Professional Pog?

Posted on March 27, 2015 by thepogblog

I’ve never been one of those hugely ambitious people at work.  My goal has always been to be as good as I can at my job without missing out on life.  I’ve worked with people who stay in the office until the tubes have stopped running on a regular basis, and I’ve never really got it.  I also never really got the opportunities they have – and understood entirely.  They were the ones worth investing business resources in as they wanted to get somewhere that didn’t really interest me.

Which is why it’s slightly surreal that in a team of 80 or so people (the big team, obviously not my current team of…um…me), I’ve been the person picked to work with a business coach.  Or maybe it’s not that surreal – maybe this is an attempt to get me wanting to go places….hmmm.  I felt a bit guilty accepting the opportunity; other people would fight for this – I was just slightly bemused.  But I was also quite excited.

We met for the first time yesterday for a ‘chemistry meeting’ to see if we felt we could work together.  It felt a bit like a date – I was careful what I wore in case I didn’t look deserving enough of professional guidance.  It turns out that was a waste of time as it poured on the way to the office soaking my trousers and hair.  The result: My trousers clung to my ankles and my hair went curly on one side (because you know me, I couldn’t have hair that behaves the same on both sides of my head).  I was nervous and worried that she wouldn’t like me.  We had a slight ‘moment’ when it came to paying for the coffee – what was the etiquette in this situation?

But it turned out that I didn’t need to worry.  Coach H is lovely.  Her last job was as a psychologist in an Australian prison, so she should be able to cope with me, just.  Our next session involves cards.  I requested animal snap, but apparently it’s not those sort of cards.  It’s a little disappointing, but I’ll give her version a go and see what happens.  You never know, I might end up being a professional.  One Day.  Maybe.  Well, you never know…

For now though, I am logging off for a week.  My first break from work since Christmas, and I am so ready for it!

Happy Easter Chickens to you!

chickens

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Hanging in there with cakes and caterpillars

Posted on March 24, 2015 by thepogblog

It was time for a bit of secret bakering on Monday.  My last offering of flapjacks hadn’t seemed too exciting, so I decided to push the boat out and make my Mum’s chocolate spice cake which is a family favourite.  It turns out that when you make four of the things, only have two cake tins and an average sized oven, it also takes hours.  Literally.  There’s icing and everything.

I know this is supposed to be a nice thing to do for other people, but honestly, after the hours of baking, juggling two tins with my rucksack on the 6.03am to Charing Cross and a 30 minute trek from the station to the office, I wasn’t feeling very nice.  I was feeling rather un-nice in fact as although I have started to meet a few lovely people, a lot don’t seem that lovely and some seem distinctly unlovely.  I started thinking out an alternative to going to all this hassle for people who I didn’t actually want to be nice for.  Yes, I was in a thoroughly bad mood.

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And it got worse when I heard some people in the kitchen discussing the cake…and how they didn’t like it.  (Tip: If you don’t know who baked a secret baker cake, don’t rip it to shreds when the secret baker could be making a cup of tea, just to your right).  I know it’s completely irrational – people are allowed to dislike my baked goods – but I wanted to cry.

I ignored myself though, and I am so pleased I did, because, proving that sometimes you just have to hang on in there, two very lovely things happened that afternoon.

First, I was asked for the recipe for the cake by someone, who managed to work out I was the secret baker as she liked the cake.  My baking had been enjoyed.   (Incidentally, this someone happens to be the wife of an ex boyfriend from years ago.  I swear the fact that we now work on the same floor in the same office could only happen to me.)

And then I got some post in internal mail.  Mail at work for me usually consists of magazines that I’m sure I never subscribed to, but this had a handwritten envelope.  And contained….two caterpillars!

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They were a belated birthday present from someone who had seen my Very Hungry Caterpillar cake.  And they made me smile a lot.  Partly because I have colourful caterpillars hanging out on my desk, but mostly because someone (from my old office, I admit), was lovely enough to send them to me.

In the end, it was a smiley day.  And it seems that everyone has got in on the act of wishing people a Happy Monday.  I spotted these on the walk back to the station:

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So hang in there on grumpy days – there might be a smile by the end of it.  (And I will try very hard to remember my own advice.  And just look at my caterpillars when I forget)  :o)

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Wig Weirdness

Posted on March 20, 2015 by thepogblog

This was going to be a post of the random photos I’ve been taking thinking they may have a home on the blog one day…but haven’t.  So I was just going to pop them all in one weird post and be done with then,when I realised there was a very small link in a couple which might not make it quite so weird.

We have the doctored road sign, which I thought was quite cool:

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The elephant snuggle I made for a colleague going on maternity leave:

c2And the alcoholic cat I spotted in a shop window:

c3But then we have this:

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Shoulder pads? belt? Ornament of great weirdness?

c5No….it appears to be a wig that’s all dressed up for a night out.

