14 posts tagged “work”

And sadly that's not the real meaning of the word 'knackered', just the Brit slang of being bloody tired.

Cumulative tiredness of longish shifts during week + 9hr shift yesterday + party last night with alcohol and 4hrs sleep + early 6hr shift today = tired Alex

But, but, there is news!!

STATUES, which I subbed to the Writers of the Future contest back in September, placed in the quarter-finals.  This is what their website has to say about my ranking:

There are 4 levels of placement in the Writing Contest: Winner, Finalist, Semifinalist and Quarterfinalist. Quarterfinalist entries are stories that are of exceptional quality which are in the top 10-15% of all entries for the quarter. It is meant to give special recognition as such.

I'm too tired to bounce of the walls, but I can appreciate that this is very, very awesome.  I mean, obviously I didn't win or anything, but still, it's amazing to see real recognition that I'm not such a bad writer after all.  Yay me!  Now when I submit stories I can say, "Look what my story did!  Love me!"

I turn 20 in 2 days' time!  Yay me again!

Now I have to stay awake for the small family thing (just my aunt and her husband and maybe both of her kids) in half an hour's time.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all for tomorrow!!  Wishing sparkle and shiny presents and yummy food for everyone!

Amusing story from work:  The cute young Shift Running Manager was telling me that Dave, one of the other crew members at work who will at some point in the near future be taking his Floor Manager exam, was considering cheating on his mock.  Aside from the obvious pointlessness of cheating, the cute young Shift Running Manager wanted to know how he intended to do this.  Dave replied that he would type 'AMC exam' into google and see what came up.  Well, cute young Shift Running Manager did this and guess what he found at the top of the hits?  My blog.  Apparently he had an amusing time reading it, and particularly loved my posts about Verity back in the summer.

Tee hee.  I have no idea if he still reads it, or if that's a one-off, but now I have to call him the cute young Shift Running Manager and mention him as much as realistically possible. 

The less amusing part of my shift on Tuesday was scraping ice off my car at midnight while wearing a short skirt and a thin fleece over my shirt and vest.  Knowing my luck, I'll be doing the same thing tonight and tomorrow night too.  Oh joy. 

Writerly Update

Rejection from Shimmer for TANSU.  They said:

I thought the strongest part of the story was the woman's ability to enter the furniture; that's a neat idea, and those passages held my attention very well. But I'm afraid the rest of the story did not live up to the potential of those parts. It all felt rather too convenient.

I'm not entirely sure what's convenient about it.  The only thing I can think of is that they assumed Bunia was the only person with that ability, thus it's convenient she was chosen to evaluate the furniture because she was the only one who could find out the secret.  Which means I'll be slipping in a mention that she's not the only person with this ability.  Other than that, I can't think of anything.  Once I've gone back through the story, I think I'll send it to Sybil's Garage.

I have a feeling that an entry for the Shimmer pirate issue isn't going to happen, but as the deadline is end of January there's time yet, I suppose.  Just that so far I've had the faintest of faint inklings of a plot, and I need somewhat more before I can write it. 

However, I have been working on an entry for the Iris Print 'fairy tales and fantasy' anthology, which has a deadline of 15th January.  Originally I was going to write something that followed on from SNOWDROPS, and some time I might still write the piece, but yesterday I changed my mind.  After having so much fun with the 'Juniper-Tree' fairy tale, I decided I would play around with pre-existing fairy tales / mythologies, and as I've recently stumbled across a literary form called a Triptych (where the story consists of three short stories that have some kind of connection, thematic or character or whatever - similar idea to the art form) I decided I'll tell the story in that way.  So there'll be three stories about relevant parts of the life of Isouso, my main character, and that includes the development of a relationship with another guy.  So far I've drawn on 3 Brothers Grimm tales, and there's a selkie and Baba Yaga too - and it's being wicked fun to write.   Tentative title is A TRIPTYCH.

PA is decidedly on a break.  I don't want to call it hiatus, but it's on a break.  I think I need more time before I go back to it. 

Sex, Money and... what else was it?

