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!

Chaos Around Tax Time, Not My Fault

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tax returns MelbourneIt’s not MY fault the office is facing fines and is basically in the toilet. People keep accusing me of being bad with email. Have you ever tried trying to deal with that stuff while you’re keeping an entire family of kookaburras alive in one of your desk drawers? I have a responsibility to nature which I have to divide between that and this job. I can multitask, but there’s a lot of work involved in keeping kookaburras happy. If they start to make noises I could get fired.

Oh, and then there are the business tax returns. Melbourne has really strict rules when it comes to that sort of thing, almost ridiculous. You have to get them in by a certain DATE…how silly is that? Tax returns are the pinnacle of human civilisation; they show how we’ve grown as a people. They shouldn’t be bound by rules and regulations regarding time, because they transcend those limitations.

And don’t even get me started on the rest of the office. The fact that our IT person only speaks German is the tip of the iceberg, as is the fact that Stacey lets her little hellhound run wild. Our CEO recently developed an addiction to yellow tea, which he says improves mental function and bodily health. Nobody can go near his office because the stench is like…well, imagine freshly mown grass left in a pile for about a month, and you’ve got it. I have to hold my breath when I’m dropping off files.

And THEN there’s Bernice, who is just straight up nuts. She keeps sending everyone gifs of pig farms, derails every staff meeting to lecture us on the benefits of the meat industry and asking if we’ve had our protein intake for the day. If you say no, you get a lecture of why the human body needs protein to survive, and she’ll make you one of her specialised protein shakes and watch you drink it. They also taste like pork. And Melbourne’s business accounting practices are a problem? That’s nothing compared to what I deal with every day.

-Susan

Rewriting my will after divorce

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succession planning MelbourneIt’s been a tough few months. My husband and I have been getting a separation and then ultimately a divorce. It was a hard decision to make because we have two teenagers and we realise that they need a loving and supportive family behind them at this stage in their lives. However, we decided that the fighting, tension and lack of love between us would be far more harmful to them than living in two separate homes. Now that the paperwork for the divorce is completed, I have to reconsider my will. Melbourne has some good attorneys to choose from though so I should be okay.

Now that the headaches are coming to an end, the remorse is starting to set in. I’m starting to enter the mourning stage. Bill and I were married for fifteen years and that’s no walk in the park. It feels a little like all the effort we put in, all the hard times we persevered through were for nothing.

My best friend has been an enormous crutch throughout this whole thing. I couldn’t be more grateful for her support. Not only has she been there for me to cry on her shoulder, she’s also helped with all the practical things. She’s very clever and has experience with legal stuff because she’s worked as an assistant to lawyers in the past. She’s the one who suggested a couple of lawyers to me because recently in her company they’ve had to do some succession planning. Melbourne companies, like my friends, sometimes hire lawyer plan the future of leadership within the company. They lawyers that my friend’s company got were particularly good apparently so I’m going to try them.

Bill’s calling me now so I need to go. It’s still hard to hear his voice but we have to work together and sort everything out for the kids. Even though we’re divorces we’re still going ot be part of each other’s lives, there’s no escaping that.  

Window repairs gone wrong

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window frame repairs

I’m a bit of a handyman, and so I like to do things myself. From simple things like changing a lightbulb to more complex things like rewiring the microwave. Yep, you heard me, I fixed the microwave. I am the man of the house after all. The missus is always complaining because she reckons I do a shoddy job of all our home repairs, but she doesn’t know what she’s on about. I do a darn fine job of fixing things around here. This place would be falling apart if it wasn’t for me. Í go to her, ‘If you don’t want me fixing things then you pay for them to get fixed our of your own pocket!’ This she was not too pleased about.

When our windows started falling apart I realised I could do the aluminium window repairs. Melbourne companies probably charge a fortune, I thought, so I’ll just have crack at it myself. How hard could it be, right?

Anyway, I gave it my best go but it didn’t exactly go as well as I’d hoped. It’s totally not my fault though, it’s because the timber house doesn’t support aluminium frames. The missus wouldn’t have a bar of it though, she blamed it all on me. ‘What have you done? Now you’ve made it worse. We have to call the professionals in.’ Ra Ra Ra.

