Fear of change?

I’ve calmed down a bit about the ‘overnight’ stuff now. Philippa pointed out that part of being a manager is dealing with stupid stuff funnelled down from above you, and the only way to avoid it is to run your own company.
I’m far too lazy for that.
Besides - once it’s all in place it won’t mean too much extra work for me personally, and it means a job for someone who might need one. They’ll have to spend all night dealing with stoners and lonely taxi drivers but I’m sure they’ll be alright. I’ll let hem bring a book and have all the coffee they want.
I think I just feel comfortable in my little job now and this has thrown me for a bit of a curve. I have to change things and try a new routine and I’m worried it’s out of my control and might fail. But so what? I hate to be blunt but I’ll get paid either way, right? Plus - the garage is a bit dated now and things are starting to look a bit shabby, so I might see if I can push through a few other upgrades while the work is being done on the ‘Night Booth.’

RC 31-8-16

It goes on going on

Work are pressing ahead with their “24-hour garage” plan. October has been designated a trial month. So not only have they decided to instigate something that I’m dead against, they’ve rushed it through so I only have a few weeks to get it staffed and find a way to make it work.  It looks likely that our ‘overnight operatives’ will be agency staff on a temporary contract, which is great.  They’ll be on minimum wage, working through the night, with no motivation and a building full of snacks and car accessories to help themselves to as they see fit.  Supposedly HQ will “have a look at it” in mid-November and if the figures look good they’ll consider making it permanent and if they’re not so good they’ll close the thing down. But what’s going to happen between the end of October (trial month) and the mid-November meeting? Are they going to stop being open all hours pending the release of the data? My suspicious is No - they’re going to keep ploughing on with it and hope to build a customer base from somewhere rather than admit that it was a terrible idea to start with. So the ‘trial month’ is already expanding to a ‘trial 6-week period’ so they’re lying to everyone already.
I suppose the one good thing is that my regular staff won’t be too affected. Their shifts will continue as normal, which I’m pleased about because at one point it looked as if the extra hours would have to be covered by each of us working one nightshift. That, let me tell you, would not have gone down well. I don’t know if there’s ever been a mutiny at a filling station but we would have got very close to it. As it stands now, everyone can go on as normal. They’ll even have to continue cashing up at 10pm as The Powers That Be want the monthly accounts to ‘accurately reflect the additional revenue opportunity separately.’ The only thing they won’t have to do is set the alarm and switch the lights out. 
Those Above Me only want to have one employee on site, so obviously we now have to knock half a wall out so we can have a protected booth for them to sit in, with an access window and a sliding drawer so they can take payments from outside. So now I’m having to get quotes from various companies and trying to find one that can do the work within the next five weeks; none of which will be cheap. Talk about an expensive experiment. Then there’s the disruption that’ll be caused to our regular routine while the work is carried out during September.  It all seems to be getting rushed through without full consideration and my worry is that, no matter how awful the resultant figures are, they’ll have to keep us open 24 hours a day from then on or the whole thing will have been a huge waste of money, and they can’t have that. So our profit-making performance will be ruined through no fault of anyone at the garage but it’ll reflect badly on all of us; me especially.
Sometimes I hate being a manager. 

RC 30-8-16

No motor, no worries

Everyone seems concerned about my lack of transport, except me. 
I’m not sure what the problem is. I have my bike, Philippa has a car, we don’t have any major journeys planned in the next few days, and if all else fails I can walk to work in under an hour, so what’s the problem? I told Hannah about the car and she said “oh, damn, these things always happen on a Bank Holiday, don’t they?” I thought about pointing out the fact that multiple Bank Holidays go by without anything like ‘these things’ happening, but instead I settled for saying “It’s Gods fault. He hates me. You should get your boyfriend to have a word with him” and left it at that. 
I’m so anti-driving at the moment that I’m considering letting the mechanics keep the car and carry on life without one. At the very least, I’d save myself a few hundred quid a year on fuel and tax and insurance and sundries. The other option I’m looking at is buying back TheLoveMachine and quitting work to go cruising around the countryside in a camper……