The cute young Shift Running Manager also thought my blog needs more sex, money and something else.  Well, can't deliver on the thing I can't remember, and nothing exciting is happening in my bank account (it's positive, hooray!), but I can deliver on the sex side of things.

- Skip the rest of this if you don't care about / don't want to know about my sex life -

So there's this guy I went to Sixth Form with (last 2 years of high school), and from pretty much the first week there's been a bit of sexual tension between us.  It's waxed and waned over the years since, but it's been there, and we made out back in 2004 but didn't do much.  When he came down to Karim's 21st we were flirting, and he offered sex, but I declined (wanted to enjoy the party with all my friends, not with just him), and he kissed another girl (he's a manwhore).  Then, at Andy's party last Friday night, we went back to my flat together and had sex.

And considering the years of sexual tension, and his bragging that he's amazing, it was.... pretty fucking anticlimatic really.  Sure, it wasn't awful, but I suspect that's more to do with me having gone 3 months without before that, so it was like "OMG penis wooooowwww.... that's it?".  I somehow doubt I'll be sleeping with him again. 

Oh, I also kissed a Chinese guy called Kenneth at the same party.  Just a little chaste kiss on the lips, but we'd been sort of flirting earlier, and we exchanged mobile numbers.  I have no idea if I actually want to go anywhere with him, but heh, we'll see. 

That's all!

I passed my Floor Manager's test with an average of 95% (the pass-mark was 80%).  Hooray!  It's particularly hooray because was I convinced I'd failed.  To pass I needed above 80% in two sections, and I thought I'd not managed 80% in one of them - the multiple choice paper.  There were a whole load of questions I didn't know the answer to, and had to make educated guesses.  Fortunately, seems enough of my educated guesses turned out correct.  And now I can forget all that useless info.  Hooray!

While I've finally recovered from my vicious cold, I think I'm still suffering residual fatigue.  I said I've have my essay done by the extended deadline of today but I've only written 1,000 words out of 2,500, and they're not particularly great words either.  I just can't seem to focus for more than ten seconds at a time.  I'm going to have to work my arse off this week to get both this essay done, and done well because it's assessed, and also attempt my other essay, which matters less because it doesn't count towards my final grade.  Yuck.

I've been submitting short stories in the past few days.  TANSU was rejected by Fantasy Magazine, so I sent it on to Shimmer.  I subbed A SHADE OF YELLOW to Ideomancer webzine and EMPIRES AND GLASS to the Sails and Sorcery anthology.  I rewrote my one non-genre short story, FLIGHT, and subbed it to Edifice Wrecked webzine.  Over the weekend, I finished rewriting an old fanfiction into a short story called LET ME FALL (with different characters and setting to the fanfic, of course), but I'm not entirely sure yet where I'll send it, considering it's a bit slashy and quite angsty and the specfic-ness is very much in the background.  And finally, I've been working on A FAY OF STEAM and hope to have it sent off to Cabinet des Fées in the next few days. 

Future short story projects are:

• Something for Shimmer's pirate issue.  I've decided to take a character from A FAY OF STEAM, Roseilda, and tell part of her story for this.  The deadline is 31st January, but I aim to get this done in the next fortnight or so. 
  
• Iris Print, a publisher of boys' love, is open for submissions to a fairytale/fantasy anthology of boys' love short stories, and I've written just over a page of a story for this.  Deadline is 15th January.
• I still intend to give the On the Premises thing a go.  I've written part of that story, and will finish it sometime.  Deadline is 31st January.

And, of course, I need to get back to PAINTED ANGELS in the near future.  Not to mention catching up on all the dissertation reading I've not done in the past three weeks because of my cold, and reading and writing for another essay over the holidays, and working under the Golden Arches so I can eat and buy books next term.  Oh, and I need to find a job for when I graduate.  BIG EWWW!!!!  I've decided on publishing now, and need to start sorting all that out.  After essays, though. 

But at least my birthday is coming up - I'll stop being a teenager in, oooh, 15 days, woooo!!!!  Sadly there are no Wiis left, but my brother is buying me the Legend of Zelda game anyway and I'm going to save my Christmas and birthday money to buy a Wii when more are made.  I'm also getting money from my parents to go to Venice with the uni history society.  I don't know anyone on the trip, but who the hell cares?  Venice!!! 

