Jane your whole family is incredibly brave and I add mine to the chorus of voices saying "thinking of you all".

Guru, I ain't going anywhere near that 'just friends' line! But I am 'watching'!

I'm too newly awake for anything much to have happened, but can I just say that I've already had a high in being able to catch up with my friends here over my first coffee of the day...sigh...

Wear your most exotic aftershave...be your very best self...then report back to us, Satguru.

You never know.

High - covered someone else's shift at work.

Low - had to cover that shift for a bad reason - runaway case. All is fine now; she has been found. Please keep her and her family in your thoughts.

Satguru, you've got me humming "Love is in the Air". I'll not be able to get it out of my head now!

dg dave, I'm glad that your runaway has been found. These cases are so sad, aren't they?

Low and high! Just opened a small packet of cheesey snacks and popped one or two in my mouth, as you do, without looking. Ewk, the taste was horrid, really bitter and disgusting. When I looked in the bag I found a couple of pieces which were really black, nasty. I have written a letter and will post them back to the manufacturer today. The high will, hopefully, be a free supply of snacks! I will keep you posted.

Another high from yesterday. I managed to find a beautiful necklace for my daughter's Christmas present. It is silver and amber, very modern. I just hopes she likes it.

I know everyone is thinking of me, and my family, and I really appreciate it This is just a fantastic community

Well, my son's football team won the final playoff game, in a nail biting finish.

Great news Skunee, you must be very proud.

My highlight is writing out all the Christmas cards with my Mum ...another job done!

I recently sung a little song with my guitar on the radio, and then emailed to ask them to play it again so I could hear it, and I just got an email asking me to sing it again as they couldn't find it. The show only had half an hour to go, and I told a friend I was talking to and my mother who called next to listen, and I sang two verses of an old (old as me, that is) South African song 'Ag pleez deddy' by Jeremy Taylor.
He then played it again a few minutes later and it sounded really good!

I first heard the tune on the radio about 35 years ago, and then some years later Jeremy Taylor walked into our family shop and I told him how much I enjoyed the song. I never heard it again till I looked it up online and bought the original EP last year. Now a few more people in this country have heard it as it was virtually unknown here.

I'm a day late, but I have a low, and I mean a rock bottom low.

My area manager and general manager want to really send the customers elsewhere because they want to line their pockets. They have gone to a call center to "cut costs," but it cost us over $4700 for that, and phone operators would cost us about $1300. Where's the cost cutting? They are also taking $3 off of orders for carryout if the delivery time is greater than 60 minutes. I called about it and was made out to be the "bad guy" by my area manager!

What am I doing wrong by wanting to take care of my customers? Someone please tell me.

You're not doing anything wrong at all. However, sadly, very few businesses seem to focus on customer service anymore. I got snarled at by a cashier in the grocery store the other day, and all I was trying to do was help her bag. I asked her to push the groceries down where I could reach them and when she didn't respond, I repeated the request. She darn near took my head off telling me that she'd heard me but was busy. A few years ago, when customer service mattered, she'd never have dared try anything like that because she'd have been fired if the manager had heard her.

If you can't hear the music, here are at least the words.

Jeremy Taylor -
Ag Pleez Deddy Lyrics

Ag pleez Deddy won't you take us to the drive-in
All six, seven of us, eight, nine, ten
We wanna see a flick about
Tarzan an' the Ape-men
An' when the show is over you can bring us back again

Chorus:
Popcorn, chewing gum, peanuts an' bubble gum
Ice cream, candy floss an' Eskimo Pie
Ag Deddy how we miss
Bullseyes an' licorice
Pepsi Cola, ginger beer
and Canada Dry

Ag Pleez Deddy won't you take us to the fun-fair
We wanna have a ride on the bumper-cars
We'll buy a stick of candy floss
And eat it on the Octopus
Then we'll take the rocket ship that goes to Mars

Chorus

Ag pleez Deddy won't you take us to the wrestling
We wanna see an ou called Sky High Lee
When he fights Willie Liebenberg
There's gonna be a murder
'Cos Willie's gonna donner that blerrie yankee

Chorus

Ag pleez Deddy won't you take us off to Durban
It's only eight hours in the Chevro-lay
There's spans of sea an' sand an' sun
And fish in the aquari-yum
That's a lekker place for a holi-day

Chorus

Ag Pleez Deddy - VOETSEK!

Ag sis Deddy if we can't kraak to bioscope
Or go off to Durban, life's a heng of a bore
If you won't take us to the zoo
Then what the heck else can we do
But go on out and moere all the oukies next door

Chorus

Very low. Had to go into my office and clear out my personal possessions. My 'former' boss said that he was sorry that it had come to this. I said that I didn't believe that it would have happened if I had not been ill. He said there was more to it, that me being ill gave them the opportunity to look at my work! In other words they are suggesting that in some way my work was not up to standard. I want to take someone with me next time I have to meet with them, preferably a lawyer.

I must remember things like the time I was 'ordered' to load software onto a number of computers despite us only having a licence for one. I told him that I was most unhappy to do it and asked if he was ordering me to load illegal software - he said that he was. They have since bought licences but for quite sometime they were acting illegally.

I am sure you worked your socks off for your boss Sue, and when (not if, when ) you get your next job, they will appreciate you, and your old boss will see how valuable you were to the company!

Well said Jane!