RC 29-8-16

Car-tastrophes

Thank God I live within biking distance of work, and thank God it’s nice weather, because the RoryMobile is at the car doctor for a few days. Apparently the problem is complicated, and apparently it’s my fault it happened as the problem could have been picked up during a service if I’d bothered to get one. I foolishly thought not using a car very often might mean it would last longer before it needed looking at, but what do I know? I tried to save a few quid and now it’s going to cost me. Will I learn from this and change my future ways vis-a-vis motoring maintenance?  That’s about as likely as me learning fluent Mandarin by Friday, or becoming enthusiastic about parenthood. 
It must be the week for car things too - one of my more reliable members of staff suffered something called a broken cambelt on Tuesday. Again, I know not what or where a cambelt is, but apparently it was severe enough to make him four hours late for work. I told him he shouldn’t have bothered coming in at all, but that’s me showing my usual lack of professionalism.
Is a cambelt part of the seatbelt mechanism? That would be my best guess.

RC 28-8-16

Haven't done this for a while:

Some Friday haiku:

Been a great August
Many days in the 20s
and not too much rain

RC 26-8-16

A Thursday thull of thine things

Sorry for cutting loose on Tuesday. I went to bed mad, woke up still angry, and needed to get it out somehow. But now I remember making a pledge earlier this year to cut out the negativity in blog postings, so I apologise. 
Today has been a bright and cheerful day, even though it was forecasted to be dull and with showers. The unexpected pleasantness in the skies has put smiles on faces that would otherwise be glum, mine included, and has led to some buoyant, enjoyable conversations. I have come home relaxed and bubbly for a change, and I shall keep the good mood going by taking my bike for a spin.
God I love Summer.

RC 25-8-16

Post-holiday blues and reds

One day back at work and I’m angry already. They’re still going on about extending our opening hours, and they’re still going on about cutting a member of staff. What the Hell goes on in management minds that makes them suggest those two ideas simultaneously? My guess is that two separate people are trying to prove themselves at Head Office and are just throwing out the first idea they can think of, and those above them are latching on to the ideas and pushing them through without considering them. 
I called HQ and raised my concerns, then put them all in an e-mail too so it can’t later be denied that I ever said it (believe me, it’s happened before) Now all I can do is sit and wait, and try not to let the possibility of being made redundant or forced to work overnight sap the morale of my team.
Apologies for any grammatical errors in this posting. I’m typing it quickly, while angry. 

RC 23-8-16

absence something something something

Philippa and I have been away for a few days. It’s been nice to spend some time together and to have a bit of a Summer break. She planned everything as well, I just had to drive there and help put the tent up.  I think her idea and her hope was that she might end up pregnant, so a lot of what we got up to will remain unblogged; but it’s been great.  I did try and convince her it was silly to have a child at a time when we’ve started paying for accommodation again, and we’re a year away from buying a house, but it fell on deaf ears. I keep throwing these excuses out there, but I think if I don’t succumb to her body clock soon she’ll either leave me for a man who wants a family, or kill me. I’m still trying decide which of those outcomes would be worse. 

RC 21-8-16

Muggy

August always seems to bring with it an end to Summer. But this year it’s been pretty damn good. Don’t get me wrong - it’s not been perfect by any means, but we’ve had several days of beach weather in amongst a little gloom, and after the downpours and wash-outs of the past few Augusts, that almost counts as a Summer!
I had a rare Monday evening jaunt on my bicycle, I’ve had a quick refreshing shower and now I am settling down to watch some coverage of an event I promised not to mention again, so I shall refer to simply as ‘The OG’
Philippa’s favourite sport is on tonight so we’re going to watch it together and then she can tell me what everyone’s doing wrong.
Good times.

