things I don’t like

People who describe items of their clothing as “pieces”. I’m thinking mainly of people who have themselves photographed in MX magazine saying things like “I’m a vintage shop kinda girl. I like to find great unique pieces”. What this usually means is they wear exactly the same allegedly trendy, unflattering rubbish everyone else does, but they desperately want to sound cool.

People who says they “have a passion for fashion”. See above.

Dogs who whine and beg to be walked, pull your arm out of your shoulder socket in the first 5 minutes, but who can’t keep the pace up for more than 20 minutes. I made my sad excuse for a dog run 3km last night and I had to practically carry her for the last 2.8km and then give her mouth to mouth at the end.

People who work at cafes who ask you for your name. It totally steps over the line in the customer-barrista relationship.

Connex customer relations officers who stand with arms crossed, glowering, in a line across the barriers at Parliament station in the morning like they’re in the Gestapo.

People who call themselves “barrista”.

Catherine Deveny. To quote a particularly under-rated poet (Axl Rose) “I used to love her, but I have to kill her”. She was pretty funny about 12 months ago, in a straight-talking, tell it like it is way. Now, she’s just descended to far into contempt-for-fellow-man territory. See her latest article if you dare.

Packed to the rafters: I can’t work out why this show is so offensive to me. Is it the incessant cheeriness? Is it Michael Caton? Is it the awful musical stings they have at the end of each scene?

Kevin Rudd: the only thing I ever liked about him was that he wasn’t John Howard. Now, it’s starting to dawn on me that there are 20-odd million people just in Australia who also aren’t John Howard, therefore it’s probably not such a claim to fame. He’s smug, and prissy, and too full of his own intelligence, but nothing worthwhile actually gets done.

Running
Just a little one last night with the slow dog (sorry Sara – I don’t mean to steal your gag). I’ll try to run tonight.

boring, wet, cold old Melbourne

That’s generally the picture people have of Melbourne, particularly if they come from somewhere up north. It’s increasingly untrue, especially this week.

We’re anything but cold, and it seems years since we were wet. And this week, we’re very definitely on edge.

Stepping out your door is like walking into a fiery inferno, so much so that many people simply don’t come to work, if they can manage it at all.

Some man, apparently disgruntled over a custody case, threw his four year-old daughter off the Westgate Bridge. That’s about 15 stories high. I can’t think what could have posessed him to do that. It’s so far outside the bounds of normal human behaviour it’s hard to comprehend.

Book shops are on fire in Carlton.

The public transport system, never terribly impressive at the best of times, has seemingly disintegrated. You’re incredibly lucky to catch any sort of train at all these days, especially in the afternoon.

I say “lucky”, but it’s only lucky in the sense that people in the Black Hole of Calcutta were lucky. So, not very lucky at all.

It’s all a bit anarchic and insane. I keep expecting to see Colonel Kurtz appear next to me, rubbing his bald sweaty head, muttering about “the horror…. the horror” and sticking people’s heads on spikes.

Running
No running since Wednesday. I’ve been feeling sick, not to mention sleep deprived and generally grumpy. I’m not in a terribly good mood, in case you didn’t notice.

lawyers, trains and Moe

As a sensitive, culturally aware, politically correct type of person, I’m usually loathe to use the small platform this blog affords me to reinforce stereotypes. I’d hate for you to think I’m the kind of blogger who would lazily say all girls from Moe sleep with their cousins, all Americans are loud brash and pig-ignorant, or that all acountants wear pocket protectors.

Which is why I’m a bit concerned that yesterday I may have slipped into perpetuating-stereotype-ville when I described Connex staff at Box Hill station as “blithering ijits” who have “2 clipboards, one loudhailer and about half a brain which they rotate between them, seemingly randomly”.

Harsh, I know. At the time I thought it was a case of “harsh, but fair”, but I can see now I was being a little uncharitable.

After yesterday’s experience, which resembled some sort of extreme sport played in Baghdad, what with the intermittent electricity, heart attacks on the train platform, vicious elbow action etc. I have to say, the Connex people have a difficult, unpleasant job.

It wasn’t great. After 90 minutes I gave up and walked the last couple of stations home.

So some revision is in order. I’m nothing if not flexible.

Connex funkies are not obstructive morons, they’re professional obstructive morons.

Much better.

Speaking of lawyers (Yes I know I wasn’t, but bare with me). Did you happen to see this article on the age today? It’s about alleged celebrity alleged girlfriend alleged basher, Matt alleged Newton and his alleged attempts to get himself off (legally, I mean). Do you think I’ve protected myself from a defamation case? Hmmm, hope so.

Anyway, the bit that court my eye was this bit, where his lawyer, Chris Murphy, says it’s not so bad because:

A lot of people died in Iraq today, most of them kids, this is a very minor matter.

Hmm, yes. Good thinking Chris. Perhaps I’ll use that excuse next time I get a parking ticket/tax bill/murder conviction. Bloody lawyers. They’re all scum.

Running
No running this morning – I needed some sleep, and it was too hot anyway. I’ll have to go tonight or tomorrow morning. I don’t relish it, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

blithering ijits

A bit of a rant today… I must have had some steam to blow off. Skip down to the running section if you’re interested in that sort of stuff.

The good people at Connex, who are responsible for the Middleborough road debacle have been very successful at what my work colleagues would call “managing stakeholder expectations”. Just when I get to the point of exploding with frustration, some genius in the marketing department comes up with something like “kiss and drop” or decides to hand out free icypoles at Blackburn station on a hot day.

So I’ve been admirably restrained on this blog.

I’m not sure how much longer it can last though. There’s something about the groups of people they have standing about that drives me up the wall. You know the ones – there’s usually about 15 of them standing about at Blackburn and Box Hill station. They all wear variations of the Connex uniform plus or minus hardhats and reflective uniforms and do, well, I’m not sure. It looks like bugger all to me.

Between the 15 of them, they’ll have 2 clipboards, one loudhailer and about half a brain which they rotate between them, seemingly randomly.

I think it may have been jolly old Franz Kafka who called this class of people “funkies”. Not because of their dancing abilities, just because they’re “functionaries”. The Connex funkies are just like Kafka’s 19th century versions. Their sole function seems to be to make travelling from A to B as difficult as possible.

How do they do this?

• Making sure you never know where they bus goes from, or
• how you get there.
• Herding you onto a bus,
• then off it,
• then onto another,
• then making you sit there for 10 minutes so you miss the train at the other end.
• making endless announcements over the loudspeaker apologising for the fact that 2 out of 3 trains have been cancelled.

To be fair to the Connex funkies, they’re not alone. They have many, many cousins around the place. See any human resources or corporate services unit in any company.

In my workplace, the sole function of the contract management section seems to make signing a contract impossible. If I had my way, I’d sack the whole lot of them. (Isn’t it great to be semi-anonymous? You can get away with writing stuff like that.)

Also I’d sack anyone who tells me they’re going to “action” something. Also, anyone who wants to discuss “learnings”.

Hello, what’s wrong with the word “lesson”?

Okay, rant over. On to more productive things…

Running
18k this morning through Croydon, Mooroolbark and surrounds. I like this route – it has some nice downs, some flat bits and not-so-nice hilly bits. It was done at 4:30 pace – and felt a little faster than last time I did the course. Am I getting fitter? Is it an illusion? Possibly, but it’s a good illusion.