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May. 8th, 2008 10:03 pmOn evening shift today to make up Monday. As regular readers will know, when I'm on the late shift I arrive at the office around noon to take advantage of the canteen's fine and reasonably priced food. The three hours or so I'm left to kill aren't usually a problem as I can easily pass that time surfing the Net... Usually.
This morning I set off earlier than usual, to get my barnet cut at Town Cut in Fareham before getting the bus on to the office. Lunch was an excellent, if very hot, lamb curry with ginger and chilli. From there I went on to the coffee lounge...to find that some moron had locked down the PC, meaning nobody could get on the Net. As Cat the librarian's on holiday this week, the two library PCs were also unavailable.
Stranded in the office, hours before the start of my shift, unable to access the Net. This also meant I was unable to wish![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sarah_child a happy birthday (too late now, as she's in Australia where it's now the 9th). At first I decided to sit in the upstairs lounge and finish reading last week's Big Issue. Till about 1.30, when I felt like a Caffe Mocha, put a pound in the coffee machine and pressed the code...only for the screen to read 'Selection Not Available - Bean to Cup heater fault'. Exactly the same happened when I tried to choose another coffee drink. YET again. I pressed the return button hoping to retrieve my pound, but nothing happened. Several of the ladies were sitting in the lounge; on hearing I'd lost my quid, they all told me to e-mail the Facilities Helpdesk for a refund. I frankly couldn't be arsed - the earliest I'd get my money back is next Wednesday - but they persuaded me to on principle.
I had enough change on me to quench my thirst with a can of Diet Coke from the office shop but that episode, combined with my being left to kick my heels around the office for an hour and three quarters with no possibility of getting online, left me with a right monk on. I was certainly no longer in the mood for reading last week's Big Issue so plodded into the telephone unit in search of a sympathetic ear. When Terry overheard me telling Heather #1, he said I could start work an hour early if I wanted. I replied that I really can't do 7 hours on the phones, which got some 'hear, hears' from the girls on the floor. Sue #4 pointed me in the direction of the charity bookcase at the end of the unit.
"The books are a pound, aren't they?" I asked her.
"No, only 20p but feel free to put more in."
I found a hardback copy of Together, the Appleton sisters' memoir. The only money smaller than pound coins I had on me was 25p, so I put that in the jar and headed down to the closed canteen to sit there alone reading Nicole and Natalie's confessions till it was time to head back to the unit - via the coffee machine in the little downstairs open-air seating area, which was working - to begin work.
The actual shift? Incident-free, thank goodness.
Gotta go watch the finale of The Baron.
This morning I set off earlier than usual, to get my barnet cut at Town Cut in Fareham before getting the bus on to the office. Lunch was an excellent, if very hot, lamb curry with ginger and chilli. From there I went on to the coffee lounge...to find that some moron had locked down the PC, meaning nobody could get on the Net. As Cat the librarian's on holiday this week, the two library PCs were also unavailable.
Stranded in the office, hours before the start of my shift, unable to access the Net. This also meant I was unable to wish
sarah_child a happy birthday (too late now, as she's in Australia where it's now the 9th). At first I decided to sit in the upstairs lounge and finish reading last week's Big Issue. Till about 1.30, when I felt like a Caffe Mocha, put a pound in the coffee machine and pressed the code...only for the screen to read 'Selection Not Available - Bean to Cup heater fault'. Exactly the same happened when I tried to choose another coffee drink. YET again. I pressed the return button hoping to retrieve my pound, but nothing happened. Several of the ladies were sitting in the lounge; on hearing I'd lost my quid, they all told me to e-mail the Facilities Helpdesk for a refund. I frankly couldn't be arsed - the earliest I'd get my money back is next Wednesday - but they persuaded me to on principle.I had enough change on me to quench my thirst with a can of Diet Coke from the office shop but that episode, combined with my being left to kick my heels around the office for an hour and three quarters with no possibility of getting online, left me with a right monk on. I was certainly no longer in the mood for reading last week's Big Issue so plodded into the telephone unit in search of a sympathetic ear. When Terry overheard me telling Heather #1, he said I could start work an hour early if I wanted. I replied that I really can't do 7 hours on the phones, which got some 'hear, hears' from the girls on the floor. Sue #4 pointed me in the direction of the charity bookcase at the end of the unit.
"The books are a pound, aren't they?" I asked her.
"No, only 20p but feel free to put more in."
I found a hardback copy of Together, the Appleton sisters' memoir. The only money smaller than pound coins I had on me was 25p, so I put that in the jar and headed down to the closed canteen to sit there alone reading Nicole and Natalie's confessions till it was time to head back to the unit - via the coffee machine in the little downstairs open-air seating area, which was working - to begin work.
The actual shift? Incident-free, thank goodness.
Gotta go watch the finale of The Baron.
