Crepeys say Bah Humbug, (it's not Christmas yet)

[beachyhead]

Here we go

Sympathies to those with sickly offspring. Mine are fine, just fantastically moody at the moment, particularly DD1. This mood is not going to improve, as we are going glasses shopping after school. DD1 has emphatically said "I am NOT going to wear glasses". DD2 is all for it, because she sits at the back of the class in Maths and doesn't want to miss out on any nuggets of wisdom on the blackboard.

Christmas Decorations - we have a small box of gorgeous ones handed down from DM - when she was a teenager back in the early 60s she begged her parents for a Christmas Tree (not something they had ever had up until then). They agreed, but told her she'd have to sort out the decorations. So she made them, out of straw, cocktail sticks, cotton and cardboard. The straw stars (farmer's daughter!) are a work of art.

LOL at the workplace pervs we used to encounter - there were definitely a couple where you made sure there was always a desk between you. I had a boss back in the day, who would offer to sign something only "if you give me a kiss". Actually, he was quite a sweet old chap, and I don't think there was an agenda there (he would say this in front of an office full of people), but we did have to quietly sit him down one day and tell him that times were a-changing, and maybe the new 18yo temp wouldn't take such comments quite in the manner that they were intended.....

When I first started teaching, 27 years ago, on a Friday the HT insisted we all sit down together to eat and we HAD to have a glass of wine with our lunch. And then go back into class for the afternoon
Luckily no dodgy men though

CV, how lovely - your DM is clearly quite a woman!

Well apparently DD has missed some sort of art exam and her 2 BF's are also off with bad throats (one has tonsillitis) - they spend so much time together it's not surprising, but does look a bit dodgy. She will be back in tomorrow, whatever!

I once had a boss who insisted that my annual appraisal had to be done in the (admittedly quite large but unlit) stationery cupboard. I hated working for him anyway, so went to his boss and made my case for reporting to him. When he didn't leap at the chance, I dobbed nastyboss in for harrassment, choosing my words carefully. He caved.

Whaaaat? Yuk!

OOh Thanks Molly, re the R4 item: Ill have to iplayer it as Im at work: meeting Ddad for 'coffee' tomorrow so I'll have him on my own. Its always better that way.
Christmas shopping has started to kick in and we are almost on our knees with sudden busyness.Yawn.

I have memories( late 80's/early 90's) of sitting at my desk with a fag in my mouth, using one of those clunk click credit card machines with the triplicate tracing paper and then giving the customer a hand written ticket. It was my first job after doing my MA. We also always had whiskey in the bosses office on a Friday ( us girls, and the much older male management) followed by a riotous evening in a dodgy pub. If you didn't drink you were regarded with scorn. These were the days when I could down 10 pints of Guinness on an evening. There was plenty of inappropriate groping.

Very jealous of Xmas meetup.

I remember one boss who suddenly made a move on me after giving me a lift home from a seminar. He insisted on 'seeing me to the door' which was in a dark yard, then pounced. So I invited him in where, to his considerable amazement, I introduced my Dad, who was staying with me. He then had to chat to Dad & pretend he wanted a cup of tea

No more trouble from him.

In one magazine office in the mid-90s, there was a hideous old perv who used to frot against any female venturing into the 'rolling stacks', which served as the library. He would often make comments about my tits, such as 'you make an old many very happy'. His whole team would regularly go out for immensely long boozy lunches, then come back and go to sleep under their desks. One of them even had a pillow for the purpose.

My early 90s magazine was just off Leicester Square, and nearly every lunchtime was spent in the pub, and most afternoons playing jolly pranks, such as filling people's umbrellas with the contents of the hole punch, or throwing wet bog roll at people's glass partitions. Happy days.

In my late 80s publishing job we started by having cocktails in the office on a friday afternoon and a couple of years later when the thrill had worn off and everybody was getting pissed off at slaving away for mad, mad bosses (shooting paper clips at baby birds out of the window, screeching 'die' and taking a taxi home mid-morning in order to change outfit for a boss she was keen on), we switched to irish coffee, starting mid morning. god knows why we weren't all fired. happy days.

crem - I too used to be able to manage 10pints of guinness. find it hard to believe now and haven't shared with the dc.

