Short story of my Sunday

Return of the sun
Prompts me to get my bike out
and then write haiku

RC 31-8-14

They should be ashamed, then garotted

This will blow your mind…..
I had an e-mail from the superstore that’s a few miles away from where we’re living, inviting me in for an interview.  I called them, and they seem completely oblivious of the fact that I’m already working for the company, at a different location.
I asked to see Ginger Graham (my boss) during my shift today, and I asked him if there was any forward motion on my request to be considered for a transfer. He disappeared for an hour, during which time he apparently spoke to HR at Head Office, and then told me “They want to accommodate you, but obviously they’re not going to get rid of someone just to create a position for you. There are currently no management openings anywhere in that part of Suffolk, but as soon as there are, you’ll automatically be put forward as a candidate”
So just to recap:
I have asked to transfer to a superstore closer to my new home.
A job as a petrol station manager has come up at the nearest store.
I have not been told about it.
I have applied for that job externally, putting on my CV that I have relevant experience, but not revealing that it’s with the same company.
I have been selected for an interview for that position.
I have checked again with my current manager, and been told that no management opportunities currently exist.
So what am I supposed to think? 
Maybe they rate me so highly that they don’t want to lose me so they’ve been lying to me to keep me where I am. Or maybe my boss is a conniving shit who just hasn’t bothered pursuing my request.  Or maybe there’s been a huge conspiracy against me involving my fellow workers, those above me at the store, the Human Resources department and all manner of dark, shadowy figures all the way up to the top of the business. Or maybe the whole company is riddled with ineptitude and there’s so much bureaucracy and bullshit that they don’t know their arses from the side of a binbag. Or maybe it’s a combination of them all.
I just don’t know.
So do I:
a) See Ginger Graham again tomorrow and tell him the whole story?
b) Call Head Office tomorrow and demand an explanation?
c) Get the Hell out with immediate effect and work somewhere completely different?
d) Take it all to the media?
e) Seek legal advice?

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RC 29-8-14

Questions and Contemplations

These have been rattling around my head for a while.
Do feel free to contact me if you can enlighten me…

How many admissions to hospital each year can be directly attributed to the game ‘Twister’?
What’s the largest manmade object in space?
Exactly what percentage of the surface of the Earth has still been untouched by humans?
What is the average age at which people lose their virginity?
How many different species of animals can speak human words?

RC 28-8-14

Initialoetry - 'Summer' Special

It was too wet to do ANYTHING today, so I decided to spend some time coming up with one-line poems that use the letters of the word SUMMER to give you the starting point for each word. They don’t have to be ABOUT Summer, they just need to be six words in length, with those six words starting with the letters S, U, M, M, E and R in that order.
This is the best I could do:

Some unusual maniac made English royals 

So udders make milk? Exciting revelation!

Seven undertakers murdered men; ensuring remuneration

Sometimes ugly mice manipulate elegant rats

Simply utilising medicine, Marie exposed radiation

Staff using my menu eat rubbish

Sophie upset my mother - Edinburgh resulted

Feel free to give it a go yourself.
Can’t be worse than my efforts…

RC 25-8-14

I love August

The Sun returned to the Suffolk skies this morning so I took myself off for a bike-ride and some thinking.
It was lovely.
There was very little traffic about, which surprised me on a Saturday morning, but I guess that’s the beauty of living somewhere small surrounded by farmland. I did an eight-mile circuit and found lots of footpaths and bridleways that I can explore over the coming weeks and months (and years!!) I also cleared my head a bit and gave myself a bit of a talking-to. The truth is that I’ve let myself lose control of myself and got into some bad, old habits. I’m eating like shit again and justifying it with crap excuses like “Stressful moves”, “Work are messing me about” and “It’s Summer!” Losing lots of weight was the best thing I ever did. It improved my fitness, my self-esteem, and my mental health, but in the last four weeks I’ve forgotten all that and just eaten and drunk what I felt like. I’m really noticing the difference now and it’s time to rein it in, because I don’t ever, ever want to look at a set of scales again and see the ‘stone’ indicator move past the number eighteen. 
So it’s back to planning meals in advance, only buying food that’s on the food plan, and only allowing fruit as a snack between meals.
I’m also going to take the bullet by the horns work-wise. There’s obviously some reluctance or ineptitude somewhere that is preventing my requested transfer to another store. So I’m going to apply for the managers position they’re currently advertising at a supermarket petrol station in Suffolk, and do it as an external candidate, and see if that provokes some kind of response. Bitching and moaning constantly isn’t getting me anywhere, and isn’t doing my head any good, so it’s time to change tack and see if I can find a better wind.
Man, I feel better already……….

