so my new job is going well, most the time. only ‘down’ side is i happen to be sitting in the wrong desk.

as in, the office is lovely, but i’m one desk away from Reception and i’m in the boss’s recently retired PA (Sharon’s) old desk.

This means that when the (lazy-assed) receptionist goes to the bank for HOURS (literally) i end up answering all the calls, and even worse, everyone assumes (incuding my boss) that I am her replacement PA.

So no matter how many times I have told people I am the Copywriter NOT New Sharon / stand-in Receptionist i still get stuff put on my desk and emails sent to me that have fckall to do with my work.

when my boss came and told me she’s off to this annual travel show for 10 days and she will be fwding me her emails while she’s away i lost it a bit (quietly inside my head) then called an emergency meeting with her the day before she left – with her, with the HR lady and with my colleague / friend / ally Jolene (who semi-works in my department so i could have her in my corner).

Anyhow i explained about the receptionist needing to be sorted out / fired, and that i am simply not getting my work done cos i spend hours doing crappy admin stuff that they never got anyone else in to do when Sharon left.

Result! Boss grovelled appealingly, i got to place an ad for ‘data capture / admin / front of house’ person and Jolene and I are shortlisting applicants while the boss is away, so that The Person can begin mid June and I can do my work.

Very chuffed with myself for the way I handled it, I now have the boss eating out of my hand in gratitude which will be great when time comes (also in June) for the annual salary review.

In other news the inhouse food is still great, i have put on 4.5 kg (yay!) and am walking for one hour a day every lunchtime with Jolene so feeling healthier than I have for a while. 5 years ago

i’m sat in bed and next thing this ENORMOUS cricket flies in from the courtyard and starts banging about the room. i wrap myself in the duvet cos i’m not wearing much and the thought of the thing on me is freaking me out, and manage to get Swinx the cat in from my lounge. she is now locked in here with me cos i have to SEE if she catches it.

i feel terrible tho. Raph and I are reading Cricket in Times Square – one of my favourite books as a child – and i feel like i’m setting Harry Cat to catch Chester.

Thank goodness Raph is alseep. When i was young i used to catch crickets in match boxes hoping i could train them to chirp songs.

sigh

when did i become such a ninny?

maybe thre x-x gets here soon and helps me dispatch it back outside _{cos i won’t be focussing on his Welcome Home very much if that thing is batting about the curtains}

crap it’s under my bed now.

waaaah. 5 years ago

names have been omitted to protect the guilty. The CEO called me from London to apologise profusely and I got paid a very good price for the article. I dare say they were scared I would go public with it or take it up legally but I believe what goes around comes around and we all screw up sometimes. In addition he said that if I had not insisted on working from home two days a week I would have gotten the job as my writing is excellent – which is why they used it on their main site.

Dear ….....

I am contacting you regarding a matter that has me shocked and very disappointed in your company.

As a web content creator and copywriter in Cape Town I have long held great respect for …....... and have believed you to be an industry leader. When I recently was interviewed for a position with ….... I anticipated competition to be stiff and was not unduly surprised when my application was unsuccessful.

However I was pleased with …......’s positive comments on the test article I was required to write on YouTube – she commented favourably on this piece more than once during the interview. It took me a full day of research and writing to hone the piece and I appreciated her encouraging remarks.

While perusing …....’s web site today I was totally gobsmacked to find a bastardized version of that very article on your site – without my knowledge or consent, without any credit given to me, and clearly without my having been paid for the work.

At no point in the interview process with your company was it indicated to me that any of the writing I had done would become the property of …....

This is a clear case of plagiarism and I am amazed that a company with your reputation would act in this manner, especially considering your recent public condemnation of another local company which did the same thing to you!

A few years back I applied for a position with ….... for whom I freelanced briefly. They too set a test for applicants and also used one of my test articles – after obtaining my consent, and paying me for the work.

I would not have expected any less from …...

Of course the article on YouTube has been changed and added to, but the bulk of it comprises my ideas, my research and my own writing, in most instances verbatim, all utilized without my consent or even credit.

I attach herewith a draft of the article, which I submitted with my application, with the copied work in red font.

The page in question on your website is found at
(link supplied)

I do not work for free. Please advise me who to invoice for my time and copy.

I trust that none of the other work I submitted has been or will be used without my permission.

I anticipate a response at your earliest convenience. 5 years ago

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ..
enough money within her control to move out and rent a place of her own, even if she never wants to or needs to…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
something perfect to wear if the employer, or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ..
a youth she’s content to leave behind…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE … a past juicy enough that she’s looking forward to retelling it in her old age….

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …..
a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .
one friend who always makes her laugh… and one who lets her cry…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ….
a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a recipe for a meal, that will make her guests feel honored…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
a feeling of control over her destiny.

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
how to fall in love without losing herself

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
how to quit a job, break up with a lover, and confront a friend without ruining the friendship…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
when to try harder… and WHEN TO WALK AWAY…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
that she can’t change the length of her calves, the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
that her childhood may not have been perfect… but its over…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
what she would and wouldn’t do for love or more…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
how to live alone… even if she doesn’t like it…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW..
whom she can trust,
whom she can’t,
and why she shouldn’t take it personally…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
where to go…
be it to her best friend’s kitchen table…
or a charming inn in the woods…
when her soul needs soothing…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
what she can and can’t accomplish in a day… a month…and a year…

(by Maya Angelou) 5 years ago

my boss lent me his very expensive headphones when he got an newer better set a few weeks back, and i just broke them. as in snapped the ear bit right off the bit that goes over your head….

now i have to fess up and tell him. bugger.

wonder how much it’l cost to replace them :( 5 years ago

but i finally changed a tyre by myself this week.