My final count:

40,086 / 50,000 (80.2%)

While I couldn't hit 50k because of my cold, at least I managed to make my lowered target of 40k.  It's still a greater rate of productivity than I've shown all year.  And what I've written during November has been of surprisingly high quality - not perfect, for sure, but not dire either. 

What have I written?  I had a plan for what I would write.  Naturally, I didn't entirely stick to it:

• Painted Angels = 6,078 words
  
• Our Green Fairies = no words
• D'sil short story = 7,498 words

And then...

• Bunia's Journal = 17,811 words
• Other short stories and edits = 8,613 words

I think my biggest regret is that I didn't write more PA, but I am glad I wrote what I did for it.  The book is very close to the end now - I think there are only a handful of chapters until it's done - and I need more time to plot out exactly how the final fight is going to go down. 

Bunia has been an... interesting... muse.  I really enjoyed writing her journal, and now it's sort-of done (I haven't posted the final entry yet because I don't like it all, so sorting that out is one of the first things I'll do when I next write) I can start planning out her novel.  I never do deep plans, but I want a little bit of planning on this one because it's a quest-of-sorts (she goes questing for an interesting piece of furniture, but the collapsing Serrian Empire gets in her way) so I need to make sure it doesn't get all rambly and long and crap.  I need to know when and how she goes from A to B, and I need to keep my narration succint and interesting.  Plus, I need to figure out what exactly D'sil is doing - okay, so I know he'll be working for conflicting people, as always, but I need to be a bit more specific than that.  So I intend to do a sort-of outline - which, probably, will get hacked to pieces in the process of writing the book, but heh.  At least I have a tentative title for the book: The Ephrebet Bed, which is the piece of furniture she goes questing for. 

I do intend to work on Our Green Fairies, I just realised it's not suitable Nano-fodder after all.  The descriptive narrative style demands time and thought, rather than blindly punching out words, as walking the fine line between descriptiveness and purple-ness is tough.  I also think I need to leave it a while longer to let the characters crystallise a little more in my head. 

My vague plan is to get PA done, and in the process of doing it maybe work on TEB's outline and perhaps a handful more short stories.  Then I'll need to edit PA, and once it's all shiny and shipped away to publishers I can work on the book that comes five years after it, Renegade Star, and also TEB and OGF.  I'm sure I'll start working on those while I'm editing PA, just for a change of pace, but heh. 

However, I suspect I won't get much writing done til the end of term, in two weeks' time.  That's because I have my floor manager exam next Friday, and I need to start hard-core revising for that today.  I also have two essays to do, and I need to apply for a job.  *shakes fist at reality*  Also, to be honest, I want to give writing a brief respite after the pressures of Nano.

All in all, Nano has been a productive and good venture, and I'm glad I did it.  And now, back to reality...

Earlier today I found a potential market for THE BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION - Crimson Highway - and submitted the story just now.  They want dark romance-supernatural stuff, and considering TBC is about obsession with a flavour of magic I think/hope this mag will bite.  They're a webzine and very new, but they've got a nice layout.  Too many webzines look really shoddy, whereas these guys look really smart.  While their publication of the crazy comma story was a bit of a turn-off, I otherwise quite like the look of them.  What?  You mean the story wasn't about the commas?  Wow.  That totally slipped by me.  Could be something to do with the massive brain bleed caused by his comma-splicing-from-hell.  "Using an impressionistic style of his own making" does not excuse it. 

My Nano count has been totally killed by my cold, which turned out to be more vicious than I expected.  Night before last I got about 2 hours' sleep, in 20 minute segments, and the whole of yesterday I felt like I'd just crawled out of my grave on a *really* bad day.  I slept better last night, though not perfectly, and today I've been getting better though I've got a sore throat now and am otherwise not quite better.  I severely doubt I will hit 50k, but if I can get over 40k I'll be happy because I'll still have been more productive than in previous months.

