better

I'm a bit more on top of things than this afternoon. Talked to a lot of people, co-workers have called from the UK to give their support. They didn't know what the hell was going on and were pretty shocked by the whole thing. They didn't realise a lot of the staff over here were in danger of loosing their jobs (the irony is of course that we work within communications...).
The other consultant who will be leaving tomorrow too has just rung up and said he's going out with a bang and asked me to a champagne party at 3pm tomorrow, in the office. I'm not sure how it will go down, if it's even allowed (I'm sure there's some stupid Swedish law that says you can't drink alcohol at work) but I don't work there any more and I already have a new project from my agency so who gives a fuck?

no job

I lost my job. All consultants lost their jobs. Some woman no one is happy is coming from another department to take over my job. She's been on several long sick leaves and my boss said she didn't think it would work out with her so no one is happy about the situation.

It sucks that I can do a great job, get excellent performance reviews from all the top managers and in the end I loose my job anyway because union rules say no matter how shit you are at your job in Sweden you can't be fired so this woman comes in and takes my job just because she's a full time employee and I'm "just" a consultant.

And to top it all off, my "real" boss over at the consultancy firm hasn't even had the decency to give me a ring...

Update: job

Want an update on my job situation? It's now 15:45 on Wednesday afternoon and my contract expires in just over 24 hours. Still no word from HR. Meanwhile my boss is scheduling meetings for me next week and I have a about five different projects that run in to early October and most of Q3 and Q4.

Isn't it all just fantastic?

Meanwhile, my company got 14 Emmy's on Sunday night. Maybe HR is still hungover from the party? Don't know why they'd be invited to it but I'm sure there's got to be some sort of logical reason behind it all...

test

Just testing because blogger is being stupid..

fuck it

If no one has told me what the deal is on Friday I'm staying at home. HR can stuff it. My contract ends on August 31st and so far no one in HR has bothered telling me what the fuck's going on. Do I stay? Do I leave? Who is going to take over my projects if I do leave? Do they want me to hand over all this stuff to someone? Thursday afternoon 16:30 I'm turning off my phone and if they have questions about my projects they can talk to someone they are still paying. HR, show me a new contract with your signatures on it first, then we can talk work.

the green mile?

When my boss for the 100th time underlines the importance of delivering on the execution date, execution is vital, skimp on quality but we can't miss the execution date I can't help but wonder if I accidentally wandered in to a Stephen King novel?

Moustache?

Two very good bloggers that I read regular have recently developed a love of growing moustaches and shared their love on their blogs. A near friend of mine has also taken to breeding his own little upper lip creation and is very proud of the result. A second friend's boyfriend has grown one this summer and she is praising the, in her eyes, good looks of her boyfriend and in general moustaches seem to be a trend this year.

But I'm sorry, it's just not do-able. They are icky! They are scratchy and I've yet to meet a guy who can pull it off without looking like either a Belgian molester or a left over from a bad 70's film. The one who can pull it off is Sean Connery and even then, with the white beard, he looks like Father Christmas in some shots. What does that tell you?

No, the only moustache that is acceptable is if you're Captain Sparrow and you shave it off at the end of the day.

(and on a side note, I used to live next door to where Sean Connery grew up, right opposite the establishment "Paradise Escorts", classy place)

low

i'm a bit low this week. i'm this --> I I close to loosing my job. I'll find out tomorrow and if the answer is a bad one I pack up my stuff on Thursday next week. I wish I knew what freak down in HR left thing this bloody late and order porn online in their name to the company. I'd never do it, I'm to meek for that, but the thought is good. The worst thing is I've really done my best, done an excellent job, all the managers love me and want me to stay and are e-mailing back and forth trying to work out a way to keep me with the company. But no, laws and corporate bullshit rules have to be followed according to HR and if they can find someone at the company they just bought that has the same positon as me, that's it, I'm out despite what everyone says and wants.

Luckily unemploymency doesn't beckon, I've taken care of that bit. There will be a paycheck in the mail in September no matter what.

bitching

Here's another reason not to write in Swedish: if I don't write in Swedish maybe I can avoid being dragged in to the fish pond of bitching that seems to be blogs in Swedish right now.

