None Bourbon, None Scotch, None Beer

I don't drink.

Well, that's not strictly true. Perhaps I should have said 'I very rarely drink.'

Now, before you go thinking I must be VERY dehydrated, I am talking about drinking alcohol.

Seriously though, I'm pretty much a non drinker. I would probably have alcohol twice in a busy drinking year. If it's a special occasion, or I'm in the mood, or at a swim up bar things might be different.

Swim up bars are my best favourite.

I find people's reactions to this very strange. The things people say to me when they offer me wine and I say I'd just like a glass of water amuse me. They try offering different types of alcohol, they try things like 'Oh go on, one won't hurt you', they tell me this particular bottle is delicious and I simply MUST try it.

What if I was a recovering alcoholic? What if I was on medication and the doctor had advised me to lay off the booze for a bit? What if I was the designated driver that night?

Obviously there is grog in the beer, but mine was just a regular frozen raspberry!

Does this happen with anything else in our society? Can you imagine the uproar if I tried to pressure everyone that came to my house into smoking a cigarette with me? You don't want menthol? I've got regular! 'Oh go on, one won't hurt you!' Try these ones I got in Bali last week, they are strawberry flavoured! People would be MAD.

I used to drink, quite a lot. When I was 18 or so and thought I knew it all, going to the pub on a Saturday night turned into going Friday and Saturday night and before long it was Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. These were the good old days when I would take $20 with me and that was enough to buy me 3 UDL cans of scotch and coke and I would still have enough left over for a beer. I'd then stumble home via the train tracks and get up the next day and do it all again.

This photo contains one husband. And booze.

So, I hear you asking, why don't I drink? There's no one reason for this, but I think some of the things that have contributed to it are as follows:

1. I don't like wine. It isn't sweet enough. (And please don't tell me to try moscato, been there, it's ok if I add lemonade to it, but otherwise, nah)

2. When I should have been learning how to appreciate wine I was discovering liqueurs. Think Midori and Kahlua. Neither of those go very well with food, so if I was out to dinner and my friends ordered wine, I would just have water or soft drink and then at the end of the night when they were ready to move onto the harder stuff, I figured I had managed this long without it, why start at 10pm?

3. Someone has to drive Chyken home.

4. Drinking when you are out is expensive. I would rather spend that money on my beloved cigarettes. Or theatre tickets.

5. I've seen sides of people I know come out when they are drunk that I really don't like. We all know people like that, the angry drunk, or the one that bothers me the most, the depressed drunk. I don't want to be like that. Even though I am assured that I just get louder and slightly more annoying when I drink.

6. I really, really, really, hate hangovers. Like, really. For me, it's just not worth the whole day that gets written off when I get on the turps.

Nope, this one doesn't have alcohol in it either!

I have no problem with you drinking as much as you like. It's just not for me. But... if you have non-drinkers in your life, please try not to hassle them about it. They are adults and can make up their own minds, and you're probably making them feel awkward by harping on about it.


And I don't drink coffee either. But that's a whole other blog post for another day.

Weekend Wrap Up - Volume Three

Week three, in which we celebrate my birthday weekend with:

Presents!

Cakes!

Magical Mystery Birthday Tours!

Lakes!

Chicken Delights! (That's the actual name!!)

Ghost tours! 

Bacon!

BFF's!

Friends!

Fashion!

And last but certainly not least, with.... Love!

Care to Wrap Up your Weekend? Please leave me a link in the comments if you do!

A Tale of Stolen Cheezels

The following is a letter I sent to The Age:

 

To whom it may concern,

Recently, The Age online posted a great album on the Essential Kids section, entitled “What did your childhood taste like?”  This appealed to me, so I entered the online gallery, found at this URL:

The gallery starts with the first of 54 pictures, depicting a chocolate milkshake.  This picture was credited to a “Kimberley Hasselbrink”.  Delicious!, I thought, as I hurriedly hovered my mouse over the right-hand arrow.  Whatever could constitute the next 53 delicious morsels (om nom nom nom…)?

 

As my finger gracefully clicked down upon the mouse button, I saw with joy, that picture 2 of 54 depicted God’s gift of cheezy greezy nomminess, Cheezels. Delicious!, but hmmm…. Deliciously familiar, thought I. The caption underneath the image belays the truth – “Best eaten off every finger”, alas no credit.  To whom could this image of calorific goodness be attributed?

