Midweek Madness

The scheduling department in work are great. Honestly, they’re two great guys working within tight guidelines to facilitate everyone and they do such an admirable job of it that I’d nearly buy them both, Cool Dave and Australian Steve, a bottle of something for Christmas. In fact I could, given the sheer volume of booze brought back from Lanzarote by my parents. It’s all this rather nice three or four brands, only there’s at least six of each. Dad actually brings a suitcase underpacked, so he can haul back a serious amount of drink home with him. The Canary Islands are supposed to be a tax-free zone within the EU, but really what happens is that they push up the prices, which are mind-bogglingly low anyway to levels that still turn heads in supermarkets. You’d get a lovely bottle of merlot for under €5, even though they charge €10+ in restaurants. And if you’re really desperate and bordering on alcoholic, there’s the dodgy wine that’s a few grapes short of vinegar; available in shops for 99c or less in a one litre juice carton. Literally; a one litre carton that you would find orange juice in. So the mystery of why Irish people love to holiday in Spain more than anywhere else in Europe is finally revealed.

Anyway, I’d give the scheduling boys a bottle each of the 1999 Bach Viña Extrisima, a medium dry red from Catalonia, only it might look like I’m some corrupt politician handing out brown envelopes. They’ve done me some favours. Power corrupts, and having been a temporary team leader for a week there, I know all about it. I managed to give myself every weekend this month off. Meaning that this week I have today (Wednesday) off and Saturday as well as the standard Sunday off. Last week I had Friday off as a holiday, as well as Saturday and Sunday. And the week before that I took Friday and Saturday off, which gave me a clear run from Thursday to Sunday. It’s only dawned on some of the more zealous on the team now, and they want answers. But the only answer I’m giving them is that the scheduling guys are cool. I asked for days off, I got days off. The others had just as much of a chance to do this as me. They are so nice to everyone about all this that, well, things have gotten a little out of hand. One day in work, I saw a document lying around that showed everyone’s holiday balance; the amount of holiday hours everyone has. We all get 8% of the hours we work on a two-week pay period; so if you work 40 hours a week for two weeks, you get 6.4 holiday hours. Combine that with a paid day off every time you work a bank holiday (you also get double pay that day) and you can accumulate quite a few holiday hours off. I had 51. Then I looked up the list, and the holiday balances got lower and lower. They reached zero, after which a funny thing happened. It went into minus hours, -0.5 hours, -2 hours. It went on and on until it reached the numero uno, the one person in the company who’d taken so many holidays his balance was -127 hours. –127. How? Because the scheduling guys are so cool, that’s why!

But I did nowt today. What does one do on a rainy Wednesday in a suburb with no facilities? They are coming, mind. Come next year, the suburb will have a brand spanking new Tesco, along with a Burger King, Lifestyle Sports and, oh yes, an O’Brien’s Irish Sandwich Bar – Ireland’s Best-Ever Franchise. Throw in an Xtravision and we’ll be sorted. This town REALLY needs an Xtravision, or Chartbusters (although they’re the same company I believe). I went into our local Movie Tragic and managed to scrape out from the bottom of the barrel some half-worthy DVD. The woman in front of me is renting a video for her son, who’s sick at home from school. The guy, a hard-ass drafted in from headquarters, says she has €20-something on her account yet to be paid. She asks for leniency, he says no – she’s left back too many videos too late. So she leaves empty-handed. I knew what would happen to me; I had €40 or so in unpaid fines but the assumption was that no one ever pays them so why bother? The miserable glob of runny semen behind the counter, the bloated and pale reflection of a person turns down my offer to pay €4.50 for one night’s rental of a shite DVD. So I turned on my while and laughed, because later that night I got one of Sis’s friends to get it for me. I had the last laugh. They may take my €4.50, but they’ll never take my…dignity?

I know for a fact that Xtravision have a far more lenient policy on these things, having known someone who’s worked with them for years. Dispute one fine and it’ll be wiped, leave them unpaid for six months and there’s an unofficial tendency to write it off. So deliver us from evil, Xtravision.

I’m rambling. Ok, so this Friday I’m taking the dramatic step of visiting Cork – or to be more precise, the OD brethren in Cork. And I’m sorry for not mentioning this to anyone else here in case they want to go too but I kinda want to do this by myself. I always said I’d go to Cork this year, seen as I’ve never been and all. Well, I have apparently when I was small. But all I remember was this train station and a park with swings. Cork doesn’t stick out particularly in the old Betamax VCR that is my brain; outdated, incompatible and rather useless.

I’m hoping this works. I get nervous at these things. I’m staying with Kerouac Phoenix, who’ll have shed herself of a job by then so I’ll get the full on, tobogganing-on-the-sofa-down-the-stairs treatment. I haven’t a clue what to expect, but I know she’s good people and so are all the others from what I know of them. All the good things I’ve done this year came about when I let go and did something on the spur of the moment. All I rely on is the fact that I’ll be with someone cool and coolness surrounds them and their friends are cool and it’ll be all cool. So in closing, it’ll be cool. I think Dave is playing somewhere on Sunday so I might surprise him. That would be cool. Unless he’s reading this. Hi Dave.

I hope no-one’s getting too anxious about it. That’s the last thing I want; well, at least not anxious in a bad way. I’ll be there by 8pm on Friday. And I’m looking forward to seeing you all again.

j.la

(just practising my Corkonian)