Snoskred Opinions

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Allowed VS Aloud Part 1

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fw1
~ Image credit to KA-92 on Deviant Art ~

In our continuing series of despair for the world, over the coming weeks I will present to you multiple Fail Whales – To begin with, we will devour a few occasions on Facebook where aloud has been used in the place of allowed..

al8

So, let us analyse this little piece of awesomeness.

1. I do not know the rules of this group, nor can I be bothered trying to find them out, I’m just going to post this kthx.

2. I’m graciously giving you permission to delete my post if it happens to break the group rules.

3. I do not know when I should use too instead of to. If you my dear readers are confused on this, click here to be enlightened.

4. I also do not know when I should use allowed instead of aloud. Dear readers, when you read the above image text, did you hear it spoken out loud? Of course not. Allowed is the one that should be used here. If you wish for more info on this, click here.

5. Finally, to add insult to injury, I am going to spam you with this link where you can vote for someone you do not know and have never met to win $10,000.

That my friends is 5 levels of Fail Whale.

Of course it is clear this poor little man is going to NEED $10,000 of education given he has a parent who has no clue on oh so many things. :)

Fail Whale, wrong world

Spelling Bee

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fw1
~ Image credit to KA-92 on Deviant Art ~

I despair for the future of our world, with all the mis-spellings I see on a daily basis now..

Earlier today on Facebook someone was giving away some items. They said, and I quote –

“Must go or off to the tip such a waist”

Seriously? I think it will come as an enormous surprise to those at the tip when you drop off your “waist”. In fact, they might consider that a crime scene.

Who knew those trucks driving around emptying your bins were full of waist?

Fail Whale, wrong world

REPOST – An ode to Antony.

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It is election time again, and I rediscovered this post I wrote a while back. The blog now has the ability for people to leave comments, and Antony is doing a weekly campaign diary which is just as fascinating as his election night coverage..

Antony Green

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more brainy and more accurate:
Rough winds do shake the country,
And election night hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the studio light shines,
And often is his laptop power dimm’d;

Dinner is ready to go in the oven.
The cheesecake is in the fridge.
I await my evening of Antony.

Once every four years is not enough.
Who knows what the night will bring?

Whatever it is, Antony will
keep me informed
with his laptop and his pie charts and his
analyst ways.

And then, almost like a dream
he will be gone *sob*
and the election will
be over.

Then the waiting will begin again
another four years
or two or thereabouts, if you are lucky
and he covers your state election.

But wait! What light through yonder Internet breaks?
He has a blog..
Alas I cannot comment
and tell him how much I respect him. :(

Perhaps he will search
for his name
and find this post
one day.

Aussie Culture, elections, politics

Update On Everything.

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PALEO – EATING

Things have been going well. I have been eating paleo for 23 days now. This will end tomorrow. It simply will not be practical to eat that way while in Sydney. I will not have a lot of control over the amount of sugar in things or the ingredients. And I have been reading about these gelato places for *months* and longing to try them.

This is going to be a very interesting thing, to see how my body handles sugar now. I wonder if I will get an appetite back. I still do not have one.

My intentions are to go back to Paleo when I return home, and start over again.

MEATINESS

I recently mentioned in my food exhaustion post about the huge amounts of meat involved with Paleo. On second thoughts, it is not truly that meaty. I think the reason it seemed like a lot more meat for me is because I did not eat very much of it beforehand. If I did eat meat, 9 times out of 10 it would be chicken.

I certainly didn’t eat things like pork or beef much previous to going Paleo – unless out somewhere and it was served to me as a surprise. An occasional pork roast, tacos with beef, a hamburger or a spaghetti bolognaise were the extent of my experience with those foods. I’m so excited about pork, I am a huge fan of it now. Beef I can take or leave.

I have been cooking meat in bulk which is not something I ever did before, so it seems like a lot more meat in the diet when you put in a 1.5kg (3 pound) pork roast, a 1.5kg beef roast or 4-6 chicken breasts into the pressure cooker. But most of the meals I cook in there I get 8+ meals out of and some of them end up frozen for eating later.

SUGAR OUTAGE

I think the most important thing for me has been cutting out the sugar. I think has changed everything.

I have always been someone who chooses full fat over fat free because I find what they replace the fat with is generally sugar and I have always believed fat is preferable to sugar because our bodies know what to do with it.

