Month: June 2016

Working with tamper evident bags

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tamper evident bagsLet me tell you a little about what I do. I work at an exam centre. We do several types of exams but mostly stuff that tests people’s English so that they can get into university here, and also testing their levels in specialist areas they’ve studied in their home country to see if it matches our standards in Australia. It’s a pretty good job. I’m a very fastidious person so I’m great at following guidelines to a T and generally being neat and organised which is what this job is all about. I instruct people how to fill out their exam papers, and supervise them while they do exams so they don’t cheat.

Anyway, my boss usually doesn’t ride me too hard but the other day there was a slight mix up with the tamper evident bags. When I use the passive form, that’s because I still maintain that it wasn’t my fault but she’s trying to pin it all on me. I mailed them out you see, because the examples are sent off and put into a machine that finalises the results. Well, either I was extraordinarily tired that day or someone sabotaged me because I ended up posting the wrong results to the wrong place. They got lost in the process and about a hundred people had to resit their exams. IT was a disaster that nearly cost me my job. My boss was like, ‘can you imagine if that was food packaging we were dealing with! You could have poisoned hundreds of people’ But I was like, obviously it’s not food packaging that’s a totally different thing and besides, I totally didn’t do it. I’ve barely made a single mistake since I’ve been working here. I think the janitor is trying to sabotage me because he wants my job but he’ll never get it cos he’s not qualified.

Saved by drain unblocking services

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blocked drains MelbourneEvery time I’ve had to call for services to my house, I’ve been disappointed. That is, every time except one. That was the unlikely incident of having blocked drains in my Melbourne apartment. Let me start at the beginning.

When I first got my own place, I didn’t get a pre purchase building inspection and so landed myself with tonnes of problems that I then had to fork out for to fix. So the problem I had at first was the darn central ducted heating, which almost blew my whole house up. But when I called the repairman, of course, they were late. They’re always late. They tell you that they’ll be there between 9 am and 5 pm so you have to wait around all day, and then they don’t even come and you leave the house and they show up at like 6 pm and you’ve missed them. So there was that. Ever since, I’ve had a chip on my shoulder towards repairs guys. Everything from my fridge to my vibrating waterbed has needed repairs, and each and every time the companies have been late.

That was until the draining company came along. When I discovered my drains were blocked, I thought, this is it. I’m going to have to face those darn tardy repairmen again. I cursed the ground I stood on, I even cried. But it was no use. In the end I whipped out my phone and called for drain repair, Melbourne.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I was horrendously wrong. They asked me to be at home between 12pm and 12.30 pm, and you wouldn’t believe it but they turned up at 12 on the dot. I was gobsmacked. I stood there thinking, ‘Is this real?’ After that, they actually did the job with no trouble and all, and they didn’t smack me with an unexpectedly high bill with all these hidden charges in the end. It was, astoundingly, I darn good service.

Knights and ladies and sigils, oh my!

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flag printing MelbourneOkay so this may seem a little out there but just, you know, bare with me for a moment here. I’ve been trying to get more involved in uni life, you know, branch out and do more things, meet more people, ecetera ecetera, and, well, something a little odd has happened. I’ve kind of found myself, more or less, leading the renaissance reenactment team. Laugh if you will, but the renaissance was an absolutely fascinating time in world history, and I have long been interested in the fashion, lifestyle, cultures that existed during that time. Anyway, it’s kind of a long story, and one that kind of started off as a joke (I’m still not altogether sure it isn’t a joke) but now it’s suddenly gotten quite serious. And now I have to create a renaissance fair.

I’m not going to beat around the bush here, I am entirely out of my depth. I mean, I may have been to one or two in my time, but that in no means makes me an expert. I think the first thing’s first, I need to start making some banners. Melbourne has a couple of really awesome banner making places where mum makes flyers and that kind of stuff, but would they be able to make, you know, house banners. With sigils and stuff. I’m sure they’re talented and stuff but that would be a little out of the reach of most people. I’m not even sure they’d be able to do it on fabric. Maybe I should try and find a place that does flag printing in Melbourne instead.

