maggies_lens

Saturday morning I had my hens. I really didn't want the traditional hens thing, you know what I mean. Not into strippers and that sort of stuff. I'd found this chocolate tour of Melbourne thing when I was doing my TAFE course and decided I'd really like to do it. The morning was HECTIC, getting all sorts of stuff done, then Melissa arrived and we took off. Picked up mum and Rhonda and headed into the city. We had a nice healthy breakfasty thing of soup (from Souperman in the QV Centre! LOL!) as we'd arrived quite early. Tanya and Shar showed up shortly after we were done, and we joined the Walk people at the first stop, New Zealand Natural. We got taken to a few choccy places in Melbourne (New Zealand Natural, Cacao Fine Chocolates, Koko Black, Lindt and Ganache) and got to sample some of the best quality chocolate Melbourne has to offer, and learn a little bit of Melbourne architecture. None of the Cadbury rubbish either; we had REAL chocolate. Was just marvelous. Did you know it takes 15 years to be a Master Chocolatier? And you can't get the qualification without studying in Europe for at least part of the time. REAL chocolate doesn't make you fat either, it's all the oil and refined sugar that gets put into commercial grade chocolate that's so bad for you. We got to learn how chocolate is made, the different types of chocolate and how the modern methods came to be. In all, it was awesome. And yes we got to sample :) The only one I didn't like had champagne ganache in it. I hate ganache at the best of times, and hate champagne so yeah :D By the end we'd had enough choccy! We ended with afternoon tea at Ganache Chocolates where we were given INCREDIBLE cake. I chose to have peppermint tea to compliment mine, best idea EVER! Helped to cleanse my palate and make everything taste quite divine.
Tanya and Shar went home to pick up Sophie from their babysitter, I drove first Rhond and then mum home, then Melissa and I went and saw the horses. They hadn't been out of their paddock since they arrived so were a bit on edge. But they need to get used to it all. Gave them a feed, let them walk around in the round yard so they could look at things, treated Destiny with some Illium the vet had dropped by. We went back to my place after horses were put away and grabbed Craig and went to Hog Breath's for AWESOME dinner.
Fell into bed that night and slept like the dead. Today has been a very slothful day, not done anything much :) Have liked it :D

( random collection of photos )



Back to the grindstone tomorrow. Only two weeks left!!!

