Kevin's Watch

A thread dedicated to the little things that happen at work that amuse, bemuse or simply occur to add interest to our mundane working days.

(Polite request: not a thread for ranting about the unreasonable workloads placed on us or the general beastliness of our colleagues - simply small things that add a splash of colour to an otherwise grey landscape.)

A customer left their car keys on the counter having completed their shopping, but being somewhat preoccupied it was a few moments before I noticed they were there. I whipped out into the carpark and to my surprise found, instead of the man searching for his keys as I expected, it to be empty of any cars whatsoever. Scratching my head as to how this feat could have been pulled off, I returned to the shop and put the keys in the drawer. An hour later the chap returned enquiring if I had the keys. I said yes and asked how he had driven away without them. He had, he told me, in fact been parked in the hospital carpark close by and had simply walked across to the shop to buy provisions, it being cheaper than the hospital shop.

Ha, how about the general beastliness of our clients?

--A

Clients have a right to be beastly; they pay (more) for the privelage!

Can we tax the extra-beastly ones for beastliness?

I don't work with people any more ... well I do have human clients but the majority of my time is with animals.. and I did get a swift kick in the butt by a thoroughbred racehorse .. and it did hurt, briefly .. lol .. yeah a nice how-do-you-do .. for bringing food!!

People are fickle, changeable, shallow .. but if they're gonna be painful Id far rather a swift kick in the butt, than the nonsense humans can deliver

I would love to work with animals instead of people. I volunteer at an animal shelter, and it's great. I wish I could get a paying job there, but they don't have many opportunities, especially if you don't have any veterinary experience. I could probably handle working in the spay/neuter clinic, but I wouldn't want to be a vet.

Skyweir wrote:I don't work with people any more ... well I do have human clients but the majority of my time is with animals.. and I did get a swift kick in the butt by a thoroughbred racehorse .. and it did hurt, briefly .. lol .. yeah a nice how-do-you-do .. for bringing food!!

People are fickle, changeable, shallow .. but if they're gonna be painful Id far rather a swift kick in the butt, than the nonsense humans can deliver

Gosh, you're a lucky guy Skyweir! A horse kick is a serious thing at any time and few people walk away as unscathed as you managed to. Working with animals is much the same as any other kind of work at the end of the day, insofar as there will be days, just the same as any other job, where you will get up and just not want to do it. You rapidly develop a healthy respect for them and learn that they will always act according to their way. Most of the time, if you get hurt, it is because you have done something wrong. But horses - horses I have so much time for. I fell from a chestnut mare coming down a bank into a narrow lane. I looked up from the ground and saw her four feet coming down toward me and thought it was curtains, but she danced around me and never the once touched me as I lay under her belly. I miss her.

Well Peter sounds to me you caught the lucky break! You could have been crushed!

Nah mate I love my job - my whole life has been public service roles - and I love going to work every day. It might be hard to understand I guess, I do very similar things every day, but I have the best office in the world!! Imagine for a minute green valleys and hills - large open spaces, fresh air, rivers, creeks and becks .. beautiful thoroughbred racehorses, long drives to source feed, visiting dogs to keep them company, Ng after livestock, chooks, of course mucking out messes, cuddles... lots of loves - I'm on Facebook check out my pics of my office Suzanne Given..

Sorus wrote:I would love to work with animals instead of people. I volunteer at an animal shelter, and it's great. I wish I could get a paying job there, but they don't have many opportunities, especially if you don't have any veterinary experience. I could probably handle working in the spay/neuter clinic, but I wouldn't want to be a vet.

Do it Sorus. Do what I do .. you'd be surprised at the demand. I live in a rural area - so I get to look after horses and livestock but if you don't - start your own business. Animal Minding .. people want to go away for holidays and kennels are pricey but mostly animals tend to stress in those environments. So caring for them in their own home is 100% better for them. Most of my holiday work (staying in clients homes caring for their animals is in the city - it's an hour away but I charge $85/night - mostly I discount for stays longer than a week. Most of our work is local to where we live. We have a website my son designed and uniforms and our business name is on our vehicle. It all helps people to feel secure that your professional. Also my husband bs a former gov lawyer and with my policing skills Xperience and work in national security helps peeps feel their home and animals are in good hands - and they are

Skyweir wrote:Well Peter sounds to me you caught the lucky break! You could have been crushed!

