![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Thou shalt worship thy plumber
Jan. 4th, 2013 11:15 am...if he is instrumental in gaining you an impromptu day off work.
In what was supposed to be only a short instalment of the ongoing heating saga, he came yesterday at 8 a.m., presumably only to put more water into the system -- it's pretty clear by now what the problem is (too difficult to explain, plus I can't be arsed to), and that it can only be solved by exchanging a part of the heater. Until it arrives, we'll have to stick to the periodical refilling.
So I thought that he was going to stay for maybe 30 minutes, but it turned out that he had other plans, i.e. a makeshift repair of the damaged part. When he was still there at 11, I simply wrote the Ambassador a text message explaining that it would be better if I just took the day off, which he granted.
Plumber left around 11.30, and after cleaning up after him I was FREE.
And today is already Friday, and I also took Monday off work, because it's the orthodox X-mas which means nothing at all will be happening, so the period December 21 to January 7 is/ will have been a very pleasant one.
Gerald being on holiday helps, too.
Especially since we had a not very productive, I-want-to-bang-hismy-head-repeatedly-against-the-wall talk last Friday.
I was really trying hard to convey to him the fact that I was worried about four instances of complete disregard for rules etc. cropping up in as short a space as two weeks, but all I got was 1) accusations of not supporting him, 2) stubborn refusal to acknowledge that he'd done anything wrong, and 3) in the one case where he acknowledged having made a mistake, the accusation of being petty and picking on him. Duh. I told him 1) that I don't have to go looking especially hard for glaring mistakes, 2) that I do not in any way have to justify the way in which I conduct my duties as his superior, and 3) that he could scarcely expect me to act as if nothing had happened when he had insulted me personally (i.e. leaving the pre-X-mas gathering after 20 min. without a word) and professionally (by behaving like a first-class twat at the team meeting).
All of which he neither accepted nor acknowledged, needless to say.
I recommended that he apply for another posting, and wrote a short synopsis of events since October for the Ambassador.
I mean, just to give an example, can you believe this?
Me: I've also heard from more than one side that you sometimes sit at your desk, outside lunch break, with your head phones on, listening to loud music. Please do not do that anymore.
Gerald: Why?
Me: Because it sets a bad example, especially since I have expressly forbidden music at the workplace -- that was one of yours, remember, because you said you couldn't concentrate -- and because, if too much acoustic input is bad for your concentration, as you said yourself, I can only deduct that it harms the quality of your work.
G: But many people did that in Moscow!
Me: That's as may be, but no one does it in Skopje, including you.
G: Where's the rule forbidding me to do it?
Me: This happens to be one of the things the Ambassador or his deputy are authorized to decide by themselves, and I assure you that the Ambassador sees eye to eye with me on this one.
G: sullen silence.
Yeah, that conversation was definitely a highlight.
Speaking of highlights: the hospital where I'm getting my rabies shots asked me to pay for the first four in 2012, and the last one extra, because I'll only get that on January 11.
No problem. It's a state hospital, and so I assumed that the equivalent of € 100 would more than cover the expense.
Imagine my complete and utter disbelief, when they charged me € 600!!! I don't have to pay for it myself, but... 600??? For what? The serum surely doesn't cost more than € 10 apiece. I'm still rather boggled and will have Jasna the Queen of Pain make an enquiry at the Ministery of Health, once the holidays are over. (Just for comparison's sake: one day at the most expensive private hospital in Skopje costs € 100)
Not much else to report, except that my system seems somehow to have recovered (or whatever) from the rabies-shot-induced shock, and I'm almost back to my usual form. On Sunday the weather was fabulous, and so I decided to go for a long, fast walk. I'd done about half, when I realized that I was neither out of breath nor having an elevated pulse, and so I thought, Oh what the heck, and ran 6km. It was fantastic, and I didn't feel any ill effects, neither during nor after. The only instance of strangely elevated heart rate is exercise on the orbitrack, where it still shoots up to 150 in no time, but I've found a way to circumvent the problem after I discovered that what makes the pulse go crazy is "fast", even with almost no resistance. So I'm doing "slow" with very high resistance, which has pretty much the same effect, except that the pulse stays under 140. Heh.