I gave in and called the company to do our timber window repair. In Melbourne, the company I called were very sympathetic. I explained that it wasn’t my fault the window repairs went wrong the first time and they smiled and nodded in understanding. I tried to use this as evidence to show my wife that I’m actually a good repairs man and also in the hope that she would pay for it. I need my money for more important things like men’s mags and beer. Plus I gave it a shot myself so I should get paid too.

Caring for my hubby with dry needling

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NZ dry needling

My poor hubby has been suffering chronic pain since his motorbike accident. He was okay mentally but then started developing dementia too. Needless to say, he needs around-the-clock care.  I’m on government payments myself because I have to care for him full time.

The worst thing for him is his back and muscular pain. It makes him really tired and irritable, as you can imagine, it totally sucks. I used to give him massages but it got to the point where the messages weren’t helping but actually making the problems worse. We really can’t afford a physiotherapist or any fancy specialist doctors – they are sooooo expensive. So that’s why I’m not looking into dry needling courses, NZ and across Australia. We actually live between the two countries so I can decide where I want to do the course.

If you haven’t heard of trigger point dry needling, it’s this technique that is used to relieve muscle pain and myofascial pain. I figure that if I do the course than I can treat my own husband without having to pay for expensive therapy and all of that. Dry needling is becoming more and more recognised as a treatment for these kinds of conditions. A lot of conventional medical practitioners like physiotherapists and orthopaedic surgeons are now integrating the treatment into their practice.

I’m thinking that this dry needling course in Adelaide might be the way to go because we’ll be spending the next couple of years at my husband’s parents house just outside of Adelaide. IT’s a beautiful city but there isn’t much to do and we like to alternate between there and New Zealand which is where I’m from. I’m really looking forward to the course and I hope I can relieve some of my hubby’s pain.

Re-enacting horror movies during fridge repairs

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broken washing machines

When my sister and I were kids we got up to a lot of mischief. We’d climb up onto the roof and light our dad’s underwear on fire, and when they brought Nanna over to babysit, we’d swap her heart medication for Pop’s.

The trouble didn’t let up even well into our teens and early twenties. Our dad owned a reception hall and had a catering service based there as well. This place was like a wonderland for us as kids, and even returning in our later years was an adventure. The place had an industrial sized kitchen with commercial refrigeration and all the rest. One day, the freezer started leaking and we overheard Dad making a call to get a Sydney fridge repair. We glanced over at each other and smiled slyly, later sneaking into the laundry room to conceive of our plot.

Our aim was to give the repairs guy the shock of his life. Dumb, I know, but hilarious too. The commercial fridge at the reception centre looked a lot like the one from The Shinning. We always used to make jokes about it and imitate Jake Nicholson’s voice shouting “Danny Boy!” while chasing after each other and miming axe-wielding gaits. We decided that we’d put on a proper show and re-enact this scene for the fridge repairs guy.

As you can imagine, when Dad called him back a few weeks later for the broken washing machine repairs in the laundry room, the guy was professional about it, but reserved. After what he’d seen at the reception centre, he was clearly unimpressed — and who can blame him? While he was crouched down with his head buried in the fridge, spanner in hand, we dimmed the lights. He popped his head out curiously and then resumed work, only to jump to his feet in fridge when we ran in there, my sister dressed as Danny and I as the blood-thirsty killer. You should have seen the look on his face!

 

Custom made is better made

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work platforms

As a builder, I know exactly what it’s like to know what you want. When I’m getting the designs for people’s houses, a lot of the time they’re very fastidious about what they want. It’s easy to make a mistake by assuming something is generally wanted when in fact everyone has their own quirks and whatnot. For example you may assume that someone wants the space under their front porch filled or boarded up, but no, I made this fatal assumption once which nearly cost me that gig. Anyway, back to the point, le like their houses custom made and I like my work tools custom made, especially work platforms. Around Melbourne, you get a few companies producing ladders and adjustable or portable planks and trestles for all types of building and construction work. Some companies are better than others. One claimed that they customise your platforms but then they didn’t listen to my specifications carefully and botched the job.

Aluminium work platforms, when made correctly can make or break the job. Seriously, you can do an exceptionally accurate job with the right folding platforms, and I also love the way you can pack them into the back of the truck because if you don’t pack up your equipment it can get nicked.

Moral of the story is that everything is better when it’s tailored to your needs. Other stuff that is better when you have it done your way include burgers and suit. With burgers, basically  you want the lot in there except for pineapple but including egg, maybe some beetroot. With suits, you want them to show off your labourer’s pecs.