a lesson in lending

It is time for another life lesson me thinks,

So, Lesson [n+1]: when you lend something to a friend, the time it takes for the article to be returned is an indication of how important it was to them

Friend in this borrowing/lending context is used only as a loose reference to a person with whom you are acquainted. {grrr wicked horrible people that never bring stuff back! it is like you are dead to me!}

And so the story to explain this lesson goes like this. You purchase say a new CD. Your friend borrows the CD to listen to it. If it is returned promptly, like the next time you see each other Or else the person mentions that they will give it back every time you see them until it is returned, THEN it means that the CD (in this example) means a lot to them, they really enjoyed it and they wished that it belonged to them.
However, if you don't see the CD for months and months and there is absolutely no mention from your friend that they still have it, then it means that either they care so little that they haven't even listened to it or have no regard for the CD in any way.

This may seem entirely logical or not but the basic theory is that the more they wish the item belonged to them, the more likely it is that it will be returned. (the exception of course is having scaly stealing friends)
This theory applies just as well to books, clothes and usually even money. (Altho lending and borrowing money amongst friends is a whole other school of life skills)

What I have observed is that when your friend makes use of what you have lent them, if they appreciate and covet the item, it is foremost in their minds and they find it very easy to remember that it belongs to you and it must be returned. Conversely if they have no regard for the item or even no regard for you, they dont think about what you have lent them and never remember to return it.

So the lesson out of this is when you discover something cool - be careful of lending it out to your friends because if they don't like it, they will never return it and you will now be minus an item that you really like. Not Cool!
Similarly, don't lend money to arbitrary work colleagues who don't know your name because they will forget to return it to you and because you are not very well acquainted, you will struggle to find the polite way of saying "Pay up you stingy Rogue! I lent you lunch money!"

Yes I am in the midst of a bad experience - The only icing on the cake is that the person who owes me stuff can't look me in the eye... I think she remembers! Suffer in guilt! You owe me money! And you owe me my shopping bag!

The problem is that if someone asks to borrow something - you feel like a tight lipped school teacher saying "Please make sure you give it back!" <wag fingers> I'm going to have to go practice my self-righteous face soon...

Thinking about it, I guess you could apply the same lesson to lending time and feelings as well...

ok so maybe I am a little bitter

so as anyone standing in the vicinity near by to me last week would have heard, I was burgled and although I was asleep through the event and was not traumatised much I lost a lot in terms on monetary value. Oh maybe slightly traumatised since I get the chills when I think about the naughty little man having the audacity to walk into my bedroom while I was sleeping and picking up my handbag, and laptop (inside its bag) and my cellphone from right next to my head off my bedside table.

But other than that its a material hole in my pocket. And a hole in my heart because I really really liked my bright red cellphone and my nifty little camera.

so here is a list of things I lost that insurance can't really replace.

35 USD and 2 euro coins - more of a talking point than the value itself - yes im silly for keeping USD in my wallet - but perhaps the burglar was Zimbabwean and maybe he can use it better more than me.

many many photos of me with pink hair - no more profile picture updates sadly.

Photos of my trip with my friends up in Magaliesburg taken the day before the camera was stolen.

my entire day-to-day earring collection including some awesome silver hoops and all my beaded creations - all cheap but if I was charging at the hourly as an Electrical engineer for creating the earrings, the value of the loss would run into the R1000's

my brand new Regina Spektor CD - hidden in my laptop bag away from my sneaky brother - sorry for me for being selfish - I hadn't even listened to the CD fully yet!

Photos of Johannesburg - I firmly believe that Joburg is a very beautiful place in winter - ands i happen to work most days until sunset so I had a whole ton of stunning sunset pictures. I'm going to have to wait another year to take photos again to prove my point. the crystal clear dry air and the pollution makes for spectacular sights at 5:30 - 6:00 pm-ish in July!

about 6GB of memory cards.

and more ... but its home time now... I'll have to appreciate the sunset with my eyeballs instead

It's 19:30 and Im still at work

and why? why am I working overtime I ask myself.