I'm going to stop reading comments on other peoples blogs, it's to fucking depressing to see how many bitter and nasy people live in Sweden. I hate people.

theft

I got this from another blog that I just discovered and like

Four jobs I've had in my life
receptionist at Ikea (my speaker voice is flawless)
kitchen slave at un-named hellish hamburger resturant (I never eat hamburgers)
telemarketing person (for two days, then I quit)
tourist guide

Four films I'd like to see again:
American History X
Lost in Translation
Populärmusik från Vittula
Finding Nemoo

Four cities I've lived in:
Sydney
Glasgow
Malmö
Stockholm

Four tv-shows I watch:
I don't follow any tv-shows but if they are on I'll watch the following four:
Simpsons
Blackadder
Grynet
Scrubs

Four places I want to go to:
Peru
San Fransisco
New Zeeland
Space

Four fooddishes:
Chevré on bruschetta with pine nuts, honey and rocket lettuce
breakfast
a cup of nice tea
baked beans on toast with scrambled eggs

Four places where I'm comfortable:
Langness
Dun Lochen
at the gym
in mum and dad's back garden

what is this

Edited...

Blood

I spent my lunch hour signing up to give blood at the hospital. A co-worker brought me along and I thougth it may be a good idea, get a health check up and at the same time score some good karma points and it worked because we got scratch cards as a thank you and we won ice cream money!

I didn't actually give blood, they took a few tubes for testing all sorts of icky things and then we'll see if they want my blood. I hope so, it'd be pretty depressing being rejected for having bad blood.

/Mel

Gaming

I love computer games and sometimes I can spend weekends in front of the computer without a problem.

The things is, and this is very girly, I don't like being scared. I hate horror films and I'll never watch any slasher/splatter films. My imagination runs wild and I can't sleep and get scared of the dark. So any scary computer games are banned really.

You know that old game, "Return to Castle Wolfenstein"? It's World war two and the nazis have messed around with some buried demon from the past and woken up an army of creepy monsters that want nothing else but kill your character, the fearless American secret agent. Their favourite way of attacking you is hiding behind solid walls so just as you've walked past you'll hear a rumble and a hiss and suddenly you find your life level down to 25% and your screen filled with blood. I never played these levels...

But RtCW has a fair few non-monster levels when all you do is creep around and kill nazis, I always cheated and skipped the monster ones, to scary for me. Instead I liked the levels when you had to sneak around and be a sniper, picking off (incredibly) stupid nazis without getting caught. I'm sure that says something deep and sinister about my personality but I'm not asking.

My favourite games are simulations and strategy games. We had a really old version of Warcraft at home which my brother and I fought over. The very first SimCity was also a favourite (we are talking ten years ago now, you have no idea how basic the graphics are...) and needless to say I'm a sucker for The Sims, it's like a virtual dollhouse! I haven't got The Sims 2 yet, waiting for the price to go down.

Jeez, I'm rambling.

I love Myst too. Suits me. It's all logic and thinking and calculating what to do next. And the graphics are fantastic. Some say it's to boring but I think it's only boring if you don't have enough patience to crack the puzzles. And I guess if you've played Counterstrike your whole life something as slow as Myst will bore you out of your mind, you need to re-think your whole gaming experience.

My favourite Myst game though is Uru. Not like the ordinary Myst games, Uru is a 3D game where your avatar moves independently 360 degrees. It's a game I wish I hadn't played so that I could play it again. It's by far the most beautiful game I've ever seen, the whole atmosphere is very tranquil and sometimes eerie. All the time you have a feeling of walking around where you shouldn't be, reading other people's secret diaries. Unfortunatly, on my current computer Uru is choppy and doesn't run to well. I need to update the computer with some serious hardware and it's a project for next week. Sigh...

And I really should get back to work.

/Mel

It's all work work

I could blog but it'd be uninteresting because the sun is still shining over Sweden this perfect summer and I am back in the every day life of work.

My day:

Wake up

Read paper

Go to work

Work

Have lunch

Work

Go home

Go training

Go home

Make dinner

Do boring household things

Go to bed.

The only break from this I've had is a haircut (and the most expensive shampoo purchase ever), some phone conversations and a weekend spent driving parents to the airport and then working for 11 hours at a wedding. Oh and I had to empty the boat too.

I'm basically bored with summer, let autumn come and things begin again. The warmth is more than welcome to stay but for godness sake, isn't it time to wake this country out of it's 10 week slumber!? Sweden may shut down for summer but the rest of the world does not. AM I THE ONLY ONE WORKING IN THIS COUNTRY?!

/Mel

Family Day

Today a majority of my extended family is arriving at my parents house for a very civilised Sunday lunch thing. I spent the better part of yesterday feeling like Jamie Oliver in the kitchen making nectraine pie, lemon pie, bread sticks AND dinner (salmon and pasta). The result is that I can sit back today, in the garden, upgrade my tan, and not worry about mum and dad doing all the work in the kitchen today.
ETA for the family is approx 4 hours right now.

