narshada

Anyway, I had a decent pep talk from my manager, (who also happens to be the only person at work that I would consider to be a friend,) and we decided to create a new system. I'm going to make an intranet page that shows all of my tasks for the week. That way, everyone can see my workload and how busy I am. They will also log tasks via the site, which will email me with them. I will then prioritise them and put them into the next weeks list - this way they will know when to expect it to be done, rather than "as soon as I've got a minute", which is my current stock response. My manager has said if anyone comes over to talk to me rather than use the intranet, he will personally tear them a new one. I'm quite buzzed about the idea, especially as my web skills aren't good enough to do this yet, so it will require some research and learning.

My best friend Sam has been through the wars lately. Her entire immediate family, including herself, have spent time in hospital this year. Her mum has breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy. Her sister fell off a bike and shattered her chin. Her dad was in for something too - I forget what.
Long bit ahead:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

Anyway, Sam went in for some exploratory surgery a while back and they found a load of tears under her skin from the last operation she had, which explained why she'd been in a lot of pain. Luckily they decided to repair them then and there instead of scheduling another surgery.
So she'd told me that her work was being a bit shitty about her having all this time off. Anyway, her boss decided that it would look better on the dept stats if she took some of it off as holiday instead of sick leave.
So the other day, someone from HR turned up at her door unannounced. They told her she couldn't take her holiday off because it was too short notice, and if she didn't come to work in the next week, she would be suspended.
Well, when her husband told me this over the phone I felt my blood boil in my ears. THe girl is recovering from surgery and they threaten to suspend her. How fucking insensitive can you get? I mean the one thing you really need when convalescing is stress right? Cunts.
Basically I said it sounds like she has a case for constructive dismissal and she should proceed very carefully and professionally from here. Her Doctor has agreed to back her all the way and is prepared to state that she was not fit for work.
Unfortunately, her husband rang me a couple of days later and said she'd been taken back in again, after throwing up for 12 straight hours. Turns out she has a gallbladder infection and possibly gallstones, which explains why she was STILL in a lot of pain after the last op. She was supposed to have an ultrasound yesterday but it got put back until tomorrow. I wonder what her work will make of this. Personally I'd quite happily kick her boss and their HR dept until they were a twitching pulp, identifiable only by dental records, but that's me - I get a bit protective of my friends.

After much faffing, updating software and getting frustrated with passwords, I've finally got Flickr working on my shiny new phone! You can check out the first batch of pics here: My Flickr!

There's not much there at the moment and this is my first real foray into photography other than snapping drunken friends or things that interest me. I'm looking forward to learning how to take better photos and some of the technical stuff like what the hell ISO is for. (I know it's the camera's sensitivity to light, but I don't know how to use it yet.) Anyway, I'll try to take a photo of something most days if I can and see how it goes.

My website, exotic soup - which was the home of my webcomic, has gone offline for the time being. I haven't done any work on it for months and have let the hosting expire for now. It'll be back... eventually.
I've been doodling a lot again lately though. Mostly odd and silly little cartoons like this one:

I think I need to find somewhere (online) to put them all. (Maybe an album on Flickr?) I've been toying with the idea of selling t-shirts with my designs on too...

Anyway, this crazy girl:

Has been keeping me smiling, as always. I only have to think about her grinning and I suddenly find I'm grinning too. (And usually people are giving me funny looks, but I'm used to that.)