But if someone new to paleo was used to eating the low fat stuff, and they had a mindset that fat is bad, it would be a big change in their mindset. Plus, they would be used to getting those sugar highs from the “fat free” sugary food they were eating.

I was going to update you on my teevee watching but I have run out of time and could not get the images to cooperate, so that will come to you as a surprise later. ;)

food, life lessons, Making Choices, paleo

2013 : The Year Of Me

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Here are some of my goals for this “year of me” I have declared. They are in two categories – goals I would like to achieve by the end of January, and goals I would like to achieve by the end of 2013 –

Goals for January 2013 –

– A visit to the doctor

– Blood tests to check thyroid function

– Gym every single work day for minimum 25 mins of cardio

– Add on one non work day to make 10 days at the gym in the fortnight

– Personal training session x1 to see if there is anything more I could be doing fitness wise

– Investigate laser hair removal (fed up with waxing!)

– sort out work (when I am available, when I am most definitely not)

– Pay off the credit card (I have enough in savings to do this right now but then that negates the point of savings, lol. It isn’t that much, less than $500)

That seems like a lot for one month, no? So what about the rest of the year?

– take no shit from anyone

– speak up when necessary

– weight loss goal of 20kg

– couch to 5k – make the 5k happen

– get some decent health insurance

– get sinus fixed (I suspect this will mean surgery)

– purge items which are no longer required in my life (got a lot of junk I can throw out/donate)

– save $4,000 (I could make it 5200 but I think some of the above is going to cut into this goal)

I may add to this list as time goes on – I think we’ll check in on it once a month looking at what has been achieved so far, and maybe each month set some monthly goals for that particular month. It is easier to break it down on a month by month basis.

Still very little movement on the scales. We’d be looking at 1.5kg loss for the last month, but I have lost that same 1.5 kg a couple of times now. This is why I think I need to get things checked out. It should not be this hard to lose the weight, I have never had any trouble in the past.

Ok yes I am older now than I ever have been before, but I know I am working very hard at the gym and watching what I eat and not seeing the results I think I should be seeing. In fact I did better the week where I did not watch what I ate at all, and also went to Outback Steakhouse for a high calorie food coma meal!

Anyway gotta run, if you are making a goals for 2013 post, link to it in my comments ;)

About Snoskred, challenges

Shit Bitch

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In our family, when someone acts shitty for no apparent reason, we have a word for that.

Shit bitch.

Well a pretty shitty thing happened to me today and the person who did it is now, in my opinion, a certified shit bitch..

Two days ago, I spent an evening wrapping 30+ presents for fellow staff at work as well as 8 team leader/manager presents.

For the 30+ presents, I made a Xmas lolly bag. It had chocolate and various other lollies in there. Each gift had a tag with the name of who it was for, and that it was from me.

There is one person at work who I do not have a problem with, but she does not like me. I have no clue as to why. I have only ever worked in her presence three times for an hour each time, and nothing happened during those shifts which explained her anger, bullying behaviour, and nastiness towards me during those shifts. I barely know her, and she barely knows me.

I did raise her behaviour with my manager because it was not ok, we have to work as a team, and it was supposedly “handled” but to be honest on the one shift I worked with her since then her actions towards me had not changed, so rather than complaining about her behaviour I just have avoided being placed on shifts with her up to and including swapping shifts or saying no to shifts when I could easily have worked them.

I could have – and briefly did consider – leaving her out of the gift giving. But my thought is if you do it for one, you do it for all. You don’t leave someone out. It isn’t cool, in my opinion. And I thought how she would have felt to see everyone else with my gifts and not to get one herself – this is not something I would be happy about and I would never do that to anyone else. It is not who I am.

So yesterday I took the stuff to work. Everyone who was not there, I placed the item in their pigeon-hole.

When I arrived today, I found that this person had put their gift into my pigeon hole.

I honestly can’t believe that a grown woman (she is in her late 50’s maybe early 60’s) would act in this childish and immature manner. If she did not want my gift, she could have thrown it in the bin and I would have been none the wiser. But to deliberately reject it in this way.. and make such a big point of it..

I have no words.

I will keep taking the high road on this. BUT.

There is a but. And it coincides with an announcement I have not yet made here on the blog. About 2013, and me, and work, and stuff in general.