Whereas these appear to be animals all dressed up in wigs:

c7And that last photo made me wonder.  I have a Norman, and in retired Bradley, I have a wig.  With a few treats as encouragement, could I recreate the cushions?

c8It would seem not.

OK, it’s still a weird post, but it’s been a long week.  Happy Friday! :o)

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Bugs

Posted on March 17, 2015 by thepogblog

Remember the post about the terrible caterpillar birthday cake I made my mum?

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Sister 1 was particularly unimpressed.  She told me how she would have done it.  I told her she should make one as she clearly had a better grasp on caterpillars (or so to speak) than I did.  And she did.  Sister 1 made me THE most amazing Hungry Caterpillar birthday cake that really puts mine to shame:

cake 1

cake 2

And even better:  on my actual birthday, while I was at work she left me a bowl of her homemade chilli and a baked potato so I had a lovely birthday dinner.  She left them in the washing machine, demonstrating that she might be great at caterpillar cakes but not so great at thinking things through, but I had a very lovely birthday tea as a result of both.

And in a slightly separate story relating to bugs, I’ve had a lump on my chin since my travels in the Philippines.  Sometimes it comes up as a red lump nobody can miss and other times it just hides and feels a bit bumpy.  I’ve been to the doctor twice as sometimes it makes my face swell up.  Last time I went, I asked the doctor if it could be a small bug burrowed in there, perhaps a tiny mole? (I’ve read far to many of those ‘you wouldn’t believe it’ stories), but was told definitely not, and given a very strange look.  I’m still not convinced though, and on Sunday morning when I looked in the mirror as I cleaned my teeth I almost had a meltdown.  There were track marks across my chin where something had clearly been burrowing under my skin…

After a couple of minutes panicking (I had to wait for the toothbrush to tell me I’d finished – it really annoys me when I stop before the buzzer has told me my two minutes is complete) I had a proper look.  And then looked a bit harder.  It was like the bug was trying to tell me something…like it had spelled something out….’2.3’ to be exact, which sounded somewhat familiar.

It was familiar because on Saturday I’d gone shopping for fabric for my next upholstery project.  I’d written the amount of material I needed on my hand: 2.3 meters. I’d obviously slept in something bordering on the recovery position and transferred the ink from my hand to my chin.  So, happily the only bugs in this post are terrible and an amazing caterpillar cake.  Although I’ve still not actually proved there isn’t a small mole living in my chin.  We’ll gloss over that for now though…. :o)

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Thank you, Friday 13th

Posted on March 13, 2015 by thepogblog

*It’s probably best not to read this if you’re eating, about to eat, have just eaten, intend to ever eat again, or are feeling a bit delicate*

I didn’t realise it was Friday 13th until 6.15 am this morning.

At 5.30am I woke up to hear Norman Cat retching.  Anyone who is owned by a cat will know that this sound can wake you from the deepest sleep, and it certainly had.  I looked around for Norman, saw him on the top of the wardrobe, on top of one of his favourite boxes, and flew out of bed.

My goal was to get him out the backdoor before he actually threw up.  I failed.  Although, before my sleepy brain registered that I’d failed, he’d jumped off the wardrobe and I thought it best to check that he’d not been sick on the box that he’d been retching over.  I flipped the lid off towards me and….covered myself and the carpet in cat sick.

The crime scene

The crime scene

So that was how my morning started.  I changed, cleaned the carpet and finally went to disinfect my hands 45 minutes later to discover a lump of dried cat sick on my face.  I don’t think mornings can really get much worse.  But based on the fact that they really can’t, tomorrow has to be better :o)

The innocent looking Norman Cat

The innocent looking Norman Cat

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Advice to make your tummy smile

Posted on March 10, 2015 by thepogblog

I think word has got around the office that my workload may have got a bit silly utterly ridiculous.  People keep offering me advice.  I know it is well intentioned but honestly, it’s not really all that helpful.  For example, I was told the other day not to keep my blackberry on at night and just do the emails in the morning.  I was told otherwise I was ‘feeding the dragon’.  I tried.  It took until midday the next day to get through them before I could start on real work.  (I also got a guilt complex because as soon as I was told the dragon bit, I called my dragon ‘Fred’ and promptly got in a panic that night that Fred was probably getting hungry and might pass out or something…..that’s probably just my take on it though).