As I am alone in the office at its all quiet and its dark outside I have had some time to do some deep thinking about why I am at work and will continue to be at work for yet some time today... So in no particular order...

1. I do not deal well with a complete absence of supervision. I gotta have someone to go ask when I gather up the courage to take my problems to someone.

2. I am lazy - my cubicle gets warm in the afternoon so I snooze and work in an extra hour or so every Day - It's wicked for a 24 year old to do but I do find my productivity improves after my guilty little power nap.

3. I have a new friend. it's a bit random how it started but some nice man in the UK office started emailing me yesterday because we are both involved in Guiding/Scouting and we have been exchanging emails getting to know each other because we can. ...40 emails later... you can imagine how productive it is when you are keeping an eye on your inbox. We're facebook friends too woooo

4. I am sometimes too shy. So when the senior engineer says "Will you take on this proposal" what I said was "Yes Ill give it a bash" when I should have said "I would like to try but I have never done this before I have no idea how to do it, will I be allowed to do it if I need someone to guide me along? and Please don't assign the guy who works on site more often than in the office to supervise me!" Its so much easier to nod enthusiastically.

5. I have a low tolerance for being talked down to. So when someone is helping me and giving me tips on grammar and spelling instead of a discussion on how a technical document is assembled, I get a bit ticked off and snappy - Wickedly unprofessional behaviour- it happens when I'm a bit pressed.

6. I was burgled on Tuesday morning - I'm only slightly traumatised but my concentration span drifts a bit when you don't sleep well. and you want to figure out how you going to get everything replaced. I could make a whole separate blog post about this.


Six silly excuses is enough. Back to work for this very sad very hungry sorry lump of a workaholic.

Employee satisfied!

I just got this little something for Woman's Day at work. Way way cool!

This Employee is Satisfied :)

Especially since the dept got pizza at lunch time... Now I gotta channel these happy feelings into productivity...

I am a coward

I made the depressing realisation today that I'm a big silly scaredy cat. I had two things that I had to get done today and both have been kinda sorta umm postponed because I was too afraid to go disturb people. I'm not even sure what I'm afraid of. Perhaps I'm afraid of being told No... Which translates into having to gather up the courage to ask someone else Except now instead having not done the required activities it translates into general incompetence.

The funny thing is that when I'm in a social context with a crowd, give me an opportunity to do the scary adventurous stuff and I'm front of the queue with my hand flapping in the air. Strap me in a 5 point harness and throw me out a tall tree (true story 11m up) Let me tight rope walk along thin planks across a cold lake on a wet rainy day (true story I Didn't fall in) Let me build a raft in the dead of a winters night to sail across a dam and steal the enemy teams toilet paper (true story I Did fall in) Let me ride an ostrich (true story They move Flippen fast) Strap me onto steel and fling me into the air and let me wave my middle finger at gravity for a while with my hair streaming in the wind (True story Eeeek here comes the ground! Straight at me!) I laugh in defiance of those afraid of heights.

And yet having to send an email to ask for some big Man's signature on a report is daunting. Having to go to my senior colleague with a question because I'm clueless (still clueless...) requires breathing exercises. Having to email the foreign colleague with the daunting (yet inspiring) long CV needs several rewrites and I close my eyes and wince when I press SEND ("Hello, You Are Awesome . May I use your CV... So I can say Our Company Is Awesome!?") I was asked to take on a new kind of project at work and I did some creative ducking and diving because I'm not sure how to do it... yet...

I don't know why I'm so scared of looking stupid and uninformed or even having to make myself be noticed professionally and yet I don't care if I look the clown in order to get a new adventure.

So at work I'm the cowardly chicken and at play I'm the unpredictable wild child...

Acknowledging this shortcoming still doesn't help when I'm two documents short for my morning meeting tomorrow...