I am declaring 2013 the year of *me*

I’m not going to do anything which interferes with my happiness, mental health, wellbeing, fitness, or me in general.

I am going to focus on the things I enjoy, the things I love, the things that keep me healthy and well both mentally and physically.

So in this situation it means, I am going to make some changes at work. And you know what? People might not like that. I have always been flexible and bent over backwards to help out when people were sick or they needed extra hands for whatever reason. For the majority of the time all it has earned me is the occasional good work.

And yet, when they “handled” this problem I was essentially told they are running a business and they cannot make sure that I am never rostered on with this person, and we have to be professional yada yada yada. Which I always was, and this person never has been yet!

Well guess what? This person works a specific regular shift on specific days. Our times on shift would only ever overlap by an hour. To make sure we are not rostered on together *is* something I can do, and it *is* something I will choose to do in 2013 though it will mean being less flexible with my shift times.

Because 2013 is going to be a year in which I do not put myself in positions that cause me angst and rob me of sleep.

I’m saying no to it. ;)

Annoyed Snoskred, bitches, taking the high road, work

Making Changes

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Change is never an easy thing to accomplish.

“Experts” say that you must do something 21 times in order to change a habit. I have found in general it can be slightly higher than 21 times. But if you focus on it and keep trying, you will get there. You will make changes.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a teevee show on MTV, oddly enough. And watching it, I realise that if someone had done this for me when I had just finished high school, I would be an entirely different person now, and I certainly would not have the weight struggles I have now.

The name of the show I am not a huge fan of – it is called I Used To Be Fat. Some of the people on the show were not what I would consider to be “fat” just larger than your average stick thin teen. But after finishing high school they were given personal trainers and access to more healthy food – a target of weight loss – and a calendar which told them how many days to going to college. You can watch episodes via that link, by the way. I recommend Jordan, that was my favourite one.

What happened with these people – with *one* exception – was absolutely inspirational to me. It kicked me into gear and made me go to the gym every.single.day for an entire week. Even when I didn’t want to, or it was super late at night, or I felt unwell. I still went.

It got me doing exercise at home on top of the gym work. It showed me exercises I could add into my day. It is the thing that makes me say – after doing a shift at work and finishing at 11pm – I am going to the gym NOW.

But there was one person who did not succeed on the show. Tanner – epic fail dude! The reason he did not succeed is because he was not making the changes for himself – he was making them for his girlfriend, who had absolutely no care or compassion for him and after seeing how much time he was spending at the gym instead of with her, she dumped him. Which sent him into a spiral of not doing well. Then just as he was getting back on track, she un-dumped him, causing him to focus on her instead of exercise and healthy eating.

You have to want it.

You have to want it for yourself

Not because you think you need to do it, or because someone else said so, or because you feel bad when you eat something unhealthy or because you don’t like how you look in your clothes.

You have to wake up one morning and say “I value myself enough to eat decently and make sure I get some exercise”. And then you have to commit to it, and kick your own butt if you don’t do it – not by guilting yourself, but by making sure you do it the next time.

But most of all, you have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. You have to keep going even when life tries to derail your train. If you eat something bad you can’t endlessly guilt yourself over it. You say done can’t be undone make a better choice next time – and then follow through.

You have to challenge yourself.

And with that said, I am challenging myself. It started with trying to run on the treadmill which I would only do if nobody else was in the gym in case things went terribly wrong (like I fell off, or couldn’t keep up, or something)

I managed it twice with nobody else there – walk for 2 mins, run for 60 seconds, walk for 2 mins, run for 60 seconds, walk for 2 mins, run for 60 seconds.

And then I had done it a couple of times so I thought things went ok, I’m giving up on caring what other people might think, I know at least I won’t fall over and I know I can do it. So I did it with people in the gym, and it went ok.

And I have kept going with it. Every day for the past 4 days, I have done 15-20 mins on the elliptical, and then 9 mins on the treadmill with a cool down.

Then today I discovered Couch to 5k.

And it looks pretty much like what I am doing already, only I am doing it in a smaller way. So my plan over the next few weeks is to extend the amount of times I do the running (eg 4x, 5x, etc) and slowly work my way up to the 20 minute thingy, and then work on it from there.