Two of my cousins have produced babies and are bringing them, a toddler and an infant. I have a feeling, cute as they are, that my "I never, ever want to have kids" feeling will have increased by the end of the day. Because, cute as they are, kids really are a hassle. It takes sooooooo long before they are any fun at all and all that undivided attention they demand 24/7 is just to much for me. I can't even dedicate myself to a season of "Lost" on tv.

But, they are cute, the older of the two is only about three years old and already going through the teenage phase of ignoring her parents. Every question about what they did at day care is met with a sullen "nothing" and if you ask her what she had for lunch the reply is "meatballs" for every day of the week. Funny and cute, as long as you're not the parent. The youngest one can't even sit up yet but has already developed a great interest in blonde girls, blonde girls are very definately his favourite people to be held by. It will be interesting to see how he turns out when he hits puberty.

But my deck chair is looking very soft and warm out in the garden and my iPod is fully charged so I may spend the next three hours out there. I go back to work tomorrow so I might as well make the most of my last free day. Not to bad going back, I'm lucky enough to like my job although I'm not looking forward to opening up my Inbox...

Have a nice Sunday

/Mel

Spinninglove

Everybody has to work out to feel (and look) good (well, not some people but lets ignore those lucky bastards).

Spinning is something you either love or hate. Most people I mention it to will immediatly recall some near death experience during a spinning class which ended when they stumbled out to throw up. When I then say that I love spinning and it's my favourite work out they look at me like I'm insane (I'm not, running around after a football for 90 minutes or walking after a little white golfball for four hours is inanity).

To me a work out should be fast, intense and hard core and leave you breathless with aching muscles (just realised that sounds alot like sex). Spinning does that, it's heads down, legs working hard and loud music pushing you forwards. No messing around with coreagraphy, arms waving this way or that, jazz hands or, worst of all, when the trainer thinks he/she is Britney and insists on a boob shake. Spare my dignity...

So, spinning it is and I happen to love spinning and now I have to put together my own class and push people to that painful edge of near vomit (hehe). As most spinning music includes a lot of Scooter (that alone a reason to vomit...) and 50 cents beats (if I have to hear Candy Shop one more time...) I'm going create a very hip-hop and techno free class. I'm trying to figure out what kind of more rocky songs will fit in to a good spinning class, maybe even some really old 80's classics and definatley some 70's disco to vary it a bit. The rest will be what is so nicely, in iTunes, labelled as "alternative". Lilly Allen's Smile will be fitted in somewhere I think, I've really fallen in love with that tune recently.

But I'm rambling on, the final list will be posted once it's all done. But if anyone has any really good music ideas, good tunes with a clear beat, please let me know, help wanted!

Thanks

/Mel

Italian holiday

So despite a, literally, killing heat, Italian motorways, Venice in July and mad bicyclists I made it back from Italy. I have never been so afraid in a car before in my entire life. And coming from someone who's actually crashed with a kangaroo that's saying something (wasn't me driving when we hit the 'roo). I've driven on French motorways, actually not to far from where I was now but this was nothing compared to this. But don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming the Italians, I saw cars from almost every single European country on the motorway between Venice and Verona, the only ones missing was Ireland and Portugal and a couple of tiny ones no one really knows anything about. Roadrage seems to be a continental problem.

The heat in southern Europe has been murdering these past few weeks. Thank God for the air conditioning on our rented car. The hotel had no AC and not even a cealing fan so the temperature never dropped below 35C at night. I love warm weather and don't mind the heat during the day, but at night I need cool temperatures and waking up at 4am, covered in sweat, damp hair and no sign of a cooling breeze is not my idea of a restful night.

To make up for the warm weather and sleepless nights I had lots of what the Italians really do best; gelato. I admit the Italians do know how to do wine, pasta and balsamic vinegar, but the best thing about Italy is the never ending supply of lovely, cool, creamy ice-cream in almost every flavour you could ask for. The local gelateria in the village had frequent visits and the expression "It's ice-creamO'clock" was established. It was hard picking favourites but I think I got it down to five different ones:

Lemon from the Rocca Pendice Hotel in Teolo. Had it for dessert a couple of nights and it was food orgasm worthy.
Cherry from the unknown place in Padova, large bits of nice sweet cherry in the ice-cream.
Dark Chocolate from the gelateria in Teolo, darkest, richest chocolate ice-cream I've ever had.
Ruby Grapefruit from the same gelateria, an unusual flavour but I love grapefruit so it was perfect.
Mint from a hole in the wall gelatieria in Verona, real mint, not that crap "after eight" bollocks you get at most places. Beautiful.

Now I want some ice cream...I think I'm going to make some yoghurt & nectarin ice-cream.

/Mel