Honestly now what's the worst that could have happened by making a pest of myself?

finding the balance

I have reached that stage at worknow where Im expected to know what I'm doing. I sat in a meeting today where I mostly observed the proceedings where the conversation went something like this:

BigJob1: blahblah schmir shmee schma ...is it possible to ask the client this?

BigJob2: schmaa schmaa schmaa ...and the client must be informed of that.

BigJob1: blah blah draft a letter blah blah what do you think Frances?

Frances: well I...

BigJob2: yes it does say here blah bllah blah

... and so it went on for 10 minutes finally they resolved with absolutely no contribution from myself what the client must know and what the client must be asked.

Lesson: when BigJobs say "We will do this" it means "we will find the junior who is trying to lay low and make her do it"

Incidentally another lesson I have learnt at work (and should have known after 6 years of an engineering degree) is that the male mind is way easier to speak to with pictures. You go "blah blah blah" (just like the BigJobs) to a person of the male-persuasion you usually have to flap your lips around for twice as long as going "scribble scribble" and then "You! lookee here!" and pop it under their nose... then the light bulbs come out.

This may be vastly obvious except in a different meeting I sat and watched two of the BigJobs having a discussion (one engineer man and one finance man), trying to get each others points. So being male they both picked up a pen (like the teddy bear of the mind faced with having to explain something) and proceeded to make diagrams or something. Let me interject here the arguement was on how to calculate a value. and so while talking and drawing (at the same time.. bad idea.. bad men attempting multitasking tsk tsk tsk...) we landed up with two puddles of scribble on the board. (helps if you look occasionally at the hand with the pen in it instead of only at the person who you are talking to) And the bizarre part is that they two gnts understood each other!! I have seen drawings that are drawn by 1 year old babies that explain better.. altho a 1 year old baby only has so much to say.. "wanna poop/eat/sleep/drool/make a nice/pass wind".. the usual icky baby stuff.

So back the point. I keep on forgetting that I am a working proffessional who gets paid for what I do. and I'm astonished that I get given important expensive stuff to do, stuff that if I happen to make a drastic mistake... could have embaressing implications... And you have to give a 100% effort on everything. Like it all has to be complete and exactly right. and if you make a mistake it comes back with some finger wagging until it is perfect.

This adult stuff is hard work...

Germany - After Home Hospitality

So where were we.. so after the two day stay back in Regensberg we went to a monastry (Kloster) in Ensdorf that has a whole program for the youth. We spent 3 days learning about alternative energy. I am ever grateful to my supervisor at work for briefing me on the stand that Soth African companies take on alternative energy because I spent a lot of time explaining myself to the german energy peoples.

We went to a solar park on a day when it rained.

The germans love to recycle sewerage and dung. Imaging a mountain of what looks like cocoa powder or a swimming pool of chocolate sauce to those fortunate enough to not be able to smell. the trouble is that the smell is so rich and powerful it did make me think of chocolate. The smell leaps out and assials your senses. the exception being that the smell does not induce a dreammy happiness but rather a strong desire to see your lunch again... mmmm dung!

we also went to a power plant that generates energy from burning trash which was EXTREMELY interesting to me and my camera battery was dead :( :( :( :( Anyway they took us into the main control room and I had to be physically restrained from jumping over the front desk and having a good and proper look.

After Ensdorf we went to a Scout camp near a teeny tiny town called Krickelsdorf - No running water, long drop toilet and sleeping on a hard wooden floor - on the positive side we were right next to a forest and by the wheat fields and the camp fires were awesome casual easy going affairs. I think the camp fires were a highlight of the entire trip for me (that and the bear playing in the rain)

While I was there I went for a walk and took this picture. The sunset and the wheat fields. I love my little blue camera!



Anyway so I stayed at the camp fire on the last night until the very early hours and then when to sleep until I couldnt take the snoring (sorry these were ladies make that heavy breathing) anymore. So I got up very very early for another walk. The only other thing awak was Mr Frog...




He actually stuck around a while for me to try all the different features on my camera to get a nice shot of him. Funny thing is this picture is the first one I took.