Deflation and aggravation

I went to a cosmetic surgeon yesterday to find out how much it would cost me to deflate my chest. Turns out it will be about $11,000. :(

My other option is a 4 week weight loss clinic which costs $8,500. Essentially, it's like Biggest Loser (though I haven't watched the show). You're secluded away for 4 weeks and forced to eat correctly and exercise all the time, and are lectured by nutritionists and do cooking lessons and what not. I don't have heaps of weight to lose (maybe 10kg), but I figure if I do lose some weight, maybe my chest will deflate and I won't have to get surgery. And I'll be thinner, so it's a double win!

However, since I haven't had much luck with weight loss in recent years, I'm not sure it will work. I would think if one goes to the gym 4 times a week with a PT and is on a rather strict eating plan, that one would lose some weight after 3 years of it. Well, I didn't. So yeah. I think if I do this weight loss clinic and don't lose any weight, then I know I'm just stuck how I am and need to start thinking about selling half of my wardrobe (thank fsm shoes always fit!) and getting some more tests done to figure out why I'm getting fatter and can't shift it. However, if I go to the clinic and do lose weight, I will also hopefully work out along the way what it is I'm doing wrong back home so that I can keep going and maintain the new weight.

So I think it sounds like a good idea. But it is rather expensive. I'm still deciding. I really do hate how large my chest has become. They irritate me. They get in my way. I don't know why women choose to increase their breast size. Those women must be idiots. I would love to have A or B cups. Plus, I think most clothing looks better when you don't have large breasts. Otherwise models wouldn't be stick figures with flat chests, right? Designers don't design clothes for women with big breasts, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to keep mine hidden.

Anyway. I will have to think about it some more.

In other news, my mother is trying to convince everyone to fly to Sydney and invade my sister and her husband for Christmas. I can't stand her husband. He is an absolute twat. I'm not sure I want to ruin my Christmas by spending it with him and having him make snide little comments he thinks we're too stupid to understand. Seriously, he is freaking annoying. He thinks he's so fucking clever, despite the fact he has no university degree and works in a call centre, and thinks my family are all ignorant country bumpkins. He makes these snide little comments which he thinks we don't understand, and then does this annoying little laugh afterwards, like he's gotten away with insulting us and we don't realise it. He thinks he's so clever. I took him down a couple of Christmases ago, but he seems to have forgotten that, judging by the fact he was up to his old tricks at my mother's birthday this year. It took all my strength to hold back and not scream at him. Smug bastard. So yeah, I'd rather avoid spending any more time with him than is necessary. I like that we are in completely different states. So now I have to come up with an excuse as to why I can't do Christmas in Sydney with my sister this year.

Is it so hard to find a good contractor??

I am seriously annoyed right now.

About 2 weeks before Miss Flair started (so, about 15 September, or thereabouts) I contacted 3 firms to provide quotes on our office refit. Essentially, we have two options for creating a new office for me. One is to take over part of the conference room and build an office in there, and the other is to completely change the office around, making the current reception area a waiting room, the current waiting room a library, dividing my boss's current office in two and making one half the reception and one half my office, and moving him into his current lounge room (which he never uses).

The second option makes much better use of the floor space, but would involve convincing my boss to move to a smaller office. I justify that by saying the room he would be moving to is bigger than the space he currently utilises in his office (half of the office is just empty floor), but that doesn't mean I will convince him to move to a smaller office.

It also sounds like a lot more work, but in reality, we're just moving around most of the current furniture. The only difference between the first and second options is that the second option involves building some bookshelves, and also involves dismantling and rebuilding the current reception area. So essentially, I didn't think the two quotes would be all that different. Maybe the second one would be double the first at an absolute stretch. Especially taking into consideration the fact I have done all of the measurements myself, and drawn up very detailed floor plans, and a schedule of the works involved. Any companies quoting on the work just have to look at it and write down a price and send it back.

So, out of the three companies I contacted first, one didn't bother to respond. The second came to look at the office, and then quoted on something completely different, saying they couldn't provide an office to fit that space (because they only did pre-fab instead of custom, despite claiming to be custom). The third company came, inspected the premises, and then quoted on both options, however I couldn't understand their quote, as it didn't seem to match the schedule of works I had given them. The quote was also not itemised. I sent an email back on 6 October, but have had no response.

