I was at the mall down from work the other day, and I saw this carpark:

Can they be any more ambiguous? Is it meant for all people? In which case, why did it need a symbol to tell us that? Is it for people who are either male or female (but not both), or perhaps people that ARE both, or perhaps people that aren’t sure if they are either? A confused trans-gendered person, or a transvestite? Do these people need special carparks now? Are we discriminating by carparks? Is this the evolution of sexism?

I worked myself up about it, I did. What could they possibly mean by that funny little symbol?Were they being horrible to people who didn’t deserve it?

In the end I hoped that it was someone being funny, a form of good-humoured street art. Hilarious carpark graffiti, designed to instigate confusion. Or that it was the local council or car parking company being idiotic again.

I still have no idea. It could mean anything, really. What do you think it means?

[edit]Other suggestions have been: emergency toilet parking, a muslim seperatist parking spot (because they can’t be seen together in public or something?), male driver, woman passenger. None of them make sense really, it’s so odd![/edit]

Sometimes I forget that some quirks don’t traverse from one workplace to another. The other day I got yelled at by my boss for being slightly sarcastic in an internal email. At ICONZ internal sarcasm was used as a one of those ‘touchstone’ moments in a ‘Yes, sometimes work can suck but we are all in it together’ kind of way.

Here this is apparently not the case. It was unsettling, and even through I disagreed with the justification that was used (forwarding emails vs a single well written contextual email) if ICONZ taught me nothing else, it was when it’s appropriate to keep my mouth shut and accept what’s coming my way.

After I was HORRIBLY unsettled. I found it difficult to concentrate and trying to push through was difficult. Okay so it was a small reminder to pull my head in and I should suck it. But I was all restless and the sucking it in part wasn’t going so well. In the end I went to lunch slightly early and drove around till I ended up here:

It was cold, and grey and windy and WONDERFUL!

I’m not the kind of person who can just let shit that comes my way roll off my shoulder. I’m not unaffected by what goes on around me, so it was nice to get away and stand in the freezing wind and to relax a bit.

And it wasn’t till I was standing on the sand watching the seagulls that I realised that the yelling I got was horribly severe for a single line of sarcasm, and that perhaps my boss was having a horrible day and I had just copped the end of it.

Standing on the beach made it easier to hope that his day was going better.

I’m one of those people who has the start menu at the TOP of the screen. This is usually fine, as all the applications and windows take note of this and open BELOW the taskbar in all very fine displays of usability.

When I first started at work they’d never known anyone to do that. It was wildly commented on when someone tried to use my machine (very much like ‘Ahh! Things are different! Ahh! FAIL AT USING! Why must you be different?!’ This squawk also happens one someone tries to use the ergonomic keyboard I have).

Alas, the frustrating thing is because no one had known anyone like me, the software that we develop always opens at Absolute 0,0. Which meant to use it I had unlock the task bar, minimise, move the software explorer, and then reopen the task bar.

When you running a bajillion different versions at a time having to fiddle with the task bar every five minutes is only a tad annoying (the kind where you develop a weird eye tick, and you want to gnaw on something intangible like the task bar itself).

Today I started testing the new release that’s hopefully going to go live in the next little while, and check it out:

It no longer opens at 0,0! XD!

That the engineers thought about this, and made the little change to better my (and users like me) working day was really a warm fuzzy moment.

Working here? Completely awesome. :)

I am a chronic sneezer. I think my nose just has this THING about aircon units, because multiple times a day at work I sneeze. Lucky for me I have a small little sneeze, which is quick and generally pretty quiet. Not one of those giant snoozer sneezes that erupt out of your nose.

One of the cute things about working where I do (I know, I’m still singing the praises of work – I’m not over it yet!) is that when someone sneezes, someone else will say ‘bless you’. And it happens WITHOUT FAIL everytime I sneeze, or anytime someone elses sneezes.

I’ve never, ever been in an environment where people do this – and I think it’s so sweet! A very cute courtesy that has been lost everywhere else.

It’s just lovely, and of course now anytime someone else sneezes I’m happy to say ‘bless you’. :)

It’s nice to know that some of the cute little courtesy’s that you learnt back in primary are still practised!

[edit] Yes I’m talking about sneezes. After the last few heavily sentimental posts I wanted a break and to talk about the asinine.[/edit]

Last week I wrote up a spec for the ideas that came out of that very productive meeting (that is not sarcasm, there were MANY ideas!) and this morning I got praised by the two head guys for my ideas, and the spec.

Actual praise. When I mentioned my surprise to a friend he almost hit me upside the head and told me not to be ridiculous – of course I deserved the praise, if I’d done something well beyond expectation (which I had, I think. One of the main ideas was mine).

The thing is I don’t expect praise. I seem to be in that awkward stage in this new job, where I still expect the shit from the OLD job to be the norm. There was no praise at the old job (admittedly, it wasn’t a job where I was hired for thinking). But often I got the opposite end of the stick – insults, giggles and a ridiculously fake and bitchy team. I’m fairly sure they thought I was stupid, and not at all as perceptive as I am. I can’t believe how painful it was!

If you’re an employer, let it be said that praise and recognition goes a looong way to making happy staff. And, if your anything like my old boss (ho that she was), bitchiness, stupidity, and bullshit makes a fair chunk of your company hate you. For serious. And I know which company I’d be happy to go the extra mile for, and which company I’d be happy to dump in the shit if any possibility presented itself.

Without wondering how long I’ve been working here, and how many hot chocolates I’ve ordered, at some point between then and now the coffee people have figured out how to spell my name:

Good for them! :)

Friends (online or no) often manage to say those things that make you giggle, put you immediately in a better mood, and remind you that no matter how crap things are (or how awful VB programming can be), you’ve been through worse:

elly_rarg I work with some ridiculously smart people, and I’m glad they are willing to help, despite whatever work it is they have to do! about 1 hour ago from web

vivaluxury @elly_rarg “I work with some ridiculously smart people” – that must make a nice change ;D about 1 hour ago from BeTwittered in reply to elly_rarg

Today I’m thankful for such friends :)