Mrs S's turkish brilliant idea for meet up.

Should we be doing anything about the ss?

We had a large fridge in the office I worked in, and it wasn't unusual for us to have a nice can of beer around 0830. We saved the wine until lunch time. It wasn't unusual to have a quick shag in the office either, if you were there late. But not on your own desk, obviously. And if you picked the desk of someone you really hated, you left the mess there for them. And the amount of stuff that would be sexual harassment these days - giving someone a nice friendly pat on the willy on your way into the office... and worse...

Oh and yes to the jolly pranks - but this went on until quite recently. We used to play cricket in the corridors, but had to give up because we kept smashing all the lights. Also used to change round the M and N keys on people's computers. Amazing how many people don't know how it's set out, the keyboard.

Oh yes, today's report back from MI - she isn't feeling very well today. Hope she's feeling a bit more chipper tomorrow.

Rofl at 'confessions of 1980s office workers'
Would make a better programme than that 70s thing

Poor MI with the Delhi Belly

No one has fun at work any more, it seems. I must have been a bit of a plain Jane....no one ever made a pass at me or,pinched my bottom.
I do hope MI has a better day tomorrow. Hope she hasn't picked up a bug.

rudy if you have all the addresses maybe the ss can be brought forward?

I really have had a mare of a day. What blithering idiot spends nearly 5 hours behind the wheel for only an hours teaching? Me, it seems. I got back with one of my extremely rare migraines. Almost never have them, headaches yes, migraines almost never. I still can't quite see out of my left eye properly. Didn't go to choir. dS2 bless him went along for me and did quite a good job of conducting. I expect maestro the terrible is spitting nails. She didnt reply to my apologetic text crying off. Cow.

DD is determined to go,back to school tomorrow. Apparently she doesn't want to miss food tech.
Good night crepeys.

Ready with my £5er Rudy

Poor you Rose. Sleep well and dream sweet dreams

I too never had a pass made at me

I think we were pretty staid compared to you lot.... Alcohol was after work only although we could pack a fair few house gins into a small amount of time....

Sorry to hear about your rotten day, Rose. Hope you feel better this morning

Lots of alcohol when I was in practice as a solicitor. Lots of generally sexist and unpleasant behaviour too. There is a fair amount of drinking now in my teaching work, too, when people get together but we are so busy this is v v rare. Carnage tends to ensue when we are out for drinks / supper though.

It is a long and stressful day looming for me alas. The bits of it not in the classroom will be hiding in my office with snacks and R3. We have had our door panels made clear so that we can be spotted in case of a fire. I will need to put my emergency top over the glass and pretend I am changing as I can't face people peering in today. I will run the risk of crisping if the building goes up.

Courage and faith, crepeys, courage and faith

Yes, we were talking at work about how teens seem a lot less resilient these days and surmising that maybe it is because we are all molly codling them rather than the benign neglect of our youth. What would they make of the 70s/80's behaviour that we took for granted?

Rudy, sooner the better for me as I am no charity shop expert and I imagine it could take me some time to get sorted!

Went to see the Imitation Game last night - really enjoyed it. BC played Turing so well, but how anyone could find him attractive is a complete mystery. Keira K was good too

Rose - that sounds awful - wishing you a calmer day with less driving.

I am going to walk in the forest with a friend - except it is amazingly foggy. I do need to get outside and breathe though and I reckon it should be atmospheric.

Rose, hope you're feeling better today and Monty, hope your day isn't too awful.