The answer, kind sir, c'est moi. Jo.  The original image, which I took using my own iPhone almost three years ago, is located on my blog here.

I feel that in lieu of the journalist forking out for a packet of Cheezels and tapping one of The Age’s photographers on the shoulder, a quick romp through Google image search delivered MY image.  Two more clicks, and you could have seen the origin of the page.

I am disappointed with the lack of professional ethics and courtesy shown by The Age.  I feel that best practice should demonstrate a sense of fairness and reciprocity involved in the online (and real-life) world. If I used an image from The Age without permission AND for purely commercial purposes, I’d have lawyers staving my fancy-pants front door in.

I respectfully ask for one of two solutions to this issue:

1.       1. The Age removes my image from the website and issue a formal apology; or

2.       2. The Age continue to use my image WITH the addition of a reference to the origin, i.e. www.chickensbees.com

I feel that the latter is far more practical, reciprocal, and continues to provide a wonderful product for your readers.

 

Kind regards (and significantly more Cheezels),

Jo

 

 

 

I eventually got a reply via email:

 

Hi Jo,

 

We are very sorry that in this case our producer did not seek permission for image use nor provide proper attribution. I have now added your website to the caption and counselled the team on proper use of images.

 

Thanks and regards,

 

The Age

 

 

 

 

 

I'm calling this a big win for the little people!

 

 

Have you had things stolen from your blog?  How freaking good are Cheezels?

A Bit Lost

Imagine if you had something you really liked, for a really long time, let's say about 8 years, and then you lost it.

Sometimes, you just get used to having something around. And then it goes away for a while. Even though you know it will definitely be back, the time when it is gone is hard, man.

I'm a feeling bit lost and lonely.  But I know this is all for the greater good, so I will soldier on.

With cats. 

  

 

Above The Line

Once upon a time, a fair youngish maiden spent her Saturday working at a polling booth.

Then she died from exhaustion. 

The end. 

Resignation

Hi Kids!

I'd apologise about the lack of bloggy action around here, but I don't really have a valid excuse, I've just been out and about living my life.  I'm sure you know the feeling.  Nothing new to report, except that if you are in Australia and you haven't made plans to see King Kong The Musical then you are bloody mad.  This show is the most amazing thing I have ever seen on a theatre, and I've been going to the theatre for over 25 years.  Seriously, get yourself a ticket.  (not sponsored, I just think it is AWESOME!)




In other news, I recently resigned from my job. I have a new one now, it's early days, but so far so good.  It's much closer to home, so that's a huge bonus!

This is the resignation letter I sent to my boss:

To whom it may concern, 

Please accept my resignation, effective end-of-day Wednesday 17th July, 2013. 

I feel very fortunate to have been associated with your company for the last five years. My experiences and training have been invaluable, and I leave with many pleasant memories.

Yours sincerely,

Jo

And this is the letter I wanted to send, but I wimped out didn't:

To whom it may concern, 

Please consider this as my resignation, effective end-of-day Wednesday 17th July, 2013. 

You will recall that during the five years that I have been with your company, I have applied for various promotions. Upon only one occasion, was I successful with a promotion.  For the lengthy period that I was working as a 2IC to one of your Team Leaders, I was not paid for these additional duties, which demonstrates a breach of your responsibility for the financial welfare of employees.  It was during this period that my father suddenly passed away, and I took bereavement leave.  Upon my return, I was demoted from my 2IC position.

I have since moved to another team.  I believe that despite my legitimate absences due to illness recently, I have been taken away from doing off phone ‘admin’ work, which is under-utilising my strengths. This is tantamount to penalising a person for doing too good a job. Clearly, this would mean that I can have no hopes for further promotion in your company.

I believe that there is a significant amount of manipulation by management of employees through duress.  This is evident through my observation of the workplace culture.  Equally, it is my opinion that the complaint structure is not a fair and reasonable protocol which tends to err on a band-aid solution.

I leave your company with many pleasant memories; the experience has been rewarding in many ways. Under the circumstances, however, I’m certain you will fully understand the reasons for my decision.

Yours sincerely,

Jo

Things and Stuff

How is it May?  This year is just flying by. 

At the start of April we took a visiting Kiwi on a road trip.  We went to Echuca to see the paddlesteamers, Deniliquin to see a Ute on a Stick and to Beechworth to do a ghost tour of the old lunatic asylum.  There was a bit too much testosterone for my liking at times, but overall we had a great trip.

