kidattypewriter

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Pedant's Pleasure

As you'll probably know, during the day, I type transcripts. It's not hilarious, but it's a living.

Some of the things that have amused me at work recently:

- A news item on the tiger quoll population of an offshore Australian item. It included an interview with a person listed as 'Peter Bilby';

- Two news items featuring a woman called Daisy Gardener (she works in the fashion industry). Presumably she has sisters called 'Rose' and 'Hyacinth';

- A transcript featuring a man called 'Ings'. 'Ings?' I thought. Is it the plural of 'Ing'? Did he start off as an 'Ing' and work his way up by getting married and multiplying? I'd hate to have a name like that: it's not even a 'Thing'.

- And an email conversation about the correct spelling of 'Doughnut' ...

Donut or not Donut
Macquarie Dictionary gives the spelling 'Donut', not 'Doughnut'.
J

Re: Donut or not Donut
Ough Nough [sic]!!!
Tim

Donut or not Donut
Whoops! The spelling is actually 'Doughnut' in Macquarie!
J

Re: Donut or not Donut
I shudder to think of the day when a 'Boeuf Bouillabaisse' chain opens across Melbourne ...
Tim

It's the little jokes that keep you going. But I can't do this job forever. I figure I'll take my three-and-a-half weeks holiday mid year and when I come back I'll start looking around at some of the other jobs out there. We'll see.

15 comments:

Caz said...

Okay, don't leave us hanging, do *share* - what type of jobs are you thinking of for your next power move, anything in particular in mind?

TimT said...

... now that depends. Where did you say you worked again?

Seriously, it's a good question. Preferably somewhere where I do something a little more intelligent and/or restful than typing crazily until the blood starts coming out of my fingers, like I am at the moment.

Caz said...

Really, I'm asking as you should put some ideas out there, just in case anyone reading your blog is in an industry of interest, or knows of any jobs, or can put you in touch with someone who knows someone, who has a cousin, who has a brother...

Yes, it's a very, very, long shot, but up to 80% of jobs aren't advertised, so they say. Anything is worth a shot, with those sort of stats.

Don't get suckered in by the "skills shortage" crap; all it means is that companies don't hire anyone, they keep looking for some idealised perfect employee (including a sense of humour), because they are so inept that they're terrified of taking the risk of actually hiring someone, in case they make the wrong decision. When they don't find this perfect person, they are, surprisinlgy, disappointed. Then they call it a skills shortage, instead of a chronic inability to use their brain, make a decision, and carry out robuts, rational, risk mitigated, recruitment activities.

But, it's not until later in the year, so I guess it's something you can think about between now and then. "Tim's big career move of 2006". Very exciting.

PS - Working as a consultant at the moment; left the big corporates a year ago, otherwise would have been happy to put you in touch with someome, who knows someone, who has a sister...

Still, if I come across anything in my consulting travels, happy to keep you in mind. Need to know skills base, experience, yadda, yadda, and what's of interest to you, etc. (Email?)

Shelley said...

This explain much about why the typing monkey is hate-filled.

Caz said...

Nail - so you think the donuts pushed him over the edge?

Shelley said...

Yeah, doughnuts will do that to a monkey.

TimT said...

Caz - good advice. Putting something up on this blog might work, and I'm sure you're absolutely right about the way companies 'hire' people, looking around for the 'perfect' person, and then finding out that Mr/Mrs Perfect is actually far from it.

I don't have to burn my bridges completely - I could shift to part-time work, which might actually be quite conveient. We'll see. (God forbid that anyone from work actually reads this ...)

Nails - nah, it's not the work or the doughnuts. I'm just in training to be an angry old fart. Give me a few more years and I'll get there.

Well, okay ... maybe it was the doughnuts just a little bit.

Shelley said...

I think you need to become less articulate to be an angry old fart.

TimT said...

Well, I don't feel very articulate at the moment, and I guess with a little alcoholic help I could become progressively less so as the night goes on ...

The Aunt said...

Your problem is, Australia doesn't have enough Kafka in it.

Last night I camped in a queue outside a primary school for hours, in subzero winter, to get a kid a place at the school. You can't just put him on the admissions list as normal, because one of his parents isn't Flemish. He's Irish. Apparently Irish won't do.

So we camp. And blog. (And camp and blog and camp. Camp camp camp, blog blog blog, the Itchy and Scratchy Show)

TimT said...

Ugh, sounds disgusting.

Anonymous said...

speaking of funny names, biggus dickus was always a classic from the life of brian.

I work in a company (incidently my last 3 jobs werent advertised i simply knew the right people and fell into them) who has these people on the payroll

Richard Sanga
Richard Size
Theresa Greene

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah

and the member for charlestown...

Richard Face

Bahahahaah

Caz said...

Dick Pratt...

Difficult to laugh at a man's name when he has that much money though.

TimT said...

A workmate the other day was doing a transcript with the names:

- T. Cox
- M. Willy
- M. Alcock

A great way to start off the day, that was.

Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

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