What Is A Notepads Purpose In Life If Its Not For Writing On?!

Yay! My first post. I was beginning to think I'd been abducted by aliens & given a personality transplant as since I set up this blog I've been a picture of calm and nothing has pissed me off. Until today however. There are two things grating off me and sharing them with the world just might calm me down once more. Needless to say they are both work related and go as follows:-

1 - Annoying School Secretaries. The worst breed of "professional" people in the world. Long story short I work for a charity based transport company & we supply mini buses to old folks, disabled groups, schools & other charity / volunteer groups in an effort to combat our governments favourite buzz word - "social exclusion". Which is a load of crap. ANYWAY back to today's gripe otherwise I'll be here all night.

This particular secretary who I'll call Mrs R to save her embarrassment, has been a pain since day one. She was querying an invoice we'd sent out to her, wanting to know why it cost so much when she thought it would only cost her £20. After patiently explaining how we'd calculated her price, (days are split into 3 sessions IE morning, afternoon & evening priced at £20 a session) she still said it should be £20 even though she'd had the bus for a morning & afternoon. I know I failed Math at school so correct me if Im wrong but 2 (sessions) x £20 (per session) = £40 no?? The extra £3 was for the volunteer drivers expenses.

Having explained the above no less than THREE times, twice with my boss - who I shall call E - standing over me frantically indicating at me to put Mrs R through to him, she reluctantly accepted my explaination. 15 minutes I was on that phone going through exactly what it says on the very first page of the information pack all groups receive. Its unbelievable how many people don't read those first 6 informative lines.

Enough of her as its making my blood boil again. I was told this would be therapeutic. Oh well onto the next one.

2 - A Notepad You CAN'T Write On. That same afternoon I was hauled into my other boss' office - who I shall call J - to be told I can't write on the A3 sized notepad I have on my desk top because and I shall quote "you may get confused with all the little notes you have dotted all over the place & forget which ones you've dealt with & it looks unsightly when visitors come in".

Ok first of all I work methodically when writing my notes in neat columns starting from right to left. I have NEVER once missed a message in this way since I started working there 15 months ago. Now I have to change my ways & THAT WILL get me confused as Im not used to it.

Second, my writing is the neatest out of the whole damn office as is my desk, seeing how it is "front of house" if you will. Plus I hate having clutter & bits of paper randomly lying around the place.

And third, I put a neat line through all messages I have dealt with so no confusion there. IE if there ain't a line through it, I ain't done it yet. How bloody hard is that system to understand. God I HATE being told how to do things when my system gets me by very well thank you very much.

Wow. I did pretty good today. Stay tuned for more in the near future, no doubt.

TJ