I then contacted another firm to give a quote, and they came out, looked at the office, and then sent through two quotes. The first quote was ok, but the quote for the second option was ridiculously overpriced. The quotes were also not itemised as I had requested. So I sent back an email asking them to itemise the quotes. My reason for this is not because I want to micromanage the project. If I accepted the quote and they began work, I wouldn't care what one particular part of the project cost, as long as the entire project came in at their budget. If a door cost $200 less than the quote, but a cupboard cost $200 more, I wouldn't care. I just want an itemised quote so I can revise my options if necessary. If it turns out one part of the design I have come up with is too expensive, then I can revise it. If I just have a total quote, I don't know what part of the project costs what. Makes sense to me.

In any event, the second quote was nearly 4 times the price of the first, and it didn't make any sense. When I saw the itemised quote, I knew what they had done. The first quote was fine, although on the itemised quote they sent through, they had changed the figures to make it slightly higher. Because the second option is pretty much the same as the first, just with the addition of book shelves and the dismantling/rebuilding of an existing reception area, they had to copy the figures across from the first option, but then try to make up the rest of the figures they had originally quoted me. They had obviously just thought to themselves at first, "Ok, let's just quote x on this second option" and didn't realise they would have to justify it. So what they did was copy across the figures for the identical items, and then divide the remainder between the rebuild of the reception area and the bookcases. Which meant the rebuilt reception area now cost more than what the entire new office cost, and three bookcases also now cost more than the entire new office.

Obviously, that doesn't make any sense. So I sent back an email asking them about it and asking if we could speak about cheaper bookshelves, or other options or something. I was not accusatory. I did not call them out on what they had done. I then get this email,

Thank you for the opportunity to quote on your project. At this stage, we are far too busy to be constantly revising and breaking down our quotes. We wish you the best with your project.

I couldn't believe it! They'd pulled out of the entire project because I had queried the discrepancies in their quote! How unprofessional! So I sent them back an email telling them as much, and that I would be "forwarding on my thoughts of their company to the other businesses I deal with."

I have since contacted another firm, and am hoping that this time, I will get some decent quotes. I'm annoyed this has dragged on so long. I just want an office built! I am currently sitting in the conference room when Miss Flair is in, and it's not a very ergonomic set up. I spend half my weekend recovering from sitting at an odd angle with a computer screen at the incorrect height.

Seriously, is it that hard to give a quote on some works? Especially when all the hard work has been done for you? Can anyone recommend any office outfitters?

Jumped up secretaries give me the shits

I had a great argument with a secretary at another firm today. She likes to think she's not just a secretary though. She thinks she's one of the professional staff. I hate secretaries on power trips.

Anyway, we used to have a system where I would send all work we did for them through the post. They didn't like that, so they asked me to email it to them. So I began emailing all the documents through to the people I was told were handling the files. But no one ever tells me anything, so apparently I wasn't forwarding the right things to the right people. There were also various issues about the format of the files I was sending. "Send them in Word format", "No, send them in pdf", "No, send them in Word", "No, not that version of Word, we haven't upgraded yet", "We can't access your files because of the merge fields from your software". Argh!!! So I have now put my foot down and they get them in pdf. If they have to type them all out again, it's not my problem. And because I never knew who was handling what, a couple of months ago, they asked me to forward all correspondence to a central email account, and they would sort it out from there. Fine. The only problem with that is that they don't seem to sort it properly, and I still get emails from individual staff members asking me for documents I've emailed a month ago. Except they don't normally send them to me. They send the requests to my boss. I really don't appreciate this, because then it looks to my boss as if I haven't done my job properly, when the issue is just their own stupidity and inability to look through their emails.

The exception to the "everything" rule was that I was supposed to still send accounts when requested to the person who had requested them. I had tried to send these to the central email as well, but also still received requests from individual staff members. When I mentioned this, I was told to send them to a particular staff member who handled the accounts. So I just began to send them to her.

Today, the secretary I mentioned in the first paragraph wanted an invoice I had previously sent to the accounts girl last week. I told her I had sent it to that girl, expecting her to then ask that person to forward her the email and invoice. Instead, she asked me to send another copy. I didn't see why I should have to print out another copy and waste paper, so I just forwarded her the email I had sent the other girl with the message:

The best I can do is forward you the email I sent P, as I don’t keep copies of the invoices sent, nor the scanned files. To send you just that invoice would mean reprinting it again, which would waste more paper.

I thought this was a perfectly acceptable message. However, she seemed to have her cranky pants on today and sent the following message back:

Thanks – perhaps when sending emails you could send them to the info address as well as P as this way I can save them to the matter on the system.