RC 23-8-14

Frettin' like a kitten?

I stupidly told Philippa about the anal explosion I had yesterday and now she wants me to go to the doctor. She pointed out that it happened a few weeks ago when we moved here. She also pointed out that I was sick in the garden recently, and that I seem to have less energy than normal, and she’s worried. I reminded her that Sophie had told me the stress of the move had affected me, that I was sick because I ate and drank stupidly that night, and that I have less energy because my workday is extended by 90 minutes now due to travelling further. She just kissed me and said “If you haven’t seen a doctor by Wednesday I’m going to take you to the walk-in clinic in Norwich.”
Bloody women. 

RC 22-8-14

Weekend on the Horizon

Yewtree Avenue sounded like a beautiful address when we first came to look at this property. But with the latest revelations from ‘Operation Yewtree’ I’m not sure I like it any more. I’m worried we might be found guilty by association and end up incarcerated next to 1970s DJs and popstars. 
Anyway….
I seem to have lost contact with Ted and Beryl. With the discombobulating effects of the move I kept forgetting to call them, and the days and weeks have continued and I’ve fallen out of the habit of ringing them, and they’re not exactly on my way home from work anymore…  So I tried calling from work today three times, and no answer. So either they’re dead, or away, or don’t want to speak to me.
And on another note - I made a bit of a pig of myself last night and ate far too much curry and crisps. As a result, I had to rush to the loo at work this morning and it was like tipping a tin of Oxtail soup out of my arse. Sorry for being base and graphic, but I do believe in sharing as much of my life as I can in this blog, and hopefully now I’ve written it down here it’ll stop me making the same stupid mistake again..

RC 21-8-14

And today's work-related slap in the face is...

The supermarket inter-store intranet shows me there is a job going as Duty Manager at the petrol station at a store in Suffolk just 5 miles from home. This has brought three thoughts to my mind:
a) Isn’t it great that I’m already thinking of the new place as ‘home’?
b) Why the Hell hasn’t someone put two and two together and offered a managers position in Suffolk to a manager who now lives in Suffolk?
c) Why is my memory so bad that I can only remember two things at a time?
Rest assured I have sent a lengthy and loud e-mail to various people insisting I be considered for the post. 
I mean no offence to Norfolk, but I’ll be bloody glad when I don’t have to drive there and work there five days a week. I’ll be much happier when I can just be a Suffolkian (or whatever the Hell we’re called) and only pop ‘up North’ now-and-then to visit relatives. 
And at this point, as a final gift from todays blogpost, I promise to not mention my woes with work again until I know for sure, one way or t’other, that I’m moving stores, or resigning.

RC 20-8-14

Where has Summer gone?

One day you’re in the grips of eternal optimism and never-ending sunshine, and then suddenly, in what feels like a breath, it’s getting dark at 8.45 and the days are dull and rainy.
I hate this country when it’s drizzly.
We’ve had wind and rain and dark clouds or a combination of all three in repetitive rotation for a week now and I’m sick of it.
Anyway - on a positive note - I won £10 on a Lottery scratch card this morning so things are looking up!