And that’s not really even the start of my problems. I mean, yeah, it needs to look like a fair during the renaissance, but there also needs to be food, contests, some kind of way of recording who shows up and getting them all to pay … there’s just so much to do I can’t deal right now.

Holidaying with All the Kids!

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hotels in LorneGoing on your holidays can be really tough with a big family. It’s great to have all the kids along, but finding a place to fit all of them can be a hassle! Oh, and they’re all dogs. All thirteen of them. Yeah, I may have brought this upon myself, but I have the funds and the land for it, and they were all rescue dogs. Now they have a home with lots of brothers and sisters, forever, yay! But yep, sure is a hassle getting them places! I’ve had to get a bus license, and a bus, and then make it dog-friendly inside.

As for holidays, I’m working on a cunning plan. Now, the accommodations down in the Great Ocean Road aren’t exactly equipped for that many animals. I should know, because I’ve spent enough time looking, but they DO have some chalets down by the sea. If I took all the fur babies down to the coast, and housed them in one of the largest chalets, it probably wouldn’t be enough space. But If I hired out TWO chalets, right next to each other, and then split my time between them…well, that makes things interesting, now doesn’t it? It might be labour intensive on my part, but this holiday isn’t for me. It’s for my sweet babies and their enjoyment. Though Gloria doesn’t really like new places, I’m hoping now that she’s befriended Rufus she can come out of her shell a bit more. That is, if Gustav stops bullying both of them whenever they’re together, which I personally think is because Gustav fancies her. That’s crazy by itself, of course…Ramble is so into him it’s practically transparent.

So they’re a handful, but it’s not like I can show up at some luxury accommodation in Lorne and expect a warm welcome. But I think Gustav, Gloria, Ramble, Rufus, Shelley, Uther, Klein, Humperdink, Oscar, Virgo, Xander, Terry and Sherry really deserve better. We ALL need a break!

-Cassabelline

This Company Retreat Must Fall

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conference centre VictoriaThe corporate retreat is a time for employees to, and I quote, ‘let their hair down and generally relax!’. The exclamation mark is not mine, obviously, because I do not engage in such inane punctuation except when actually necessary. This is a period in which employees may take a long weekend to recharge, get to know each other better and generally learn about business practices.

As much as the last portion of that appeals to me, I must put a stop to this scheme at all costs. The office has slipped out of my iron grasp for such an event to deal the deathblow this soon. I can tolerate function room hire for a night of pointless frivolity, but booking an entire conference centre, and one focused on relaxation? This I cannot tolerate. I WILL not tolerate it. However, the population at large seems enthused about this upcoming event, so cancelling it outright has stopped being an option.

I wonder, would it be possible to subtly sabotage the event? The business seminars I have seen, and I approve of the content. Perhaps they can be stretched to cover more of the day, perhaps even jutting into post-lunch time. I’m sure I could justify the insertion of more lectures, reducing the amount of leisure time and filling it with sweet, delicious productivity. Or rather, informative lectures that will lead to greater productivity in the future, so in the end I’ll win no matter what the circumstances.

Yes, that will be the first step. The relaxation features of the centre can be whittled down, forcing people to remain in work mode. Perhaps I can bring along urgent paperwork and coerce certain key employees into completing it. Mack will be a problem- nothing new there- as well as that social coordinating lout. They think they can take control of my office. Well, we’re going to have a marvellous and productive time at this convention centre. Just you wait.

-Sandrine

Reincarnated at a funeral

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Perth FuneralsOkay so I’ve never been a spiritual person but since my father died everything changed for me. We had to have a funeral with a priest and everything because his family are strict Catholics and they wouldn’t have had it any other way. I rolled my eyes when the priest read the sermon at the mass but that was the last time I eschewed religion. Actually I had a spiritual awakening on the day of my father’s funeral.