In what was supposed to be only a short instalment of the ongoing heating saga, he came yesterday at 8 a.m., presumably only to put more water into the system -- it's pretty clear by now what the problem is (too difficult to explain, plus I can't be arsed to), and that it can only be solved by exchanging a part of the heater. Until it arrives, we'll have to stick to the periodical refilling.
So I thought that he was going to stay for maybe 30 minutes, but it turned out that he had other plans, i.e. a makeshift repair of the damaged part. When he was still there at 11, I simply wrote the Ambassador a text message explaining that it would be better if I just took the day off, which he granted.
Plumber left around 11.30, and after cleaning up after him I was FREE.
And today is already Friday, and I also took Monday off work, because it's the orthodox X-mas which means nothing at all will be happening, so the period December 21 to January 7 is/ will have been a very pleasant one.
Gerald being on holiday helps, too.
Especially since we had a not very productive, I-want-to-bang-
I was really trying hard to convey to him the fact that I was worried about four instances of complete disregard for rules etc. cropping up in as short a space as two weeks, but all I got was 1) accusations of not supporting him, 2) stubborn refusal to acknowledge that he'd done anything wrong, and 3) in the one case where he acknowledged having made a mistake, the accusation of being petty and picking on him. Duh. I told him 1) that I don't have to go looking especially hard for glaring mistakes, 2) that I do not in any way have to justify the way in which I conduct my duties as his superior, and 3) that he could scarcely expect me to act as if nothing had happened when he had insulted me personally (i.e. leaving the pre-X-mas gathering after 20 min. without a word) and professionally (by behaving like a first-class twat at the team meeting).
All of which he neither accepted nor acknowledged, needless to say.
I recommended that he apply for another posting, and wrote a short synopsis of events since October for the Ambassador.
I mean, just to give an example, can you believe this?
Me: I've also heard from more than one side that you sometimes sit at your desk, outside lunch break, with your head phones on, listening to loud music. Please do not do that anymore.
Gerald: Why?
Me: Because it sets a bad example, especially since I have expressly forbidden music at the workplace -- that was one of yours, remember, because you said you couldn't concentrate -- and because, if too much acoustic input is bad for your concentration, as you said yourself, I can only deduct that it harms the quality of your work.
G: But many people did that in Moscow!
Me: That's as may be, but no one does it in Skopje, including you.
G: Where's the rule forbidding me to do it?
Me: This happens to be one of the things the Ambassador or his deputy are authorized to decide by themselves, and I assure you that the Ambassador sees eye to eye with me on this one.
G: sullen silence.
Yeah, that conversation was definitely a highlight.
Speaking of highlights: the hospital where I'm getting my rabies shots asked me to pay for the first four in 2012, and the last one extra, because I'll only get that on January 11.
No problem. It's a state hospital, and so I assumed that the equivalent of € 100 would more than cover the expense.
Imagine my complete and utter disbelief, when they charged me € 600!!! I don't have to pay for it myself, but... 600??? For what? The serum surely doesn't cost more than € 10 apiece. I'm still rather boggled and will have Jasna the Queen of Pain make an enquiry at the Ministery of Health, once the holidays are over. (Just for comparison's sake: one day at the most expensive private hospital in Skopje costs € 100)
Not much else to report, except that my system seems somehow to have recovered (or whatever) from the rabies-shot-induced shock, and I'm almost back to my usual form. On Sunday the weather was fabulous, and so I decided to go for a long, fast walk. I'd done about half, when I realized that I was neither out of breath nor having an elevated pulse, and so I thought, Oh what the heck, and ran 6km. It was fantastic, and I didn't feel any ill effects, neither during nor after. The only instance of strangely elevated heart rate is exercise on the orbitrack, where it still shoots up to 150 in no time, but I've found a way to circumvent the problem after I discovered that what makes the pulse go crazy is "fast", even with almost no resistance. So I'm doing "slow" with very high resistance, which has pretty much the same effect, except that the pulse stays under 140. Heh.
