hour long)

Then we drove up the road and round the corner to the Protea Hotel for the reception.

As we were guests and thus free of any responsibilities other than having a good time... We had plenty of liberty to stand around while photos were taken and gossip about the other guests. The skirts too short and the large persons and the funny hair colours.

The reception itself was remarkably similar to my brothers with the exception to all the speeches being in Afrikaans and the wedding specific traditions.

We left early for being exhausted and went on a drive around the city.

Nothing quite as thrilling as the night lights off an aluminium smelter and the smoke stacks of a chemical factory :)

Frankies Travels - Richards Bay

On a non-travelling note first....

I have had the most insane busy week.
1. I am at present travelling and thus will be on leave for a whole week so I was tying up loose ends at work. In addition the pace of some of the projects at work at the moment is between insane and I-Need-It-Yesterday-Already.

2. My brother got married yesterday.

3. I had a visitor from "The Motherland" at work. I recruited a chap from our UK office and he came to visit this week to decide if Jozi life would suit him. As I was the primary recruiter (And good chums) I was appointed as the head tour guide. (This should be a separate post of it's own)

4. Other normal week busy-ness stuff.

Anyhow it all adds up to a lotta tiredness and I really need this week off! I'm going the beach - Coolness!!

What added to this pot of crazy is that my brothers wedding ended around 11pm last night and MrT's best friend is kicking off at 3pm today in Richards Bay - A 7 hour drive away...

So we're on the road at 3:30am driving having a slightly insane road trip on 3 hours sleep. (Hmmmm seems to be a lot of 3's there)

Then we're spending a week chillaxing enjoying the beachness and then attending MrT's brothers wedding next weekend also in Richards Bay.

So Good Times ahead! Right after this long 7 hour zoom cross-country!

(meeting MrT's family for the first time too :/ Little nervous on that note.)

More Aunty-love

Everybody goes "aaaw" "Sweet" "Proud Tannie"

And I go... hmmm... I still don't like the way I smile. :/

Anyway Caleb is 4 days old now and back home. My sister and her 'band are probably playing being Parents this evening making use of all their baby gift gear. I wish them well.

My head has been kinda weird over ThisCreature.

On Monday morning I was elated and proud and smiling and bouncing.

Then by lunchtime this irrational paranoia/envy set in once my brain ticked over and calculated that between the parents, there are six brothers,six sisters, three grandparents, three great-grandparents and cousins and cousins and cousins and cousins. I realised that I would be standing in a long queue to give my well wishes and how dare other family members of the same level of familial hierarchy be invited for baby viewing before me. How dare they be more enthusiastic about it than me...
Fortunately Rational Frances gave the crazy woman in my head a kick in the ear and I realised that my sister and brother-in-law are the ones with a new baby and they are perfectly entitled to have all the family members crowd round in love and joy and celebration.

By Monday evening I wasn't sure if I would be visiting at all. I was feeling stinky and sweaty and dirty and not very suited for meeting a fresh new baby. I whizzed across town to the hospital and made it in time for visiting hours and stood in the (smaller than expected) crowd in the waiting room. And what I was feeling in that moment was not envy and was not irritation but simply shared joy with family.

Once I finally made it in to visit my sister and my nephew a small level of terror had taken over. My hands were filthy and my clothes were whole-day-worn and then....!!! my sister offered to let me hold Caleb. She warned me to hold the little creature properly and to support the neck and head. Scary performance anxiety stuff!!

I managed to return for a second visit on Wednesday and I was earlier than before and had a full 30 minutes to spend with the new family. This is when the picture above was taken.

And so after my scary weird crazy jealous spell I think I am back into normal mental control. I think it stems back to being from a big family. When there is several of you (well seven to be exact) you gotta hustle a little to get a piece of the action. Or rather I get a little cautious about pushy people. (DISCLAIMER: I love my family very much. They are lovely good upstanding god-fearing people). As long as I remember the important golden rule...

IT IS NOT ALWAYS ALL ABOUT ME...

And that boys and girls concludes the lesson for today. I trust my generous sister and brother-in-law will find time to share the delightful presence of their child again in the next 18 years.... and oh boy! oh boy! oh boy! I do look forward to it!

Venting - Day 15 Month 9

One of my biggest frustrations at work is that I often know what I need to do but due to inexperience, I skip a few steps in the due process.

 

For example - we prepared a proposal a few months ago to instigate a necessary change to a contract. And after a lengthy tug of war between the client and contractor, they have settled on the proposed solutions and made a final decision.

 

This is good right?

 

The problem is that only now it occurs to me (at the Client's final decision communication) to check the contract paperwork for a template for making changes to the contract. It appears that finalising this change is letter number 5 in the process of Making Changes to the Contract 101. The Fifth Letter!