I also wrote an article on how some of our leaders at work had reached the top spot and what advice they would give others.  It all seemed rather hollow…and corporate.  I was wondering what  people could suggest that I’d listen to (please note:  When my friends give me advice, I always listen – it’s advice from people who don’t know me that I struggle to put into Pog terms), and so I thought I’d put together some of my own.  They might not get anyone further up the career ladder, but they might make your tummy smile:

Buy a new scratching post for Norman* online and don’t look at the measurements.  It will take up half of Pog Towers, but you will own the happiest cat in the world because now he  knows he’s human – he’s the same height as you, after all.

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The old post in the background looks tiny now…

* Please don’t actually buy one for Norman – any more that size and neither of us will fit in Pog Towers.

Go for a day trip to France with lovely, relaxed people who really don’t seem to mind when you fall asleep every time you get in the car.  And visit a patisserie with LOTS of cakes: a7 Choose what turns out to be the very best cake ever made in the history of cakes and eat it while wandering around French streets:a3 Enjoy the first signs of spring sunshine on the crocuses you planted, never really thinking that they would germinate:a6 Take a very excited Little Pea to feed a donkey…and then watch him cling to Sister 1 as he refuses to go anywhere near the donkey he shouted for, right up until he was two feet away! a5 Watch Nanny B reading to Little Pea :o) : a4 And finally, when you have to work, and have to stop yourself losing concentration on a teleconference, assemble a chicken: a1That last one is actually a really good way to stop multi tasking on work calls as the spare bit of brain that tends to go wandering is taken up with the practical stuff.  I think we should introduce it in all companies.  Until we’ve done that successfully (along with abolishing working on Mondays) it’s probably best to just do this when working from home. :o)

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Learning a new skill

Posted on March 6, 2015 by thepogblog

I really admire people who decide to do a Masters or PhD while holding down a full time job.  It’s just not for me. I like the learning – just hate the testing.

The area I now work in is full of very, very clever people.  Apparently, the vast majority of people have a Masters or a PhD, or more.  I joined in a conversation recently – before I realised that the topic was ‘What uni are you studying what subject at?’ They went round the group until it got to me. ‘Do you study anything outside of work?’ I was asked.  ‘Actually, yes, I do’ I replied: ‘Upholstery.’  Not one of them knew quite what to make of that…

So yes, Sister 1 and I are over half way through our first term at a local Adult Education Centre, studying upholstery. (We’ve not left out Sister 2 – she works shifts though and couldn’t make a regular evening class).  I thought it would be relatively simple.  I was wrong.  But it is brilliant – We’re in a class of people that I’d probably not meet anywhere else – at least not all in the same room.  Our classmates are: a 20 something primary school teacher, a granddad who loves sailing, a lady who doesn’t talk to anyone, a yummy mummy, a lady who I should get to know better as all I can tell you is that there are big road works going on near her house, a gentleman who knows exactly how to get to the Imperial War Museum and lovely lady who works full time, managed to upholster 8 chairs last term in time for Christmas…and then made everyone cover them in bin bags before they sat on them!  Each week we get to hammer tacks in or pull tacks out, or pull the tacks out that we’ve just hammered in.  As long as you’re headache free, it’s a great way to get rid of the days stresses.

We started off with these chairs:

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Mine

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Sister 1’s. She had to pull out around 300 staples to get this back to the wood :/

So you take it apart....and then glue the wobbly bits back together

So you take it apart….and then glue the wobbly bits back together. Sister 1’s completely fell apart when she uncovered it, but with a lot of glue and a decision to never sit on it, I’m sure it will look great when she’s finished.

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When you’ve filled all the holes with glue and sawdust, you do the webbing…

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If you’re Sister 1, you put the webbing on the wrong side of the chair…

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Then you tack hessian over that.

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You sew holes into the hessian using some weird loops

This has been known to make Sister 1's grumpy

This has been known to make Sister 1’s grumpy

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Make lots of coconut hair balls…

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Then stuff the balls into the holes, pull the string really tight, and…

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…Fluff into a coconut afro.

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You pop wadding on top of that…

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And then spend an irritatingly long time smoothing and pinning fabric onto the wadding before tacking that.

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Then you cover with the material

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And pop a bottom on it to hide everything

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And finally….TA DAH!  (Sister 1’s is almost finished too)

I’ve now started on my second project, which is a lot more complicated.  Last night I learned to use a double ended mattress needle.  It’s pretty much a lethal weapon.  I also learned to use a regulator.  Apparently Sister 1 and I were the only ones in the class to have heard of Warren G and Nate Dogg’ song ‘Regulate‘.  It’s probably the only time people have attempted to rap and upholster at the same time in an adult education class.  It’s probably best to keep it that way too…

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I was telling one of my friends the story that I started this post with the other day and she made me smile.  She said that if the world economy collapsed tomorrow, all the academic qualifications in the world wouldn’t help, but I’d have a skill I could barter with.  I’m not sure either of us would get much in return for our beginners standard upholstery, but it’s a consideration.  And we all have to start somewhere :o)

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Birthdays, parties and an utter failure of a cake

Posted on March 3, 2015 by thepogblog

This time of year is full of Birthdays – full I tell you!  In the last week it has been Sister 1 and 2’s:

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Probably the least said, the better.