My floor manager test is scheduled for 8th Dec, which is another reason 50k won't happen.  Tomorrow I need to start revising all that shitty knowledge I learnt back in August/September.  I also need to write some essays, apply for a job, do more dissertation reading.... *hates the real world*

Also, House needs to be aired more than once a week.  And the torrents need to be sorted out faster.  *twitches*  What's he going to do?  He's totally fucking up Wilson's life and please, please let him finally realise he's being a complete shit to his only friend, who is sticking by him despite being given no thanks at all.  Seriously, this most recent episode I barely noticed the patient and the diagnosis and all that jazz.  C'mon, House, you wanker, do something!  *angsts*  This is why I usually watch TV shows in box sets, not as they air.  *angsts some more*

Once again I have been double-teamed by rejections: Interzone rejected A SHADE OF YELLOW and GrendelSong rejected THE BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION, both form rejections.  Poo on them both, and some other childish curses.  I think I'm going to finally send ASOY to the Red Light District anthology (the thing I wrote it for), but I don't know where I'll send TBC next. 

Partially counter-balancing the bad news, I finally got word back from one of my managers at work that I passed my mock floor manager test.  She'll be sending me some dates for the real thing soon.  Hopefully I'll be able to get it done before I go back at Christmas.  If, that is, I can even remember anything I learnt way back in August/September. 

...and I barely survived fours days without the internet.  My parents' computer spontaneously died on me (which of course makes it my fault, even though I wasn't doing anything likely to break it), and it was the only computer in the house with our internet service registered on it.  Now I'm back in London with wireless, fast broadband, and it's like being whole again.  *grins* 

In that desolate time I managed to finish the editing on what I've written of Painted Angels so far, meaning that I will next be writing new material!  Hurrah!  I also penned the beginning of what's currently titled Renegade Star, set five years after PA, but stopped myself at the point when I decided the SpecOps team would approach an aquatic base in fake sea creatures of a distinctly phallic shape.  *snerks*  So sue me, I was tired.  I thought it would be a good opportunity to show the team's camaraderie as they joked about the crafts, but this morning told myself that phallic/toilet humour is one quick way to get yourself not taken seriously so they won't be shaped like that. 

I took my mock AMC on Friday.  It went well.  Turned out the mock paper was exactly the same as the thing I'd been given to revise from, so I knew most the answers - but there were some I hadn't got round to finding out the answers to, and had hoped to avoid by not taking the same paper.  Mixed blessing, in all, but I reckon I got over 80%, which means I'll be taking the real test and taking the course (there's a week-long course to be a McDonald's Floor Manager) during term time and going back to work at Christmas in a white shirt.  I'm not going back to my London store during term time - I have too many issues there, mainly revolving around the dishonourable things they do and my inability to work with my boyfriend - so I'll be looking for temp work in bookshops (bring on the staff discount). 

Speaking of shirt colours, the demoted manager, Verity, was wearing her black shirt in work on Friday and Saturday, and she was spinning the ultimate yarn about why she's wearing a crew member shirt.  A while ago, a bunch of crew members were being trained up as a strong drive-thru team, but they thought they were being trained to be managers.  To smoothe everything over, they were made 'Service Managers': a totally made-up role that doesn't exist in the real hierachy.  Verity has been made one of those to smoothe her over.  She's been telling people that because she refuses to work in the grill area, she's been made a Service Manager, which she claims is higher than a Floor Manager.  As a member of Training Squad, I am higher than Service Managers.  *dies laughing*  Still, listening to her tell this crap was priceless. 

After the muses made me write the two short bits of Threads yesterday, they relinquished their control of my brain as quickly as they snatched it, leaving me free to mooch around for the rest of the evening.  I really need to stop wasting my free time.  I'm currently reading The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque at the moment, an interesting fantasy novel by Jeffrey Ford, having just finished The Scar by China Mieville.  Next in line is Neil Gaiman's Coraline, as well as The Alsiso Project (a collection of short stories), which I'm reading on and off.  Book review of them all will follow...sometime.  And I also read The Dancers at the End of Time by Michael Moorcock.  Have my mock AMC (floor manager's exam) on Friday. :S  And, joy of joys, a dentist appointment on Thursday.  I got into really bad habits at uni this year, so I can guarantee I'll get another lecture about brushing twice a day and flossing and blah blah I know this already.  Speaking of uni, going back up to London this Sunday, first class sometime next week.  Free time will be sadly constricted by the masses of reading I will need to do.  At least I won't be regularly getting up at 5am like I have been recently.  