Monty, I hope it all goes well today. And no getting crisped. That would be bad. :)
I hope MI is feeling better today and continuing her adventures.
Rose, that is so sad about your PhD. But you seemed to have made a huge success of what you did instead, no? I hope you are also feeling better today. 5 hours of driving for one hour of teaching is indeed a poor trade-off. I really do not know how you peeps in and around London cope with the insanity of the traffic round there.
I had a verrry long day yesterday, which started at 3.50am and ended at 11.10pm. I have a hideous work day today and gibbered awake at 5.30, stressing already. But I am now fuelled with a bucket of espresso and Ready To Go (i.e. my hair is standing on end, my eyes are glassy and I've broken out in a sweat)
Ahhh, work in the 80s. My first career choice was the wine trade. I suspect that in terms of epic drinking exploits associated with and during work and, erm, epic bad behaviour, I might win hands-down. I think it is a very, very good thing that at 25 I suddenly realised that the wine trade wasn't a good career choice for me. My liver would have been shot to pieces by 30. At 25 I applied for and got offered a place at Oxford to do an MFL PGCE, but shortly afterwards I crashed and burned big-stylee and was offered an in-patient place at the loony-bin. I had to choose between hospital and St Hildas and I chose hospital, where I went for a year. Still not sure I made the right choice. I finally did my PGCE somewhere else 5 years later.

ooops, meant to add myself to Secret Santa:

Rudy
BTM
Hatty
Auriga
Molly
MI
Lalsy
Rose
BD
QQ
Beachy
Herbs
MrsSchadenfreude
Addle
MontserratCaballe
NUFC
CremolaFoam
wilbur
CV
Stropps

As I said in a previous post, all respect to you Stropps, and also for having clawed yourself back from illness to where you are now. But so little sleep can't be good. Can you catch up at weekends? I did make a successful career in clinical management (although in the latter years all I seemed to be doing was giving evidence at SEN tribunals….) but that was before I gave it all up when DC3 was on the way. I've never managed to find work to fit around her and the family's needs since, and I do miss the camaraderie of the work place and being valued. So I suppose that's why I ended up doing stupid driving for an hour's work. When I got in, with the mother of all headaches, there was just cold quiche and salad for supper. DH's best effort. One day, someone will make me a home cooked dinner and I will love them forever.

Good luck today, Monty I hope it isn't all bad, and please get out of the building in the event of a fire!

Whilst I am still smarting from not being able to recount a story where a male colleague bundled me in to a cupboard for some slap and tickle (links arms with BD)…I am reminded of the woeful behaviour of my department in a school I worked in….there was this somewhat hunky ex PE teacher (turned staff tutor) whom we ribbed mercilessly…following him down the corridor making lewd licking faces and hand gestures. Poor bugger. And (its all coming back to me now…) we used to have "Dick Brain of the year contest" and pinned the results on the office noticeboard with cartoons and all. And in a school with children…what were we thinking of. That would be summary dismissal these days…

I am off to have a writing session with ConS this morning. I must find some inspiration. My brain still hurts. You know…that vague dull pain behind the eyes?

And one lovely S&B snippet. Remember this ?

Well it's on its way to me from across the pond. I did the maths and even with the taxes, duty and shipping (and needing to pay return shipping if its no good) its still WAY under half the price of similar blouses from the same designer, which i could only find in Matches for circa £245!!!!
That Nordstrom site is quite addictive.

I'll shut up now…

That's a lovely blouse, Rose. Hope it arrives soon.

Oh yes, the mid eighties. I worked for one of the high street banks and on Friday afternoon, a lady would come round with a drinks trolley, with full on spirits, beer and wine! Delivered to your office in a branch. We had the rolling file system in a dark room and someone almost got squashed 'in flagrante' during the Christmas drink up (branch Banking halls are a great space for a Christmas party!) Lots of room for dancing and you could hop up on the counter for a seat! Couldn't do that now.....

I am between the funeral yesterday and driving test tomorrow. The funeral was lovely, just right.

I've just remembered I have a Rocky Horror Picture Show fancy dress party on Friday. I'm really not sure! Dh has a very fetching basque and has ordered me off to find fishnets in a XL..... there will be no pictures on fb, I assure you. I have no idea what to wear and I feel like Not Joining In.

Keep going Stropps - you are doing so well, so far. Just try working how many more hideous Tuesdays you have and it might feel more manageable. Has your chimney shennanigans finished and is it all back to normal?