RC 15-8-16

Of the past; of the future

Scientists have found a Greenland shark that they think may be over 400 years old. That means it was born before Queen Victoria, before the Great Fire of London and before Charles Darwin wrote the Origin of Species. So when it was born most of the people on Earth would have thought it was placed in the ocean by God, rather than arrived there as a result of millions of years of evolution. Since this shark was born, Man has mapped the globe and ventured off it, and the average human lifespan has grown from under 35 to over 75. Wood-and-mud huts have been replaced by steel-and-glass superstructures and the sky is full of planes instead of pigeons. 
What might the world look like in another 400 years?
Here are my predictions:

Men will have ceased to exist - they’ll be replaced by a rapidly-evolved form of bacteria that can earn money by rotating and never question a womans decision. 
We’ll have gone from a global economic village to a collection of small towns and the only form of currency will be daisies.
Oceans will have risen so much that Europe’s most popular tourist destination will be Switzerland-on-Sea.
The only food source left will be a nutrient-rich crop called “bananuggets” and the only place you can buy them will be McDonalds.
Rupert Murdoch will still be alive, and controlling everything. 

RC 14-8-16

Realisation, and reset

The only gold medal I stand a chance of winning is in the category “Most Effective Milking Of The Olympics As A Subject For Blog Entries”

Right - that’s it now. No more mention of the Olympics in this blog of mine. I promise. Well….. I mean, I WILL mention it if I’ve been watching it and it’s been good, but I won’t keep using it as a frame on which to hang a blog posting. If I keep just sitting at the computer throwing down thoughts about the Games then I’m not a blogger I’m a sports columnist, and I don’t know enough about sport to write about it in that way. All I can do is make up silly versions of the different events or pass pithy comments on those taking part. Which I’m going to stop doing from now. I promise. 

RC 13-8-16

5 rings; countless blog posts

Inspired by my pool thoughts yesterday, and bored at work for a couple of hours, and lacking anything else to write  about, I’ve gone back to my list of all the Olympic sports and thought of ways to slightly improve them all and make them more fun:

Archery  with knitting needles for arrows
Athletics every athlete has to compete wearing wellies full of porridge
Badminton with the shuttlecock replaced by a live bird
Basketball while dressed in a diving suit
Boxing with no weight classifications, so a featherweight might face a super-heavyweight
Canoeing using a cheeseboard as a canoe and a garlic press as a paddle
Cycling with flat tyres and a buckled wheel
Diving into jelly
Equestrian using hobby horses that the athletes have to make themselves. Out of balsa wood.
Fencing athletes erecting fences around the Olympic village. They are judged on three criteria: speed of construction, least amount of wood used, and whether or not it’s all level
Football wearing stilettoes
Golf in a minefield
Gymnastics performed while dressed as pantomime dames
Handball played with hand grenades
Hockey 3-legged version
Judo replaced by ‘judoku’ – new game where competitors have to fight each other while fitting numbers into a grid
Modern pentathlon with the five events being tiddlywinks, origami, juggling, fishing and kerplunk
Rowing a married couple have a row about who should empty the dishwasher
Rugby sevens rugby played by 7-year-olds
Sailing in a wind tunnel
Shooting  blindfolded
Swimming  in sewage
Synchronised swimming in a shark-infested pool while covered in fish blood
Table tennis played on a dining table, with tennis balls, and using dustbin lids as bats
Taekwondo on the top floor of a skyscraper
Tennis with the court enclosed by a ten-feet high concrete wall
Triathlon with the three disciplines being a yard-of-ale, competitive eating and trampolining (in that order)
Volleyball using a 10-pin bowling ball
Water polo  replaced by a new game with the same name, in which you have to hold your breath and push a polo mint along the length of the pool using your nose
Weightlifting with one arm
Wrestling with alligators

RC 11-8-16

Yet another Olympics blog

There’s been a lot of media talk today about the diving pool at the Olympic Games being a worrying green colour. Apparently it has something to do with chlorine levels and is perfectly safe, but it’s given the British press another excuse to slay the Rio games and call them unprofessional and dangerous.
Personally I think it looked great. Who wants to dive into a boring old-fashioned pool that looks like it’s full of boring old-fashioned H2O when you could be throwing yourself headfirst into an extravagant multi-coloured rainbow of water brilliance? I don’t know much about Brazil, but no-one’s ever accused it of being bland. Why shouldn’t the contents of the diving pool reflect the colourful nature of the Brazilian people?
I think they should go further. Pour in a load of food colouring so the divers disappear into dark red liquid then pop up again like croutons in a bowl of tomato soup. Wouldn’t that be fun to watch?