Port of Echuca

Deniliquin

Our accomodation in Beechworth

When we arrived home, I got sick, nothing too terrible, just a nasty chest infection, I will live.  I occasionally got off my sick bed to see some stuff at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.  We had to give away some tickets we had pre-booked because we were just too sick, but we did see some of my favourites like Paul McDermott and Cal Wilson.  Also a 'reunion' of the Doug Anthony Allstars.  The highlight for me was Hannah Gadsby, if she comes to a town near you, check her out!

Becuase I've been so sick, I've been watching a lot of bad TV.  The highlight for me lately has been Celebrity Splash.  I love it!  I know it's awful, don't get me wrong, but for me it is lighthearted and shiny fun.  It is the very definition of 'craptastic', and if you've been around these here parts for long you will know that we love ourselves a bit of craptastic fun.  Sometimes I like my TV to make me think, but othertimes I just want to see people do belly flops. 

Also, every episode so far of Celebrity Splash has started with synchronised swimming and that is possibly one of my favourite things in the entire world.  No, seriously, I LOVE it.  When we went to Expo 88 (otherwise known as 'That thing a long way away that cost a fortune where you spent most of your time lining up to see things') they had a synchronised swimming show that I reckon I made my parents sit through at least 6 times.  I loved it.  I like to think I could've been one, but that's not true.  I can barely swim.  And I float too much.  But it doesn't hurt to dream, does it?

I've seen a lot of people bagging out Celebrity Splash and saying it is horrible and should be taken off TV immediately.  I don't think that's very fair.  There are lots of shows on TV that I don't like, for whatever reason, and you know what I do?  I just don't watch them.  I respect that other people enjoy them and I don't demand they be taken off air, I just watch something else.  It's not hard.  Live and let live and all that stuff.

Speaking of TV shows I like.  Why are shows so short these days?  I'm sure years ago that if you made a TV show it was just expected that you would make forty odd episodes whether you liked it or not.   Eight or ten episodes is nowhere near enough of shows like Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones and Call the Midwife, I need more! Even Aussie TV shows are shorter.  Rafters and stuff like that only seem to go part of the year.  I don't like it.  Can someone please fix it?  Thanks.

Do you enjoy craptastic TV?  Do you want more Call the Midwife in your life?  Who is your favourite comedian? 

You can't tell, but my 16 year old self is having kittens in this photo

Maternity Leave

Before you get all excited, no, I'm not up the duff.

But... Today I want to talk about maternity leave.

The way things where I work are set up now, people doing the same job fall under several different contracts, with different conditions for various things (rates of pay, shift times, loadings etc) in each one.  This is something that I believe the union is trying to fix, and that is another post for another day.  Today I want to talk about maternity leave.

I'm one of the lucky ones, the agreement I fall under currently pays 12 weeks of maternity leave.  This was put in place after a LOT of lobbying by the union.  The agreement a lot of others are under (who do the same job as me and may sit at the next desk) pays NO maternity leave.  (This is separate to the allowances the government pays that most people are eligible for, obviously).  I am unsure as to if this is something that is automatically in force, or it needs to be approved by the union.  I've asked the union and I'm waiting to hear back from them about it.

My work released a statement today saying they are changing our maternity leave entitlements.

As of the First of January 2013 they want to make everyone get the same.  They are paying 14 weeks maternity leave.  14 weeks instead of 12. Sounds great, doesn't it?  I thought so too, until I read the fine print.

This is how I understand it:  Under this new proposal, if I was pregnant, when I commenced maternity leave I would be paid a lump sum of 7 weeks wages.  When I went back to work after having the baby I would again be paid a lump sum of 7 weeks wages.

When I first read this, I thought 'Great, I'll just come back to work for a month or so and then leave again if I want to'.  Nope.  Reading further through the document I discovered that I would have to stay for at least 6 months, or repay the 7 weeks.

Sounds to me a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul.  What if you decided not to come back after you had your baby?  What if you moved away in that year or so?  I see so many problems with this. 

I look forward to hearing back from the union as to if they can enforce this.  It was my understanding that these sort of conditions needed to be negotiated, not just changed whenever my employer felt like it.

It will be very interesting to see how it all turns out.


Does your employer pay maternity leave?  Are you in your union?  I'd love to know why/why not!

This Time

This time I don’t want to be the bigger person.

This time it’s your turn.

I’m just going to wait and see how long it takes.

Harsh?  Maybe.  But in this case? Fair.