almost witty

For the last three days, my work has taken me to a three day course on geology for non-geologists. Specifically on how the search for oil is conducted.

While some of it was quite interesting in a science-y geeky sort of way, most of the time my head was veritably lost in the clouds while my body slumbered, shook and occasionally slumbered. And not in any subtle way.

Apparently I’d be rolling around on my chair at the back of the room, my head lolling up and down and my leg shaking while the lecturer tried to ignore me. And then I’d snort, wake myself up and try to get myself paying attention to the study of sedimentary rocks. Today, I was doing this within 15 minutes of arriving at the lecturer room – despite having had a good night’s sleep.

The great thing about being an adult is that of course the lecturer couldn’t tell me off for (quite rightly) snoring through his lessons. Although this isn’t the first time – I’ve apparently also snorted and slept through BBC Web Editorial meetings, and drawing lessons. Which is a shame, because I’d have learnt how to draw properly.

The upshot of which is that I’ve self-diagnosed myself as having a wee bit of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Which is most annoying since I can’t seem to concentrate on anything – so any hopes of going to university to better myself will probably have to go out the window. Unless they can present all lectures in a dark cinema in a narrative film-based format – because I’ve never fallen asleep in a cinema. Well, aside from an IMAX screen in 1994…

Tags: adayinthelife, Work

It’s an oft-quoted cliche that one of the first things British people ask each other is what they do for a living. Which is a wee bit annoying when you work in weird non-descriptive roles in companies because it makes you sound extraordinarily weird or dull.

I remember one work outing to a comedy club, where Rich Hall (superlative American comedian with a sour face permanently based in the UK) asked our party of web geniuses what we did for a living. Dylan piped up that he was a website writer. The look on Hall’s face as he realised that he’d have to spin some kind of song or riff on a very dull-sounding job was just priceless – although he did manage it, something throwing in references to yarns of wool and sheep-rustling en route. (Don’t ask me how, I was very very drunk)

Fast forward to this morning, and I suddenly find myself on local radio station Coast FM identifying a Take That song for the chance to win some cinema tickets to go see Blades of Glory. Despite being sleep-befuddled, I do my best to sound lively and interesting, mostly because I’ve listened to independent radio enough to categorise the listeners into being either:

• dull and dull (“Hello… Ta for the tickets.”)
• lively but dull (“Gosh, I’m so wacky me, I’m a party girl. I love to party and I rilly rilly want to hear Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars!”)

(wait till I write the blog post about the inanity and stupidity of listeners to independent local radio!)

But then he asks what I do for a living – and it’s too early to think of a reasonable answer, so I reply project management. Somehow he mishears this as product management, and then somehow asks me about octopuses. And in my own imitable fashion, I talk about eating them or something like that – possibly not the best idea on a radio breakfast show.

Tags: adayinthelife, Work