RC 10-8-16

Something for licence fee payers to consider

Why have the BBC given up showing sport in favour of showing people who used to do sport talking about sport? There are DOZENS of Olympic events going on simultaneously and yet every time I turn on the TV I see two ex-athletes talking to Clare Balding, normally about something that has nothing to do with sport.
This event only happens for two weeks once every four years, can we PLEASE have a chance to gorge ourselves on the festivities instead of watching has-beens and also-rans in conversation with overpaid presenters on a South American jolly?

RC 8-8-16

I am, to be fair, exhausted

I always go on about wanting to have an Eternal Summer, about wanting to move somewhere with temperatures permanently in the twenties and sunshine blazing down 350 days a year. But if the past 72 hours have taught me anything, they’ve taught me this - the Summer lifestyle is one I cannot maintain!
I’ve been cycling, walking, surfing and swimming, I’ve had fish and chips twice and a barbecue and I’ve drunk enough wine and lager to drown an alcoholic ox. It’s all been great, and I’ve loved it, but now I need to crawl somewhere dark and preferably cool, where a friendly mermaid will soothe my aching body with natural balms and lotions, and where the only items of sustenance are bread and bottled water.

RC 7-8-16

Every Olympic Sport Described In 3 Words

Archery: bows and arrows
Athletics: running and jumping
Badminton: tennis without bounces
Basketball: Gold for America
Boxing: people punching people
Canoeing: legless furious paddling
Cycling: Paper-round without papers
Diving: falling into water
Equestrian: toffs on horseback
Fencing: swordfighting without bloodshed
Football: millionaires falling over
Golf: millionaires catching zika
Gymnastics: mutant contortionists flipping 
Handball: incomprehensible office game
Hockey: rioting with sticks
Judo: MMA for softies
Modern Pentathlon: haven’t gotta clue
Rowing: people canoeing backwards
Rugby Sevens: wrestling with running
Sailing: toffs in boats
Shooting: gunning for gold
Swimming: one-directional competitive doggy-paddle 
Synchronised Swimming: totally ****ing pointless
Table Tennis: supersonic semaphore flagwaving 
Taekwondo: transformers playing judo
Tennis: middle-class sideways shuffling 
Triathlon: swimming; cycling; running
Volleyball: crap unless beach
Water Polo: toffs in water
Weightlifting: steroids and hernias
Wrestling: legalised oily groping

RC 6-8-16

Reflections on yesterdays list

The Olympics kicks off in a matter of hours. Well, officially it kicks off in a matter of hours, in reality the football tournament has been going on all week. So why are we having an ‘Opening Ceremony’ for something that has already started? That’s like having a ceremony to celebrate opening a packet of corn flakes when you’ve already eaten three bowls of the stuff.
Anyway - looking back at my list - my top 3 sports to watch in the next fortnight were Archery, Shooting and Fencing. So maybe instead of watching the Olympics I should be going to a Medieval Jousting Festival.

(Expect more Olympic references over the next few days, by the way. Everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn‘t I leap upon the bandwagon too?)

RC 5-8-16

Call me a weird obsessive, but....

I was on a bit of a roll this morning, so having sorted out all the work rotas for September and then written a ‘pre-planning Christmas stock advancement order’ report (don’t ask) I decided to write down every sport that will feature at the upcoming Olympics and re-arrange them in the order that I am most looking forward to watching them. 
I know, I know. But I’d drunk a lot of coffee and I was having one of my manic moments, so I went with it and here’s the result:

Archery
Shooting
Fencing
Cycling
Hockey
Canoeing
Volleyball
Weightlifting
Badminton
Handball
Basketball
Tennis
Boxing
Golf
Sailing
Table Tennis
Diving
Rowing
Swimming
Taekwondo
Judo
Rugby Sevens
Water Polo
Gymnastics
Athletics
Triathlon
Wrestling
Modern Pentathlon
Equestrian
Synchronised Swimming
Football

RC 4-8-16

A question for MARVEL film fans:

Why doesn’t Hawkeye ever run out of arrows?

RC 1-8-16