Wednesday, May 28, 2008

cake mail

Sometimes things happen at BCFs that just make no sense, come out of the blue and for which no reasonable explanation can be found.

Today, I received a piece of cake in the mail.

A real actual slice of cake. It is a dark cake, quite thinly cut in an oblong shape (not a triangular wedge). It looks like a cross between chocolate cake and rye bread. It is wrapped in glad wrap and about the size of my hand. It came in a yellow envelope with no post mark, a 50 cent postage stamp and the address label was typed.

I am too scared to open it in case it is some sort of chemical death trap disguised as cake.

This is actually the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me. Ah the BCF, just when it was starting to make sense, someone sends you cake in the mail.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

the un-burgeoning of ben

A kind reader left a comment a little while ago offering himself as a suitor if my 'burgeoning' love affair with Ben did not work out. There were so many layers of difficulty with the statement that I chose to ignore until today.

For clarity sake, I would like to point out to my kind reader that none of the difficulties revolve around his offer and if things do in fact go awry (not specifcally with Ben but with romance generally), I will indeed drop him a line, in the very public forum of this blog.

The reason I have chosen to address this comment today is that things could not possibly have placed themselves FURTHER away from the idea of a burgeoning love affair today.

As you know, Ben and I are in discovery isolation at the moment, supervising junior lawyers and reviewing work. The hours are long, the work is repetitive and it is very difficult to stay awake. There is a lot of coffee and food from the caterers. We are in a small internal meeting room on the twentieth floor and it is just us in there all day every day.

The caterers made us a lentil salad for lunch today. And yes, you guessed it, the discovery room Ben and I have been working in has become a gas chamber. Lentils obviously do not sit well with Ben and the man is doing some seriously stinky farts. I have often wondered about the politics of farting in your own office (especially when someone else walk in directly afterwards - to warn or not to warn?) but in a shared workspace?! Unacceptable!

Rest assured, the man is becoming seriously unattractive in a hurry.

Add to that the fact that Adam is behaving like a model suitor (gallery trips and attempting to book a weekend away despite my long work hours)and Ben has most definitely un-burgeoned anything that my dear reader was alleging he had burgeoned.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

pay rise poem 2008


Oh yes, it's performance review season again! The hunters are out in full kit, their hounds sniffing out weak ones, guns poised and heads cocked.

It is incredible that the people who have drunkenly sung at me, called me 'not too bad for a skirt', bribed me with pash photos from September Shindig and revelled in fake pieces of art made from a colander and bulldog clips will now be deciding my fate for the next year. I imagine it's a little bit like dealing with kindergarten children at recess time.

Now admittedly, there is not too much to decide in relation to my fate because Peters' VGM, pro bono and my recent average of 9 1/2 billable hours a day thanks to discovery will put me in the 'exceeds expectations' category. But all this got me thinking - whatever they do with me, will it be enough?

The term elegant sufficiency used to be bandied about by ladies who wanted to indicate a satiated appetite. Can the same principles apply to pay rises? Is our hunger ever satiated?

And so, we come to this year's pay rise poem...

I want
a lot of things
I can't have

Louboutin shoes
Chanel and
gucci handbags

but at work
I want
and never get

a sense
of pride
of no regret

crime was
simple
even if unclean

commercial
litigation
is a different scene

the people
are nasty and
incredibly rich

despite my efforts
I'm in this
soul-less ditch

so pay me
more money
and i'll go away

but not
for too long
perhaps just a day

but no matter
how little
small or big

it won't be enough
so dance
little pig