It might take a bit longer than 9 weeks for me. We’ll see. It’d be nice to be that kind of fit..

challenges, exercise, life lessons

Goals

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For the past week my goal has been to make it to the gym every. single. day. I have managed it.

My second goal was 100 sit-ups each day. Done. I tend to do them in sets of 10 with a rest until I get to 50.

I also had a mini goal in the back of my head – that if I ever found myself alone at the gym, I would do 3x 1 minute sprints on the treadmill in a 10 minute walk/run.

I am not a treadmill fan – I find it difficult and it usually hurts my shins way more than it should. But I still wanted to have a crack at it, though not with anyone else around in case things go horribly wrong. Like I fall off the treadmill, or something.

And yet every time I would go there – later and later each time as my shifts at work ended later – I would find more and more people! This was quite surprising to me – there is a large group of late night gym attendees.

But tonight – Friday at just after 10pm – I arrived to find the carpark completely empty. YAY! At last, I had the place to myself.

And I did it. I managed the sprints.. MORE YAY!

challenges, exercise

Focus On Me

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Sometimes my life is not what I want it to be. :(

For a long while there things were going great at work – I had a boss who was awesome though strict and you always knew where you stood with her. And if you had a problem and took it to her, she sorted it out. Usually within a week of going to her with the issue, it was fixed.

Now I have a new boss whose performance has been.. wait let me find the right word.. Nonexistent? Imaginary? Ineffective?

I’ll give you a quick example of this. When she first took on the manager job, she had everyone into her office for a one on one chat. I raised an issue with her that I felt was a problem – we did not have a policy on how to deal with X situation. She agreed with me that this was a problem and said “Leave it with me, I’ll get a policy together”. That was in August. It is now December and absolutely nothing has happened, even though I have reminded her several times and she asked me to send her reminder emails about it.

This is not the only issue I have gone to her with only to have nothing happen. There have been several instances of inaction.

On top of that, she sends out these emails which are negative, uninspiring, unclear, and cause unpleasant gossip in the work place.

She’d sent out an email about the internet policy a few weeks ago – saying we had all signed this policy when we started working there, and we were not allowed to go to sites not work related. This ended up with

– a team leader going around monitoring screens and telling people they could not go to sites that *were* work related

– staff telling clients they could not look up information for them because they were not allowed to access the internet!

– a lot of upset people after one of the staff members recollected the policy we all signed included instant dismissal for looking at non work related sites

– the manager who sent out the email gave permission for people to play solitaire on the internet and that is the only non work related thing they can do

– the manager then had the team leader go around and tell people to hide the solitaire screens if any of the “management” people walked in.

So after a lot of whinging and whining and discussion, I decided to put my own neck on the line and go in to let the manager know what was going on. I mentioned all of the above things. The manager told me that she did not intend for people to take her email so literally and that how it was interpreted was not how it was meant.

She said the reason it was sent was because some people were posting things on Facebook from work. I told her that as far as I knew, people do that from their phones, on their breaks. I have never seen anyone access Facebook from their work computers.

She said and I quote “Why wouldn’t anyone else come to me and talk to me about this”. She told me to encourage others to come to her and discuss it, which I said I would do, and I did – because when I say I am going to do something, I actually do it.

She told me she would send out a clarifying email (she did not).

She told me she would talk to people one on one about this (she did not as far as I know).

It has been several weeks since this happened and nothing has happened.

I have struggled against this for a good couple of months now, this lack of action when issues are raised. After all this time, I have come to the following conclusion.

I officially give up. I surrender.

I go to work, do my job, then I leave. I’m not going to pay any further attention to the other stuff. I’m not going to try and improve things. I’m not going to go in for pointless meetings with someone who does nothing – and if I get pulled into the office for any kind of meeting, I am going to do one of two things – keep my mouth firmly shut, or let the manager know I think my saying anything is pointless and I’m not going to do it anymore.

I’m going to cut back to less hours after the holiday season, too.

My problem is that I grew up in a family business. I tend to take work a lot more seriously than other people do. I also think issues should be addressed head on, quickly, and things sorted so they do not fester.

I can’t keep fighting this like a fish caught in a net. It robs me of sleep. It exhausts me. I waste too much mental energy on things that I cannot control. No amount of my time is going to make anything different. I have tried and it has not worked.

It is time for me to focus on me.

bitches, work