That wouldn't have been an issue, except she had decided to copy my boss in on the email! I really do not know what is with these people and trying to get me in trouble with my boss! I think it's uncalled for. I was happy to deal with her about the issue, and had she suggested this without feeling the need to copy my boss in, I probably would have said, "fine, no worries. Will do from now on" or whatever. But since she had decided to copy my boss in, I decided to copy her boss in and sent back the following response:

No worries P. I was under the assumption that invoices went to P, and everything else went to the info address. Though it often appears that things sent to the info address don’t get forwarded to the correct people. D has sometimes not received advices, and when I have sent invoices to the info address, P hasn’t received them. Hence, I have sent invoices straight to her.

Confusingly, this secretary's name is P, as well as it being the name of the accounts girl. I simply felt the need to defend myself and give a reason as to why I had sent the invoices to where I had sent them, so that both my boss and hers would know I was not simply a moron who had no idea what was going on. Apparently, it was then "game on, bitches."

That’s fine but sometimes the invoices are not for P and in any event everything needs to be saved to the system to the appropriate file which does not always happen.

If things don’t get forwarded to the right people that is for us to sort out here so please ensure that all goes to info so that K is aware of what is going on.

(K is her boss)

I realise it’s for you to sort out, but when T is sent urgent requests for advices that were done and sent nearly a month ago, such as occurred in the case of ## on 16 September (the advice was sent on 26 August), then it appears to T that I haven’t done my job properly, which obviously doesn’t reflect well on me from T’s point of view. Hence I was just doing what I thought was required of me in sending invoices to the person I have previously been told handles the accounts, and who I knew would then receive those accounts.

In any event, I will from now on forward everything to the info address, but I would also ask in return that you liaise with each other in ascertaining whether an advice or invoice has previously been sent to you before you send a request to T.

(T is my boss)

All I asked is for you to send the invoices to info as well as P. P does post settlement work and sometimes the invoices are for files that are still with D and myself and are not for P. Similarly I need to ensure that everything is saved to the system.

If there is a problem at our end let me know and I will sort out with the person here.

(D is one of the professional staff. Note how she says the files are still with him and herself, as if she is one of the professional staff. Ha!)

I had the last word, however:

Yes, I understand that, and that’s fine. It has now been implemented. I was merely giving you the explanation as to why I was previously sending invoices to P and not to info. I was under the apparently erroneous assumption that was where they were to be sent when she requested them.

It is a non-issue now. I will forward everything to the info address from now on, including requests from individual staff members, which will save on any confusion in the future.

I really wouldn't have gotten so defensive about it had she not decided to include my boss in the emails, as if she was trying to point out to him that I was an idiot, when it was their own stupid system that was at fault the whole time. Seriously, I don't care where I send the emails to, as long as I then don't get a billion requests sent to my boss for work I have already done, which makes me look bad. If you want to implement a system, then do it, but don't then decide that since it doesn't work, you'll blame the other people and get them in trouble when you're simply too lazy to check if you've already received the work first.

Morons.

In other news, my assistant, Miss Flair, is going very well. I am actually excited on Wednesday afternoons because I know she is coming in the next day. And for any who know me in real life and know what a hassle I usually think it is for anyone to encroach on my space at work, that is a really big fucking compliment!

Stupid fucking computers!

So, in an effort to have my computer functioning normally before exam time, I did a complete back up, deletion, reformat, and reinstall last weekend.

Or so I thought.

Even though I have had various computers over the last 9 years, I still have every document I've ever created during those years. I usually back them up, and then transfer them across to any new computer. I have a folder entitled "Uni" as a subfolder under "My Documents" (because I'm creative like that). One would think that when one copies across My Documents to an external hard drive, that all subfolders would come with it, no?

Apparently not. Apparently the only subfolder that didn't copy across is the only one I really, desperately need right now. The Uni folder. 8 years of uni work is gone. Right before exam time.

Why did I not have a backup, you ask? But I did! I copied the entire folder across! There were no errors! No, I didn't check to see if everything came across, but I have never had to do that before. And in my wisdom, I simply copied over the top of my previous My Documents backup on said external hard drive, so I don't even have an older version of all my uni stuff.

I have some things on my work computer, as I usually finish off assignments at work. But all of my summaries for my exams were on my home computer. Gone. Lists of cases and materials. Gone. Scanned tutorial work and lecture notes. Gone.

I could seriously cry right now.