RC 19-8-14

Grim again

Just for a change I lost my temper at work today. We had our Monday morning managers meeting (a nice bit of alliteration but a waste of time otherwise.)  The topic of Christmas staff schedules was quickly followed by the topic of first aid refresher courses. I said neither applied to me as my plan was to be moving to a store in Suffolk sometime very soon, and they should really be making plans to cover these things without me. 
Ten minutes later, I was screaming at Graham after being told ‘these things take time’ for the nineteenth time in August.
Quite frankly, it’s absurd and ridiculous and it cannot go on. So my plan now is to telephone HR at Head Office every day I’m at work, and to e-mail them at least once a day, and to keep doing that in repetition until something happens. If we get to September 1st and it’s still being dragged out, I’m going to start calling THREE times a day and sending TEN e-mails, and if that doesn’t work I’m going to drive up to their air-conditioned luxury office and staple my resignation to someone’s forehead. 

RC 18-8-14

broody? you think?

We both had the day off today, so we ventured back over the border into Norfolk and visited a very nice ‘Wildlife Garden’ that we’ve fancied for a while. It was very nice. The entry fee suggested a big zoo but the reality was more like a small private collection. Still a very enjoyable day though.
There were some macaques with a six-week old baby, that made Philippa go all goo-goo. Then there were some exotic sparrows that had a collection of little chicks that made Philippa go all ga-ga. Then finally we saw a family of otters that had her going completely coo-coo.
By now she was leaning with her head on my shoulder and her arm interlocked in mine, and was almost purring like a cat that knew pregnancy would make its life complete.
We’d been in the house about five minutes before she said “Shall we go to bed early?”
I thought “No chance, love, I’m not falling into that trap” and I took myself off for a bike ride.
Momma didn’t raise no fool….

RC 17-8-14

The flip side

To counterbalance yesterdays darkness, here’s a list of things I LIKE (in paragraph form….)

Philippa, love, engagement, crisps, sunsets, hummingbirds, The West Wing, kingfishers, gaming, money, holidays, cats, fish, fish fingers, sisters, alcohol, crumpets, woodpeckers, oxygen, lager, takeaways, spices, owls, chestnuts, cycling, barbecues, The SuperBowl, Norfolk, kittens, the Olympics, red wine, curries, board games, Suffolk, liquorice, Austria, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Summer, brandy, Tunisia, Wine Gums, laughing, drumming, memories, The Cure, sparkling Chardonnay, Sherlock Holmes, quantum mechanics, education, cuddling, Springwatch, train journeys, port at Christmas, Christmas, fireworks, benches, guinea pigs, omelettes, fried bread, hot baths, walking, The Hangover, waffles, waffling, The Beatles, physics, Rubiks Cubes, watermelon, friendship, birthdays, Jim al-Khalili TV shows, soup, TheLoveMachine, sex, snakes, cold beer, darts, milkshake, cheese………

RC 15-8-14

I don't like......

I don’t like how quickly August is going.
I don’t like the lack of contact from HR about my transfer.
I don’t like hair growing in my arsecrack.
I don’t like football fans.
I don’t like living away from my sisters.
I don’t like hangovers.
I don’t like how much I’m spending on petrol.
I don’t like closing the curtains at 9pm now.
I don’t like driving in the dark on my way to an early shift.
I don’t like my own ‘depression days’

That’s ten - and that’s enough negativity for one day…

RC 14-8-14

A reason to be glad I haven't left yet..