What a ruddy emotional roller coaster. Ok, let's start from the beginning. You guys know I have had my reservations about NW for a while now. The sub-par training, the racism, the "screw everyone you can" attitude...it really got to me. What made it worse was that there was nobody I could go to about it; hard to speak to a supervisor about how them making gay or Indian nasty jokes offends you when that supervisor was involved in the original actions. There is a guy there named Layne who is openly gay and a cross-dresser. I personally liked him very much; he was funny, smart, happy to be himself and also very helpful. But the SHIT people laid on him for being who/what he is was just unbelieveable. And always behind his back. Rachel in particular was just...out of line. But the thing is, she's a protected species as she is the daughter of one of the bosses. As is Sam, who acted like a total twat half the time. No managerial skills at all. The best way I can describe her is a "blocker". You'd have a concern or a question, and she'd "block" you. Tell you you don't need to worry about it, or she'd do SOMEthing on the screen to fix it but wouldn't tell you what it was she had done so you never actually LEARNED anything. Tom was good in letting me dispatch, but Efy and the others...yeah no.
The last load of shifts really made me question staying there. Not only because of the way they had screwed me with the roster, but also because of the behaviour displayed toward staff who were forced into it. The last straw was when Rachel told me I had the personality of a pot plant. That was just...*shakes head* who SAYS that to a work mate? Esp one who has just worked 5 12 hour shifts in a row and is in the last hour of that load? Clearly tired, clearly not interested in your bogan bullshit discussion about why all immigrants should be deported if they can't speak English to an University level (which god know she certainly couldn't), I was WORKING. Quietly dispatching away. And because I didn't add anything to the convo, because, you know, I was like WORKING, I got THAT.
I hopped onto Seek.com and typed in Dispatcher next day off. First one that came up sounded good so I whipped off my resume. Got a call about 30mins later from Karen asking if I could come in for an interview. That was the STUFF I mentioned the other day. Went and had interview a couple days later which went for TWO AND A HALF HOURS! Place is called Green Light couriers. I will have a team of about 18 or so drivers. Good. I like the smaller teams, much easier to get to know them etc.
Went back to work the next day and had a performance review. It went really well. They said they were happy with me and could see I was developing every day. My KPIs were awesome and my knowledge base building VERY rapidly. All good. Only complaint was I wore grey pants instead of black. :/. Because that is SUCH a huge deal when 3/4 of the others came in dressed like $2 whores, ripped clothing and hungover... I was like, whatev's, I'll get black pants with next pay. All good.
Came out and continued to work the rest of the shifts. The I got a call yesterday from Sam saying please come in. I asked why. She said "there's no point going into it on the phone, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Sam, this is freaking me out. Please at least tell me what this is about"
"No" *click*
Wouldn't answer my calls or texts. I called Leah and asked if she knew WTF, she was as confused as I was. She managed to get out of Sam that it was regarding my review. So I went in and was told that I was "not up to standards" and had not passed my probation period. Which ended next day i.e today. I asked um, what standards? Show me the standard. They couldn't show me even one. I said um my KPI's are better than most of the others in there, I'm never late like half of them are, I've had TWO who shifts off (one because my tooth broke at work, the other because I had gastro from hell and was throwing up like no one's business), the teams worked for me very well, and I hardly needed direction any more. They just said no you don't meet standard and kept blocking me. I was like WTF, fuck you. Got up and walked back to the coms room and wrote Kate a quick note, which Sam was VERY upset about; she wanted me GONE. She basically pushed me out the door and down the steps! Kate went pure white when she saw it and quickly sent me a text.
And you know what Sam's parting words to me where? "We won't release your final pay until you return the two polos to us."
"Are you serious? That is all you have to say to me?"
"Well what else is there to say. We expect the shirts back or we won't release your wage"
I stood there for a moment staring at her and said "Sam, you really need to learn how to talk to people, you should really consider doing a management course so you don't act like the Boss's Daughter and treat people the way you do." and walked out.
Craig had driven me, thank god. I didn't shed a single tear but GOD were we mad! We'd be ok for a few weeks with savings, but it would have been VERY hard. I spent most of yesterday firing off a million emails/resumes. Then this morning as I was trying to work out WTF I was going to do with my day, my mobile rang. It was Karen from Green Light. She scared the shit out of me, sounding like they didn't want me, then said she was prepared to give me a go but I'd better realise there were no RDO's etc. I almost burst out laughing. For the past ten years or so I have worked 12 hour shifts, weekends, public holidays, Xmas, you name it. Now I will be working 8:30am to 6pm. Monday to Friday only. No public holidays. For the moment they are not very far from my last work, but in December (I think it is) they are moving to Rowville...not far from where Kings is! LOL!!!!! She knew all about Kings too, said they are going swiftly to shit. She also knew Nationwide and even before I said anything she said "I take it you are leaving there due to their attitudes and behaviours towards their staff?". :D
I start tomorrow morning at the luxurious time of 0830. I have 3 months probation. And paid a tiny bit more than I was at NW. Ahhhh. The best form of revenge, my friends, is success.
And yes they do know about the wedding/honeymoon next year and are fine with me taking that time off. At this stage I will most likely go back to work on the Monday and Tuesday after the wedding. We fly out on the Tuesday, so will prob work a half day or similar since we don't fly out til very late evening.
So there you have it.
Got the WORST tension headache right afterwards. Went to the horses and did a huge clean up of the paddock but that didn't help at all. Came home and took many LEGAL drugs and had a hot bath. It's still lingering but it's under control. Paddock looks good but :D Going to have to fit in mucking out on weekends now instead of RDO's during the week. Prob get down there an hour or so before due to ride and do as much as I can. Thinking at this stage dependent on weather conditions, will probably move my horses out of the private paddock when we do go to Europe. Give it a good rest, and hopefully mean Melissa won't have to do ANYthing at all bar check on them for me and perhaps feed if she thinks they need it. Ah the day to day worries of the jet setting class ;P

As promised. There is also a non-HN one in there I think you horsey lover types may appreciate ;)

Photo post later today too :)

( About a weeks or so worth )

ok, here's the first lot.

 

My young friend Mikayla wanted to go pony riding. So, we took her to meet the horses. She's a little natural. Love at first site. Couldn't wipe the smile off her face for the rest of the day. Both horses behaved so well, very proud f them both. Under cut is major photo spammage, not dial up friendly. :-)

Little Tango is home. :-) She's still on antibiotics etc, and she's scouring a bit still but she should be fine. Pics below for anyone who would like a look. Taken this morning. She's about 2-3 days old. And utterly ADORABLE. Nutmeg is still a bit wary of ppl getting too close so these were all taken with signifcant zoom.