 

This means that I skipped 4 prior steps in the process - well we went through the correct motions but failed to number and categorise and word and reference the communication properly. Therefore I will have to fabricate no wait, manufacture, no wait, engineer :) ... the missing information and references in  this letter number five (which will in reality be letter number one)

 

I am swimming in unknown water again today - still looking for shore of the Beach called I-Know-What-I-am-Doing.

 

I do however suspect there aren't many people there...

Aunty's heart full of Love

Meet Caleb. He belongs to my sister and her husband. He is about 33 hours old as I write this. I met him when he was half this age at around 15 hours old. He opened one eye and peeked at me while I held him... and then decided feigning sleep was best.

 

He is pink and soft and has little baby parts and he is loved very much already by the multitude of siblings and parents and spouses of his parents. (His parents love him too)

 

And that is What Happened Yesterday... it is likely to eclipse anything that may happen in the rest of this week... perhaps even month.

Happy Days...

Things making me happy this week (in no particular order)

- This baby Zebra. (from a website called ZooBabies I think)

- Jamjar Sweet Shiraz - nectar of the deities and the bottle top is done in a check print making you think of picnics and happy days

- The 2.7 km/5 minute drive between my castle and Mr Thursday. (added bonus is the Porche garage to drive past in between.

- I figured out my supervisor answers his phone when his wife calls saying "Hello Guppy" - He is in fact saying "Hello Agape" which - if you look up the greek meaning - makes it just about the sweetest nickname for your spouse. (No, Mr T this name may not be reused)

- The sunshine - it may be too hot to function midday but I am loving the fact that not only I can wear pretty summer dresses but I can afford to buy pretty summer dresses in the first place. (High five for employment!)

- Spring time flower smells (this will be trumped only by the smell of spring time rain)

- As of the end of this week - my daily commute to work will be shortened to 5km straight down the road by my house mostly at 80km/h (when traffic allows)

- My older brother will be in town soon - with his almost wife.

- Oh yeah, my brother is getting married!!

- I will become an aunt before he arrives (well we're all hoping so including my pregnant sister) and both the mum-to-be and baby are in good health. (blame the scary internet stories okay)

- I am going to the beach for a week at the end of the month which is pretty soon in the greater scheme of things.

- My friend from far away (other hemisphere far away) is coming to visit - I am gonna play the tour guide... possibly in company time.

- Coffee Pinotage - flavour of the month.

- Vanilla milk in coffee (going to try vanilla milk when I bake muffins later...)

Happy days :)
Sent from my awesome mobile

Petty annoying things

"Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things." - Unknown (possibly a sibling of mine)

I need to complain about work...

I was assigned a new project a month or two ago. Which, even though my work load was not light at the time, I took to be a compliment. In fact I am quite excited to be taking on this new project and starting it up from scratch so that I can make sure that all the mistakes made on my previous project don't get made again.

To the project was also assigned a graduate who has been having some training in primary equipment. Now by the term graduate I mean his graduation ceremony took place within the last 12 months. By this definition I would Not be a graduate as I already have over a year and a half experience. Either way both of us are termed as Engineers-in-Training by the company.

So according to the project paperwork, I am the project engineer reporting to the Principal Projects Director and he is the primary equipment engineer who is being supervised by the Chief design engineer. The project is my responsibility.

As things have run, Mr Graduate has had less other work on his plate and so he has been taking a bash at writing up the preliminary project reports. Except.... he has never written any such reports before. I, on the other hand, have many many revisions of writing such reports on my other big project that I spent a good portion of last year writing and working and rewriting and revising.

To be crude, I know my sh!t when it comes to this stuff.

You would think that Mr Graduate would do the math and figure that if he is struggling he could come discuss MY project reports with ME. You would think...

Nooo way. For what ever reasons (sexism, racism, sizism, fattism, fascism, consumerism, I have an ego-ism) he sends (badly worded/badly spelt) emails to the big guns asking for help. I get pulled into the meeting and have to be berated that why is the content of the report so poor... This is of course the first time I am seeing the content.

Now I am not always the most pro-active. And I shouldn't have to stand behind him and watch him type for every moment while he works at the prelim design reports. But at least a heads up on the progress would be nice.

The charming soul is often pestering me for information.... and then emails suppliers without checking with me what we actually need from suppliers.

Another novel idea is taking old (pre-MSWord2007) reports and reusing them for the new report. Including all the bizarre and obscure and mostly broken formatting (numbering "page 137 of iii" - magic stuff)

It frustrates me so much because he keeps going above my head and employs pretty sloppy thinking. It irks me because for the laziness of reusing someone else’s report, he will spend a week fixing the report formatting until he gives up. It bothers me because this is my project and it feels like he is trying to take it away from me.

Time for being polite about this is running out....

Funny but true

...and I have a new webcomic to add to my favourites :)