Sometimes in my position as a manager, people have a conversation with me in confidence in which they reveal delicate truths about themselves. I love it when that happens, because I get to laugh like hell about it later and then share it in this blog. Today I had the joy of talking to a man in his sixties who may have been (as we say in Norfolk) a few cans short of a six-pack. 
The conversation went something like this:
“Do you have a pharmacist I can talk to?”
“Not really. We have a pharmacy department but they only have knowledge of our products, they can’t really help you with advice or medical matters”
“Ok. Maybe you could help?”
“I doubt it. I have no understanding of those things at all. I can’t even spell paracetamol.”
“Well the thing is…. I think I might have threadworm”
At this point I took a small step away from him.
“Ok. Well I’m sorry to hear that, but as I said, I don’t know how to treat…”
“No, I don’t need advice on that. I’ve looked it up. I can buy some tablets that kill them and you just shit them out. It’s something else I wanted help with.”
“Ok” 
“Well the thing is… Before I knew what they were, when it first started itching and irritating, I used a mirror to look up my arse and I could see them wriggling about”
At this point I started looking for an excuse to run away from him.
“Because I didn’t know what they were, I panicked a bit and desperately wanted to kill them. So I grabbed some fly spray from the kitchen cabinet and sprayed it up my ringpiece.”
At this point I had to fight very hard not to burst out laughing and collapse.
“Now every time I go to the loo it feels like I’m shitting broken glass. Do you think I might have a chemical burn?”
I advised him to see his GP immediately. Then, as he slowly walked off like a parrot trying to lay an ostrich egg, I ran out into the warehouse and cried myself silly with laughter.

RC 13-8-14

a quick explanatory haiku

Rory is lazy
ANY excuse not to write
Is excuse enough

RC 13-8-14

Bad habits from before

I don’t know if this is down to domestic contentment, or just a subconscious determination to achieve middle-aged spread, but my food intake seems to be reaching alarming levels. I’m cooking more than I need to, I’m having second helpings of everything, and I’m eating shit food at bad times of day. Crisps after breakfast, cake with every meal, confectionary snacks late in the evening….
I blame work (as I do for most things) The journey there and back is so boring and depressing that I’m eating chocolate in the car just to keep myself occupied, and then I’m just carrying on.. 
Yesterday I ate a packet of caramel chocolate digestives on the way home, then ate the curry Philippa had prepared in the slow cooker, then had a big bowl of Shreddies at 10pm before bed. So today I’m wondering whether I’m destined to be fat again, and my farts are smelling like an alien’s bathtub.

RC 8-8-14

so much mileage; so little enthusiasm

The drive to work pisses me off more each time I do it. 

RC 7-8-14

thoughts in suffolk in august

This might not make much sense, as I’ve just been chucking down some lines here and there in a notepad while at work, and I can’t be bothered to re-write and edit.  I’m just going to put them in this blog as they’re sitting on the page, and we’ll see if it makes any sense.

So….

July was a big month in our lives.

So pleased to be settled I’m almost dizzy.

If I can just sort work out I’ll be happy as Larry (whoever Larry is)

Really think ‘problems’ with Philippa were down to situation, rather than our relationship. Now we’re under less stress about houses we’re getting on perfectly.

Actually that doesn’t make much sense at all, does it? Ah, well - maybe it’s given a little insight into my innermost thoughts and soul situation.  And if it hasn’t, so what?

RC 6-8-14

Hot day; cruel sea

We drove back up to North Norfolk for a day at the beach with Philippa’s sporty chums today. I got to show off my beautiful corrected shoulder stain! Philippa kept bringing her lady friends over to show it off, and they all ooh’ed and aah’ed and said things like ‘how lovely’ and ‘better than that tacky italic shit my Andy got done on his forearm’
The whole day was lovely, until…
I went in the seas for the first time in as long as I can remember, and what happened. THERE WERE JELLYFISH! The size of a bloody bowls ball! In the sea off North Norfolk!
So I came back out again. Jez the Windsurfer said “Ah, they can’t sting you” and carried on swimming. I looked them up when I got home and, although not fatal to humans, they certainly CAN sting you. So I’ve decided that Jez is not the most reliable source of information on marine life, and - tattoo correction or not - I’m not stripping off to plunge in the sea again this Summer….
Sorry if this posting is a bit disjointed and odd but it was all a bit stressful; and I’ve been drinking cheap beer all day..

RC 3-8-14