Gorgeous Godson’s:

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It was all a bit too exciting for him….

I was invited to Gorgeous Godson’s party. A hall full of small children is not my idea of a  perfect Sunday morning, but I got involved and discovered that, as a team leader (get me!) I am ridiculously competitive.  I think I was more vocal on an unclear rule change than my team of little people were when it looked like victory may be snatched from our hands.  I’m pleased to report that it all went very smoothly though, and the only injury was mine when a hula hoop (the twirly round your tummy version, rather than the crisp variety) collided with my face, giving me a fat lip and a bitten tongue.  The very best bit was the posters that Gorgeous Godson’s big brother had made.  Take a look at these:

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And finally, it was  Mum’s birthday too:

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Now one of the birthday memories I will always have is that when I was six, my Mum made me a fairy castle cake.  It was amazing – a mass of sponge and ice cream cones covered in icing and little flowers and silver balls all over it.  That in itself would have been impressive, but what I didn’t appreciate until years later was the fact that Mum had been out of hospital for about a week when she made it….having given birth to twins.  Who she was breast feeding.  She must have been utterly exhausted.

So, this year, I thought I’d return the favour and attempt a novelty cake of my own.  I should have known that it would work brilliantly in my head, but not so brilliantly in practice.  There was more butter icing keeping it together than there was cake.  Four batches, in fact.

I give you, (TA DAH!) Caterpillar cake:

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Complete with his friends, the butterflies:

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My Sisters said it looked like a chocolate log with a face.  Mum told me how you’re actually supposed to make a swiss roll (apparently the clue is in the name: swiss roll rather than swiss fold and break the sponge into bits).  I decided that novelty cakes are best left to mum’s.  It was certainly no fairy castle.  But it’s the thought that counts. Right?  :o)

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How much for a handmade hippo?

Posted on February 27, 2015 by thepogblog

I never really felt strongly about hippos.  Over the last few weeks though, one particular hippo has made me terrified, infuriated, frustrated, angry….and now we’re about to part company, I’m just starting to love him.

I was commissioned to crochet a toy.  Stupidly I didn’t ask for the pattern before I agreed and when I received it I had a little panic.  It was far more complex than anything I’d made before – it involved exact counting (something that’s a little fluffy in my crocheting) and joining shapes as you went a long which was as fiddly as I thought it would be.

I wanted to write this blog post for two reasons.  First, I’m actually rather proud of the fact that Hippo does indeed look like a hippo :o)

hippo 2

And second, to explain something about handmade things.

I used to have a business making things.  The biggest problem I had was that I wanted to charge prices I thought people would consider good, and sometimes, with handmade stuff, that’s just not possible.  Let’s play a game:  How much would you pay for hippo for a small person (or even a bigger person) in your life?

hippo 3

Got a number in your head?  OK…

The materials to make Hippo were about £15.

I’ve worked out that Hippo took around 70 hours to make.  If I made a hippo a day, I’d probably get faster as I got used to the pattern, but I’m not exactly slow when it comes to crochet, so I don’t think I’d knock much time off the clock.  So let’s stick with 70 hours and say I pay myself the minimum wage.  For my time, I would be charging £455.  Total cost of Hippo is therefore £470.  (For the record, I only charged this lady cost of the materials.  Mainly because I am an idiot.)

And that’s why I don’t, as some people have very kindly suggested, give up the day job to crochet full time.  People just wouldn’t pay the prices.  I wouldn’t pay the prices!  Remember that figure you considered paying…is it anywhere near the value of Hippo?

But the upside of not doing it for money and making things for people you care about is that every so often you’ll see you’ve made someone happy.  Sister 1 sent me this photo of Little Pea last night.  Every night after bath time they sit and look at the alphabet I crocheted him for Christmas to learn letters and animals:

hippo 1

And that gorgeous thought and picture mean far more to me than money :o)

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Flapjack Fairies

Posted on February 25, 2015 by thepogblog

I did some secret bakering at the weekend.  I actually did some the week before, but in the way that I think is probably unique to me, I managed to screw up all five trays of flapjacks that I made.  Only the edges were worth saving – the rest ended up in the bin.

But I wasn’t about to let some rolled oats beat me so I tried again….and it was a success:

cake 2

And not only did I hear some colleagues telling each other how good they were (AND they are the colleagues that never talk to each other!), but this was left in the kitchen:

cake 1

 

And it made me smile :o)

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