In the rain and a big wind.

I had to jump up and down on the spanner to loosen all the nuts or whatever, and again to tighten then afterwards, and i got rain down the back of my neck in rivers but i id it all and i was stupidly chuffed with myself.

it’s just that every time i’ve had a flat before some passing knight has stopped to do the whole thing for me.

so now i can change a flat and jump-start a car.

i am woman hear me … er…. grin proudly 5 years ago

sent quote and they got back to me for another quote on a different job, so i guess it can’t have been too bad or they wouldn’t have bothered.

One of these two jobs would pay me as much as an entire month’s salary at my permanent current job. but i doubt i’ll get either of them… 6 years ago

back to money issues again.

i have to quote on writing an 80 page medical report. some of which will be supplied info needing to be re-written, some of which will be interview-based.

i hate quoting. then again i haven’t really got much free time anymore, so i guess if i go in with a reasonable quote rather than a cheap one and they accept it will be worth doing. i have to remind myself i’m not desperate anymore. 6 years ago

he decided to go to lunch instead 6 years ago

the bossman and i are stuck in a headlock on this one….

he’s on a phone call after which he will be coming back to my desk to discuss.

argh. 6 years ago

so i’m sitting here in my green dress (i decided pretty rather than sexy was the way to dress… besides i don’t own sexy clothes really) – the temp. is 35 degrees C but the discomfort index according to the weatherman is 41 deg C… i’m trying not to melt with the help of a dodgy fan while the bossman sits in his airconditioned office.

ANYhow he spoke to me first thing this morning, said he’s gotten my email with the proposed new figure and he says: “I just have to process it… we’re 90% there, perhaps we can structure something that works around a certain amount now with a raise in 6 months time’

i.e not going to give me what i ask, not going to tell me today what amount he IS prepared to offer, and hoping to string me along at a lower figure for the first half of the year.

bugger.

and the pain of it is he’s going away, who knows for how long (he flies all over the world – anything from 3 days to 2 weeks each time) and meanwhile i haven’t got an answer.

Thank you so much though for all the support thus far girls and chaps:D

will update when i know anything more.

_{In SA a ‘rock’ is a derogatory name for an Afrikaans speaking person}6 years ago

the boss received my email according to my colleague but didn’t comment on it to him, or respond to me.

so clearly he’s waiting for me to get in to work tomorrow and then we’ll have to battle it out.

_{i’m such a chicken with this money shit…it’s pathetic}6 years ago

spend ages working on my ‘motivational’ letter to the bossman as to why he needs to pay me a decent wage if he wants me to work 4 days a week from Feb.

now i just have to send it.

then once he’s had a day to realise how faultless my reasoning is find fault with my reasoning, i’ll be hitting him with my proposed new salary figure.

see how clever i am: if i put the figure on this email he won’t read any of it, he’ll simply scan to the amount…

i’m waiting for francois to get in to the office so i can msn him from home and find out how the ‘mood’ is today before i hit the send button… 6 years ago

but i figured out that in order to take on the extra day’s work in town i will need to buy a car… i don’t have my own and the one i use chows petrol like you won’t believe, plus i can’t have it 3 full days in a row each week.

SO i need to discuss my new salary with the bossman and i’ll be having to ask for more than double my current amount.

gah.

i’m such a chicken. 6 years ago

:( i went to buy beer on my way to the picnic on Tuesday. Usually i’ll buy a couple bottles if i’m riving of Amstel or Heineken or whatever, which will cost around R10.00 There were 2 gleaming frosty bottles of Corona waiting for me so i went to pay – and they came to R33.00!! Yikes. I was too shy to say i wasn’t going to pay so i just coughed up and bitched all the way to the picnic.

:) In SA the pubs are not the sort of friendly places they are in England where i was always happy to go alone if i felt like a drink. Here if you go in alone you are clearly begging to be hit on by every boy in the place. I arranged to meet my freinds at a particularly divey spot last night and they were running late. I could have waited in the car (i could hear from the noise the place was heaving) but i decided i’m a free woman and i have every right to go in and get a drink. Which i did. Happily the Arsenal / Portugal match was on so i sat at the bar with my beer and chatted to the barman about the lack of goals and all went well.

The night became fairly hectic later, but that’s another story… 6 years ago

i’ve realised i’m just too bloody nice.

i don’t want to BE the person who jumps queues or bitches loudly in restaurants or cuts infront of others in traffic or steps aside to let other people pass by (old people excluded unless they’re annoying old people).

BUT i/m not going to just smile nicely and keep quiet when other people do these things to me.

Today i made a start when driving in the city centre on the way to the office. In SA we have these taxi minibuses and they are the WORST RUDEST drivers in the world, they’re always cutting in and crashing and having loads of people die because they’re overcrowded. One tried to cut me off and instead of slwoing down and waving him through i put my foot down and zoomed ahead.

This was particularly brave as most of the taxi drivers are armed and they are well-known for pulling guns out at any opportunity.

Just cos i’m petite and generally kind does not mean i’m going to let bullies and bitches walk all over me anymore.

(hits chest with fist) 6 years ago