Nah mate I love my job - my whole life has been public service roles - and I love going to work every day. It might be hard to understand I guess, I do very similar things every day, but I have the best office in the world!! Imagine for a minute green valleys and hills - large open spaces, fresh air, rivers, creeks and becks .. beautiful thoroughbred racehorses, long drives to source feed, visiting dogs to keep them company, Ng after livestock, chooks, of course mucking out messes, cuddles... lots of loves - I'm on Facebook check out my pics of my office Suzanne Given..

I fully get that Skyweir - I worked with animals for twenty-five years, large and small in a rural veterinary practice. I loved the open spaces and the fresh air and of course the animals themselves, but I also had to see - had to do - things that I am no longer comfortable with in the course of my work. The veterinary trade is much romanticised in the media and unsurprisingly people swallow the portrayal of it wholesale. Sorus is right alas - there is much in the work that most people would not like, but stuff that has to be done nevertheless. Vets don't get to pick and choose on this score - they have to pick up the bad along with the good.

The animal minding trade that you are in must be fantastic however! If people didn't love and care deeply for their charges after all, they would not be engaging your services. Good on you and keep up the good work my friend!

Sounds more fun than the people minding I have to do a lot of. Both staff and clients.

Right now we're trying desperately to make our web department more efficient.

--A

We have a whole IT department - and external ones provided by the franchisers - dedicated to solving hardware/software issues ............ which they singularly fail to do. I genuinely believe that these guys deliberatly keep a few ongoing problems occuring in order to ensure their continued employment!

Hahaha, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility. But in my case, it's a website department...the guys who make websites, not an IT one.

Our website department isn't profitable...in fact, it has almost never been profitable...but we're not cheap either, so we can't raise the costs. Instead, we have to get more efficient.

--A

Right - back on topic, here's a tale that should go under the heading 'Clever stuff I said that was unappreciated'. An old guy came to the shop and held up one of the new plastic five pound notes before me. "I put this through the washing machine yesterday by accident" he said, commenting further on how well it had withstood the process. "You must be one of those money launderers I read about" I quipped, but reaction came there none. I tried again. Taking the note I said "Hold on, it's shrunk - it's only worth four pounds fifty now!" Once more his expression was wooden as he regarded me across the counter. We concluded our business in silence and having been thanked for his custom he left. The moral: never underestimate the power of a good 'fish-eye' to effect behavioural change on an irritatingly smart-arse shop-clerk.

I laugh at people with no sense of humour.

--A

Avatar wrote:Sounds more fun than the people minding I have to do a lot of. Both staff and clients.


--A

Yep been there done that!! (*wishes there was a 'shoot me now' emoticon*)

And you know the fun hate fest being a cop is

Well, I'll take your word for it.

--A

peter wrote:Right - back on topic, here's a tale that should go under the heading 'Clever stuff I said that was unappreciated'. An old guy came to the shop and held up one of the new plastic five pound notes before me. "I put this through the washing machine yesterday by accident" he said, commenting further on how well it had withstood the process. "You must be one of those money launderers I read about" I quipped, but reaction came there none. I tried again. Taking the note I said "Hold on, it's shrunk - it's only worth four pounds fifty now!" Once more his expression was wooden as he regarded me across the counter. We concluded our business in silence and having been thanked for his custom he left. The moral: never underestimate the power of a good 'fish-eye' to effect behavioural change on an irritatingly smart-arse shop-clerk.

Having been on both sides of that counter, I try to go with the mood - if someone doesn't seem chatty, I don't make small talk. If someone engages in banter, I try to keep it going.

A while back, I was at the hardware store buying some elastic cords. An overly helpful employee was helping me, and he started making small talk, which for some reason involved jokes about me needing equipment to conceal a murder scene. Whatever. He was clearly joking, so I played along. Then he decided to pull another random customer into the conversation, and this was an older guy who didn't speak much English, but apparently he understood enough to look absolutely horrified. So I was trying to reassure him that it was a joke, but the employee just obliviously kept going.

This is why I'm glad I got out of HR.

Tiles in the office kitchen are lifting up, so we were making jokes to the newbies about bodies being buried underneath them.

--A

Avatar wrote:

Tiles in the office kitchen are lifting up, so we were making jokes to the newbies about bodies being buried underneath them.

--A

That's sick, Av.


In spite of the fact that the building I work in isn't all that old many of the ceiling tiles are stained by roof leaks. Seems every summer, during the worst of the Tropical storm season, we find new leaks. You know, because of the "sideways rain". Heh, we're used to it here in Florida as rain rarely just drops harmlessly out of the sky. It gets hurled with amazing force by turbulent gusts of wind. Anyway I see a roofing contractor out in the parking lot so maybe today they'll start patching holes.