*is definitely procrastinating*

Am currently trying to get my way through the short answers for my AMC - aka floor manager test - and it is such a load of bollocks.  Check this: The Ten Commandments for Customer Satisfaction. Because Moses and God simply didn't get it right. 
1: Remember that the most important people in your restaurant are your customers.
2: Understand that customers do not depend on you; you depend on them.
3: Do not think of customers as interruptions. They are the whole reason for your work.  They are our gods, our shining light, our entire reason for existing on this earth.  We definitely didn't go into this line of work for the flexible hours and just-above-minimum-wage-pay. 
4: Recognize that customers do you an honor when they eat at your restaurant.
5: View customers as part of your business, not as outsiders.
6: Treat customers as people with feelings just like yours. But they're so fucking stupid!
7: Never argue or match wits with a customer. Aww, but that's the best part!
8: Fill customer needs in every way you can. I am definitely not satisfying the needs of that creepy old man who tried to hit on me a few weeks back.  Nuh-uh. 
9: Give customers courtesy and attention.
10: Make sure your crew members are as neat and clean as customers expect them to be.

Oooh, and then there are The Company's set of Core Values: 

1: We are dedicated to providing customers unparalleled levels of Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value.  It is what Ray Kroc (our Founder and Jesus) taught us.
2: We are committed to our people because we know that a diverse team of well-trained individuals working together is the key to our continued success.  Otherwise known as "let's exploit immigrants!!!"
3: We approached all aspects of our business with honest and integrity.  Ha! No comment.
4: We always give back to the communities in which we do business.  ...By contributing to local obesity rates?
5: We celebrate our achievements, yet we are never satisfied with our results. Doesn't that have a kind of Catholic ring to it?

Why do I have to know this crap? WHY????

Just as it hit 10pm, the time we close our store, we looked to the little screen showing the entrance to our drive thru and shouted for Ashley to put the cone out (to stop people going through).  But there's this car sitting just in the corner of the screen, who'll probably want to go through the drive thru.  We think "fuck it, it's 10 o'clock, he should've moved faster" - so Ashley put the cone out. 
    Then the guy in the car drives forward, destroying our cone, gets out his car, kicks the dead cone angrily out the way, and drives to Window 1.  We shout at Ashley not to serve him, which attracts the attention of the shift runner, Stuart, who hears what's happened so far and heads up to Window 2 (where the customer has now driven to) to deal with the situation. 
    Heh.  Irate people.  Gotta love it. 
    Anyway, ultimately Stuart realised he should placate the guy, and gave away the leftover double quarter pounder.  Better that than an official complaint. 
    On the plus side, that burger was a good 45 minutes old.  Mmmm, skanky burgers.
    On the minus side, our cone is totally knackered now.   
...Soooo that's about the only exciting thing that happened at work today. 

But seriously, for some reason, I take great joy in annoying customers.  I love it.  We're not supposed to argue with them, but it's sooooo much fun.  Like the time a customer complained that his meal was too expensive.  I explained it's because he ordered a milkshake, which adds 30p to the meal cost (because the product cost is higher), but apparently he's never seen this before ever which he totally had the lying git.  He actually threatened to punch the manager.  Over 30p?  Oh yes, and a guy the other day spun me a right yarn about how he got a bacon roll for 99p from a nearby McDonald's only a few days ago, so how come ours was £1.59?  Because maybe he actually went to that "nearby" McDonald's over half a decade ago?  Gotta love customers who bitch about price increases.  Umm, inflation?  Working at McDonald's gives you such faith in the intelligence of humanity and such love for your fellow person it makes me want to work in isolation sometimes.  Oh, any the most annoying thing?  Customers who treat you like you're some dipshit.  Errrr, I'm one of the most academically qualified people in the whole store.... but obviously I'm working at McDonald's so I'm thick as shit.  *bitch-slaps humanity*