Rant rant yeah!

[dolorosa_12]

Thing that annoys me #1

Training sessions at work.
Training Guy: So, what do you want to learn, Ronni? I can teach you anything.
Me: Well, I want to know all the code for laying out newspaper pages. At the moment, I can see when a page hasn't been properly laid out, but I can't do anything to fix it besides showing it to someone who knows the coding.
TG: Well, I can't help you with that, I don't know the codes, I haven't used Cyber (the filing and editing system we use on our paper) for years.
Me: (thinking 'Well, then, you can't teach me *anything*)Well, there's nothing more I wanted to know.
TG: What do you find most difficult about your job.
Me: (Thinking 'The fact that so many journalists are illiterate. The fact that one of them described Harold Godwinsson as a 'British king' and nobody but me realised that there was a problem with that (if you don't get why this is wrong, well, I'll forgive you, I suppose). The fact that there are certain senior journalists who write grammatically-correct, spelling-error-free articles, but in a style that makes me want to beat my head against a brick wall, and I can't say anything because they've been here for years and I've only been here for 8 months and haven't even been trained as a journalist. The fact that some journalists simply copy and paste stuff off the Internet and don't even bother to get it to match our stylistic conventions. The fact that we have two people doing a job that five should be doing'.) Oh, nothing really. Everyone's been really helpful.

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Thing that annoys me #2
Last week I organised to have dinner at my dad's house. So today I got in to his house around 6.50pm. He normally gets in at 7.30. So, 8.00 comes around, and no Dad. I call him. No answer. I call his work. 'Oh, he was off today'. (I know that you fool, I thought, he wasn't on the 7.00 news tonight). I call my stepmother. No answer. I figure she's gone into labour - the only reasonable explanation why he would have just forgotten me like that.

Five minutes later he calls. He's in Melbourne. No baby. Just work - our Prime Minister is doing some pre-election vote-grabbing down there. No apologies from Dad.

So then it was 8.30, and I had no dinner, and no transport. The next bus didn't come until 9.01, and there was no way I was waiting around for it. So I bought some Vietnamese take-away, and caught a taxi. The taxi-driver was cool, he is a member of Bookcrossing which sounds really cool.

But I'm sick of being treated like a doormat because I am too shy to complain in public about the incompetence of others.

Comments

[james.haggerty [typekey.com] (from livejournal.com)]

*hugs*

Of course, when I read that, I immediately thought 'she's misspelt Godwinson'... then later, I thought 'hmm, maybe you could describe him as a "British King"', since he was a King in the British isles (although, of course, his legitimacy is disputed - William probably would have denied it, no?). Just like you could describe someone as an Asian King without him necessarily being King of Asia.

Yeah, whatever, I'm crazy :-)

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Oh God, how embarassing! The problem is not that he wasn't a proper king, the problem is that he was never a 'British' king. British can mean two things:
1. One of the Britons (ie, the Celtic peoples of the island of Britain who, after the Anglo-Saxon invasion, retreated to what is now Wales and Cornwall and parts of Scotland). Harold clearly isn't British, he's one of the Anglo-Saxons.

or 2. A king of the whole of Britain. He clearly wasn't, since 'Britain' as a concept no longer (or did not yet) exist in the 11th century.

He should be called an 'English' king, if he is called a king of any kind.

But you are absolutely right about the spelling. How embarassing...

[anya-1984.livejournal.com]

I think you should complain about one thing to someone at least once a week. (I don't mean people in general, i mean Ronni in particular, so that it doesn't all flow out of you one drunken evening and shock everyone :) )

And don't watch Six Feet Under :)

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

I wasn't drunk when I wrote that. Anyway, what is the internet but free therapy?

[anya-1984.livejournal.com]

LOL, I know you weren't drunk when you wrote it, you have to be drunk to say it in person :)

[catpuccino.livejournal.com]

stupid dolorosa_12's dad...
Sorry used your real name and wasn't sure if you were ok with that?
Then saw anya_1984 did too...

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't care if you use my real name at all. Everyone online knows it anyway1

[james.haggerty [typekey.com] (from livejournal.com)]

Yes, Ronni, I understand that ;-). Probably has to do with 2 years of OE, 20cp of Medieval History, and ASNAC. Which is why I went on that rant about King in the British Isles...

On the other hand, the Britain which you said 'no longer existed' in the 11th century had its origin in Roman Britain, which didn't include Scotland. Hmm... I feel like digging up Bede and seeing where/if he uses Britain.

[james.haggerty [typekey.com] (from livejournal.com)]

Well, now I actually look at Bede, he very obviously uses Britain all the time as the word for the whole island (as does the Chronicle). So I stand by my remark that it wouldn't be totally unreasonable to call Harold a 'British King', as he was one of the Kings in Britain; of course, very prone to misunderstanding :-)

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not including Scotland, I'm saying that some people from 'Britain' (ie, the Celts) went there after or during the Anglo-Saxon invasion. There were kingdoms such as Rheged, which was, I think, based around Edinburgh, that were Welsh-speaking (or at least speakers of a language similar to modern Welsh)...I am saying that in the place we now call 'Scotland', there were pockets where 'Britons' lived.

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Well, it makes sense, although Bede did call his chronicle 'An Ecclesiastical History of the English People'. But he talks about the island as Britain, so I suppose you're right. The Irish nationalist in me prefers Harold to be described as an 'English' king, though.