» Other people's diaries

My boss's e-mails
(If I get caught, I'm likely to get sacked, so there will be very few details in this story.)

My psychotic breadstick of a line manager went off on loopy leave 6 months ago. As I was the only one who knew what work she'd been doing, I got temporarily promoted to her job. IT was instructed to set up an out-of-office for the breadstick, forwarding all e-mails on to me instead.

Well, she came back a month ago. And no-one seems to remember to tell IT to cancel the forwarding.

(Well, I'm the only IT-literate person here, the rest couldn't find porn on the internet)

So for the last 4 weeks every e-mail she's been sent has been duplicated to me. It's been very interesting hearing what's going on, who's slagging off who etc.

The only tricky bit is trying to remember in meetings what I know and what I shouldn't know.

F x
(please don't click "I like this", I don't want to get caught)
(Tue 6th Feb 2007, 16:36, More)

» Shoddy Presents

Sent, not received
My family lived in France for 4 years before returning to Scotland, so we would keep in touch with our french friends through the occasional letter, and Christmas gifts.

One year my mother thought it would be nice to send them a traditional christmas pudding. She went the whole hog, home-made, small silver charms wrapped in paper inside, and the finishing touch of a sprig of holly on the top.

A couple of months later (March, I think) we got a letter from our friends thanking us for the kind gift:

"Thank you for the lovely plant you sent us. We watered it every day but unfortunately it died."
(Fri 24th Sep 2004, 11:13, More)

» Where is the strangest place you have slept?

Bouncy bouncy...
When I was young I went to a summer camp where we slept on camp beds in classrooms in a school. One of the boys leaders was a really heavy sleeper, and we all envied that dorm coz they could do what they liked at night, with the leader never waking up.

The other leaders decided to take matters into their own hands.

Remember we're in a school. With a fancy gym containing the most massive trampoline ever seen. (Think olympic standard.)

So, one night the other leaders lifted Sleepy's camp bed, with him still on it, carried him through the school to the gym and lifted it to the centre of the trampoline. Not a twitch from Sleepy.

They left a couple of guys to sleep on the floor beside him in case he woke up the next day and killed himself falling off the thing. He woke very confused, apparently :o)

F x

PS: he later went on to marry a friend of mine, then had an affair and left her when she developed MS in her twenties and became wheelchair-bound. Click "I like this" if you agree he's a twunt.
(Fri 29th Dec 2006, 11:40, More)

» Ignoring Instructions

Worst chef in the world
(no, it's not late from last week)

When I was about 12, my family lived in a college for a year while my parents studied. There was a chef who did breakfast (put boxes of cereal out) and tea (deep fried stuff), lunches you had to fend for yourself.

Part-way through the year, the college got a microwave. This was late 80's so they weren't as common as they are now. The chef had never used one, but as you would expect, he threw the instructions in the bin.

Now, he'd heard that one of the things most frequently cooked in a microwave was baked potatos. He also knew that a microwave speeded up the cooking process considerably. He thought he'd give it a try.

So, wrapping up all the baked potatos in foil (coz that's how you'd do them in the oven, right?), he packed them into the microwave like a bricklayer filling a hole in a wall.

Then, as everyone knows, baked potatos take a good 3 hours in the oven. Masterchef here decides to give them an hour and see how they look. Then goes out.

Returns an hour later to a lump of melted plastic and charred embers.

F x

PS I was gutted, having just discovered the joys of microwave popcorn :(
(Mon 8th May 2006, 17:10, More)

» Personal Hygiene

"Can I borrow your deodorant?"
As I've mentioned in the past, I used to live in France. Every summer teams of twenty-somethings used to come out to do various volunteer work and enjoy the sun at the same time. Usually the teams were all UK-people, but occasionally we'd get some foreigners joining in.

One year there was a guy from the netherlands who had decided to "travel light". He had packed two shirts for the whole two weeks. Oh, and he didn't wear deodorant.

By the end of the first day, he was reeking. Thankfully he did take a shower every morning, but as the week went on, his smell of his shirts became more and more invasive. By the end of the first week, people were refusing to pair up with him, and making excuses to avoid sitting next to him at meals.

Then a miracle happened. During the weekend in between the two weeks, a lot of the team were washing their clothes. One guy had a quiet word with the smelly bloke, to suggest that he should do the same. So there was a huge sigh of relief when he joined the clothes-washing group, topless and carrying his two shirts.

Alas, no, it was not to be. He asked one of the other guys "Can I borrow your deodorant?" and proceeded to spray both shirts inside and out with Sure spray deo.

Ok, so it helped for an hour or so.

Thankfully coz I was a girl, I could avoid being paired with him :o)

F x

PS: I have had a vision of the future, I can see this thread filling with people who spell "hygiene" wrongly and people who complain about it. Click "I like this" if you agree.
(Thu 22nd Mar 2007, 12:58, More)