CYA! Or, for those unfamiliar, "cover your [well, you know...]". It's the buzz phrase for a generation, it seems. Sue, your tale makes me livid. First of all, if this 'fellow' was worth a grain of gentlemanliness salt he could have used some grace and said nothing. I'm sure the situation was awkward enough without such comments. And then to criticize your work after some sort of "fact" - bunk. Such a display speaks ONLY to his prowess as a supervisor (if he really did feel that way, while I'm sure having no right to, to say something at this point is plain ridiculous). No decent manager reflects on one's performance ability, whether he finds it good or bad, after a termination of employment. Grrr. The only good thing about such types - they're so sturdy that a light brush with a feather will knock them down.

I was terminated once in the midst of a corporate shake-up. No real surprise at the time (we were getting the axe one by one). Still, in that case misery was not even slightly comforted by company so I demanded copies of my final paperwork since someone clearly had to file some somewhere. There it was ---> Reason for termination: Compliance. Huh? Don't people get raises for that? I assumed they meant lack of compliance but given that they were so boldly sloppy (and that I had a stack of documents claiming the direct opposite as per my duration there) my job was easy. I was nicely compensated, my big 'boss' ended up selling sports shirts part-time for minimum wage and his second-in-command became a barmaid [no offense to either clothes salespeople or barmaids, make no mistake]. Sorry. Just had to hop and holler a little ...

No points of any merit over here lately, high or low. No broken bones or other assorted damage. In reading everybody's "stuff" it sounds like life is muddling along OK for most of us. Best of hopes to Jane and family, congrats to the baseball (or was it softball?) champs and to our new minstrel satguru. As for ing's pants...well, I can relate but in the opposite direction. I've been eating like an out-of-control horse lately (not much else to do!). At this rate they'll bury me in a piano case ....

Heh heh heh Gats, husband-person and I have had a running joke all night about you 'relating to my pants!' It follows hot on the heels of the vet admiring my soccer shirt the other day. If I'd said I actually did support Blackburn Rovers, I'm sure he would have asked me to have his puppies. Ha, and I just got that, rovers, puppies, vet...oi...

Quote:

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congrats to the baseball (or was it softball?)

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It was football, but I can understand how they get confused. It's another one of those games where men run around in tights!
Sue, we all know how diligent you are here, and know that you wouldn't give your paid employmeny any less. What the jerk (substitute stronger descriptor) is doing is covering his tracks so he can't be sued (pun intended) for letting you go because of your health.

Ach du lieber ! I lost the vision in my right eye earlier tonight - every little bit of it! Yikes, I haven't had much trouble [overall] with vision. Blurriness and peripheral problems are one thing and not exactly freaky, I suppose. Complete loss is another matter altogether. It was weird, too, as it wasn't blackness but more like a total white out over there. Hmmm. I guess that should be a low point but, since I am likely borderline nuts , it was the opposite. I tell ya, it took me less than 1/2 second to appreciate that left eye beyond description and I got to feeling all lucky that it was working. The right eye is, incidentally, back on the job again now. Never a dull moment around here.

No low points. The "holiday dreads" but that's an annual cycle. 30th class reunion this coming weekend, too. Vetoed, kerschtunk, who cares about that? If I want to get mauled by veritable strangers (especially ones I was pretty iffy about 30 years ago) I'll eat spicy food before bedtime and have bad dreams thereto. That'll be close enough.

How is the week launching for everyone else? Good, I hope.

A high: A friend of mine from high school found out she passed the bar exam on her first try. She was so happy, and I am so happy for her. She and I have known one another since we were 12. She and I are four months apart in age.

High high high! This afternoon Mother got the go-ahead from her doctor to start driving again, ending nearly 3 weeks of her being even more dependent on me than usual!

And another one of those could be a high, could be a low items. Father's geriatrician called Mother and me in to see him yesterday and announced (in the nicest possible way, he's a lovely, gentle man) that he's finally lost patience (no pun intended). Father refuses to do anything anyone suggests to help himself, and doctor is sick of seeing Mother kill herself trying to look after him (bro and I have been on this band-wagon for years, but she feels too guilty and responsible and blah blah). Essentially he said it is time for Father to go into residential care, and as it was obviously (and understandably) such a tough decision for Mother to make, he was making it for her. I could have jumped up and kissed him! We've been toying around the edges of getting him into care, he's been in for 2 weeks respite once, and is going in for another fortnight soon. It's been hard enough to do anything without Father's co-operation, but without Mother's it's basically been impossible. Now she is finally on board I can actually see an end to this 'limbo' phase of my life - I even went to see about getting some part-time work the other day (hence the 'good trousers'!) So yeah, while of course I'd rather Father hadn't drunk himself into an early old age (he's only 74...), it'll be much better for everyone once he's established somewhere away from Mother and the destructive relationship they've managed to create between them (even him, though he refuses to entertain the possibility.)

Sorry to be a damper but 'absolute pits' rather than low describes the situation. My darling daughter, the one who has been so supportive of me during the past trying months, well she might have cancer. She has had biopsies taken and is waiting for the results and then to know the treatment. I just hope they caught it at an early stage. A warning to you women, get your PAP smears done regularly. She was 28 last week.

A high, if there can be such a thing at a time like this - I have been invited to make tea at the polling station for the elections tomorrow! Now it really comes to something when you can get excited about swilling a tea-bag in a mug!