Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 


To sum up today:

1) Alarms went off at ungodly hours of the morning

2) long drives up to London were slept through

3) pictures were apparently taken of me in that state, possibly to be used as blackmail. I guess we won't know until the message with all the letter cut-outs from the newspaper arrive.

4) meetings were attended


All in all, I got a lot out of the meeting. Like salads, delicious sandwiches with very crusty buns, brownies and what I think was butternut squash soup. I rather enjoyed the soup, which is somewhat perplexing as I rather loathe the taste of squash in its natural form. And there was pop. Cans of pop. Lots and lots of cans of pop.

Joy!

I took home at least 5 cans. Now before you start wagging the finger of morality at me, hear me out: of course I would have taken home more, but the rest were all diet.

Apart from that....uh, I can't say I really learned anything new. To their credit, the speakers from Head Office were great and very informative, but as far as I'm concerned, this was retreading on old questions and issues that have already been addressed. Which probably explains why I almost nodded off during some of the ridiculously length of repetitive questions & obvious answer sessions.

We were also given lanyard nametags with springy cords. I bounced mine around like a yoyo. Then it snapped upwards and whacked me in the nose. I was not impressed.

But the hotel our meeting was hosted at (yes, we had that many managers attending, and needed the space) was very swanky. I scoured the swanky digs, discovering a nice restaurant, another impressively large conference room filled with 8 people from Sobeys discussing one thing or another, and ice machines. I'm particularly pleased with having found the ice machines.

I needed it to help keep my pop cold.

Alas, there was no pool. And here I brought my swimsuit for nothing! Sure, you laugh now, but consider: we had at least an hour for lunch. More than enough time to choke down a meal, soak in a Jacuzzi and then dry off just in time for the meeting to resume.

Now how many of you just thought to yourself, "he really put way too much forethought into that"? Show of hands. Come on, don't be shy. Put them up.




Not both of them, you idiot. You do realize that someone's going to walk in to the room at this very moment, and wonder why you're acting like an orangutang in front of the computer. (Then again, maybe they'll just assume you have the webcam on again.)

And with the closing of the meeting, we are given the perfect segueway to Today's Lesson: nothing will make you do a double-take faster than walking into the men's washroom and finding half a dozen women inside.

Okay, yes, the females at the meeting outnumbered the males 15 to 1 (there were only four of us guys, and three were the guest speakers visiting from the Head office), and certainly at the end of the meeting the ladies' washroom had one hell of a line-up...but still, that was a heart attack I didn't need. I had to recheck the sign to make sure it was in fact the men's room door I'd opened. But happily, the ladies were kind enough to clear out and let me use one of the urinals in peace. Now that's consideration.
posted by Phillip at 5:38 PM

 


It's almost midnight. Tuesday morning, I get to drag my tired ass out of bed at 6am, and by 7am be in Cambridge so a group of us unlucky store managers can drive one and a half hours out to London for a 9am meeting that will probably be interesting for about an hour and bore me to tears for the remaining six hours. Under other circumstances I wouldn't have too much issue with this: I'm getting paid to not show up at the store for one day, lunch is catered and I can dress as casually as I want, so long as I still have pants on for the entirety meeting.

It's that whole "getting up at 6am" part I'm not particularly fond about. I'm not as grumbly about mornings as Mel is, but I'm certainly not the sort of guy who just bounds out of bed at the coming of dawn, takes a deep breath and remarks, "Today is going to be so fabuloooouuuuus!"

Well...actually I would make the "fabuloooooouuuuus!" remark. Just not at 6am.

In the meantime, Shady's curled up at my feet, Chance is curled up in his favourite sleeping box on the coffee table, and Tachi is nibbling on Chance's other sleeping box in the hall. Mel is trying not to swear so openly as she attempts the 100-man marathon for Super Smash Brothers. And I am needing to change the drives on my laptop and fire off the latest incarnation of the Confic (now 95% completed!) to Kevin so he can evaluate the comedic potential of the line, "Hotaru just gave the basilisk head."


Today's Lesson: it's a good idea to check the hours of a restaurant beforehand on an Easter Monday like today, lest you show up for coffee and discovered it's only going to happen if you break into the restaurant and commandeer the coffee machine.
posted by Phillip at 8:34 PM