Funerals in Perth range from staid sombre affairs to vibrant quirky rituals. In my father’s case, I was devastated and also dreading the whole thing because of how bleak it was and also because I wasn’t particularly religious and couldn’t be bothered with the whole rigmarole. As I was standing there listening to the priest do his thing, I was watching my father’s alien pasty corpse and then I saw his eye twitch. I knew it was his last goodbye, a wink. At that moment, I looked out the window, quite absentmindedly. The next thing I saw totally shocked me. It was an owl flying past in the middle of the day on a thirty degree scorcher in Perth. Not only do we not see many owls in this area but it was the middle of the day. I knew that my dad had been reincarnated into a wise owl.

Later I told the Perth based funeral directors, they were deeply intrigued but not surprised. The told me about the Buddhist beliefs. Actually, reincarnation is hell. It means you’re bound to the earthly life and you haven’t reached nirvana or ended the cycle of suffering.

Poor old dad, he got reincarnated into a lower life form, even if it is a beautiful one. But then again, we can’t be too anthropocentric in our attitudes. Animals may have an intelligence that we’re not even aware of, knowledges that we can’t even fathom.

A Woman Who Can Handle Dogs

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dog walking service MelbourneI’ve always told myself that I couldn’t stand to marry a woman who wasn’t into dogs as much as I was. I’ve grown up with them, and they were pretty much my only friends throughout high school, because I was a weirdo. Don’t mind admitting that. But I’ve now broken up with two great girls who said they weren’t fond of dogs. Who isn’t fond of dogs? You’d have to be some kind of low-level sociopath to look at a puppy and not think it was cute.

I guess it’s not my place to say who can like what. Maybe I should look into the dog walking service in Melbourne. I see a lot of woman walking multiple dogs, and they often seem young and single and available, maybe. Not that I’m about to start hitting on every dog walker in the city, but sometimes, you have to explore your options where the picking is good. Or better yet, I could offer to help! I don’t mind helping out with a dog walk. Their scheduling must be complicated, and sometimes I guess you just end up with three rottweilers, a doberman and a newfoundland. It’s like a triangle of fights and powerful pulling. I just have to find a nice girl being pulled off her feet, and offer to help…and then we’ll start to fall in love, just like in that film where the guy and the girl meet in a cute way. You know the one. It was in the cinema.

Or maybe I’m setting myself up for a major fall, because then I’ll be implying that dog walking is something she needs help with. Maybe she’ll look like she’s struggling, but that’s just how that walk often goes for her, and she’s a strong confident woman who doesn’t need a man. Gosh, dog walking can be complicated, which I know from childhood. This romance is harder to find than I thought. Maybe I should just officially take up being a dog walker. Melbourne always needs those, right? All those rottweilers…

-Jacob

Looking glam for the cameras

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diploma of beauty I might be kinda lonely now, but I feel like that’s just life giving me a little break. After all, when I’m super famous I’ll have an entourage following me around everywhere, cameras flashing, people in the streets bringing me books to sign…I won’t get a moment of peace!

I’ve been laying some serious groundwork recently, in fact. I think I might have found a cameraman, and it’s the guy on the Channel 13 news. Just the way he manages to hold the thing steady while filming those news reporters…I want him on my team. Oh, and of course, I’m going to need some makeup girls. Or guys, really, I’m not discriminating. If they’re got an official diploma of makeup from a real university, they can follow me around and put powder on my forehead whenever I’m about to go on camera.

Naturally, their job will be one of the most involved. I’ll need my personal beautician with me 24/7, because who knows when I’m about to get mobbed by a pack of fans? I don’t want to be one of those people who gets their picture taken in some kind of awful tabloid papers, looking all sallow and degenerate. That’ll hurt my image as a great television celebrity and dispenser of wise advice, because who’s going to trust someone who looks like they can’t look after themselves?

Oh, it’s all very unfair, I realise that. But that’s showbiz…it’s a cruel world, and one wrong move can have you out on your ear. I have to look good at all times, and while it’s not the most appealing idea, being doted upon by a professional makeup artists…it’s one I accept, along with the hassles of the job. I’m serious about that diploma, though. It’s got to be a real diploma in beauty therapy, otherwise my career could be over for good. Poof, all gone. Makeup professionals only!