Superstition & Spider Solitaire

I have to admit.

I have a stupid superstition.

I play Spider Solitaire to determine how good or bad my day will be.

This all started out as good 'ol fun of sitting in front of the computer every morning as my accompaniment whilst downing two cups of coffee (one isn't enough to wake up this pig) and smoking her lungs away. And then fun became a routine, and routine became a superstition. It is retarded I know. But somehow, my games seem to predict my day ahead. If I manage to finish all the games played, it will be fantabulous day ahead. If I finish a couple of games, the day will be a-okay. BUT IF I fail to finish a single game, the day will be doomed.

And funny enough, my days do seem to work out that way.

Friday morning. Yay! Last day of the crappy working week! Like most humanly employees, I always look forward to Friday. So as my morning routine goes, 2 cups of coffee and Spider Solitaire. I wasn't looking for a fantabulous day but an a-okay day would be good enough for me. But no. I failed miserably to finish a single game - two days in a row! The day before was turbulent enough (read previous blog) so this would be Friday from hell! Damn it! There goes my weekend. Of course I still held my breath and HOPED otherwise. Come on, it is only a stupid superstition.....


Friday The 13th for the Ready-To-Quit Employee

Like most working days, the courier guy would arrive at the employee's home-office at between 0830 - 0900 hours to deliver my package sent from the factory. Today, however, the courier guy came at 0930 hrs instead. No big deal. Not like the employee had an excitingly filled agenda for the day anyway. So when the intercom buzzed, the employee was filled in anticipation to receive the few of her dreadfully overdue samples. She happily lets the courier guy in and envisioned the courier guy walking in with a big box on his left shoulder (that's how they carry it here).

Courier guy walked in with a cheery smile on his face and employee noticed he only had ONE FLAT BAG on his hand. The guy handed her the package and she felt it. Fuck. Only one jean in there. What the ????

She thought to herself, "This must be a mistake! This can't be it! They (the people from the factory) said they were sending.... oh right! Damn factories. They never deliver what they promise. Okay... maybe they only managed to get one fucking style done and some catastrophe happened so they could only send me one pair instead of two. Okay... Keep cool.... Keep cool... breathe... breathe...."

She knew that she was lying to herself. How many times have this happened? So they promise, so they say.... so they everything but deliver overdue samples on time. Oh fuck it. Employee gave up and ever more so determined to call it quits with this unrewarding job. She is fighting a losing battle.

Big sigh.

The employee curtly smiled at the courier guy, signed for her package and ripped her package open without hesitation. Fuck and double-fuck. ONE fucking jean and that was not even any one of the samples she was waiting for. In a fit of temper, she picked up her disgustingly abused mobile phone and called the factory.

As if her temper was not flaming enough, she was informed that the girl she was looking for.... WAS NOT IN THE FACTORY! For fuck sake, the employee knows that she is a good friend of the boss's son and they rendezvous alot together. She can take a day off anytime she wants too, not that employee would care, BUT NOT WHEN THERE ARE TENS OF SAMPLES STILL OUTSTANDING!

Yes.
That is the life with this screwed up family-based business.
The operations don't make any fucking sense AT ALL.

Quit you stupid bitch! Quit! Why do you want to torture yourself this way?

Whatever.

The employee got herself another cup of coffee, heaved in more cancer-causing cigarettes and played a few more rounds of game to calm herself down. She read an email that came through.

Hi,
Trying to order the Kimbals but the order no. xxxxxx I can't order the kimbal can you check for me?
Many thanks.

The employee logged onto the customer's system (this is a God-sent system for suppliers! One can check orders, sell-offs, order price tickets etc. etc.. Hail to the team of IT experts who designed this system!) to check the order.

ORDER CANCELLED.

What the ????? AGAIN!

Employee promptly called the buying assistant to enquire about the cancellation and requested for reinstatement of order. "I've got to check this and get back to you", said the lady. Right. Employee started to get a bad feeling about this. Not a good sign at all.

But employee was not going to think too much about it. She had an appointment with the Reflexologist. She had never been to a reflexologist before but she has been plagued with a nagging pain at the sole of her foot, her tail bone was giving her problems as well (which she rationalised the pain from the hectic flying) and still shoulders and.... just a few more ands. No big deal. Just an 80 year old woman trapped in a 28 year old body. The employee has seen those useless people called General Practioners and Homeopath, but nothing really helped relieved the pain. So what has she got to lose by trying a reflexologist? Even a massage on the foot to get rid of one of the pain was good enough. AND she was looking for an excuse to scream the house down to let out her frustration. Yes. Pain will be good.


A Trip to the Reflexologist
The employee had found the name of the Reflexologist from the Internet. Her name is Sam. Sam did an earnest write-up about how she found herself in massage therapy and reflexology, as well as an account about her battle with anorexia and bullimia. She sounded nice enough so the employee decided to give her a try.

The employee turned up at Sam's home punctually at noon (even though she did miss the turn and went a tad bit too far) and the employee had to first soak her feet in those foot relaxer bath thing. Whilst the feet were soaking, they started out by running through the employee's pain complains and Sam went on to ask questions as she filled out a form.

"How much time do you have? I think you will need a long session today. I will need to do a cranium-(something) on you to relax your stiff shoulders." said Sam.

"As long as you need" replied the employee.

So Sam got the employee to lie on the massage bed.

"Close your eyes. Relax.... relax... feel your body on the bed.... blah blah blah... " said Sam as she put on those new age type instrumental music at the background.

She started massaging the foot and as she reached certain points, the employee started to twitch. Ouch but still bearable. And on the contrary to the employee thinking that the right foot was the sore one, the left foot turned out to be even more sore. And to top off the slight discomfort she felt, she started to feel nauseous as well. The employee tried to stay relax with the discomforts as Sam continued the foot therapy. And oh yes! That tummy of the employee starting to make funny noises as well. Sam explained her diagnosis of my sore foot points and related it to my screwed up digestive system and recommended detox to the employee which obviously included giving up oily fatty food for three days.

Straightaway, the employee sprung open her eyes and guffawed.

"Me? On a Detox? Biggest joke in the world. No fats in my diet? Noooo.....! It will kill me. I still have my barbeque sliced pork sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for me and my 3/4 'Woolies' Chicken uneaten.... detox. Nooo....!", the employee thought to herself. Her biggest fear had come through. She was most afraid of someone telling her she needs to go on a "detox" diet. She does not diet. Period.

She politely replied as she chuckled, "Can I start tomorrow?" She was determined to finish all that food before embarking on this strange thing called DETOX.

Sam : "Sure! You can start anytime. You need to prepare yourself for it anyway."

And that was that. The employee mentally knew that this detox thing would never happen. To start with, what will a detox be if she does not cut off caffeine and nicotine? Ha!

Sam finished the rest of the foot massage and went on to her spine. The employee figured out by now that this was more than reflexology. It was more like some spiritual healing thing. Interesting. The employee was well-intrigued and anticipated that cranium thing that Sam was talking about.

Sam placed her hands below the employees spine and positioned it there for the longest time before moving up closer towards the shoulder. After an eternity of silence, Sam said a certain word came to her mind and started asking some personal questions which revolved around emotions and blah. The employee was shocked and again, opened her eyes and asked Sam about how she gets these "words" and she said it was something about intuition and sometimes words just pop-up. I raised my left eyebrow in skeptism and gave her an elusive answer.

She went on to explain about how human emotions can affect the physical well-being blah blah blah. The employee started to wonder at this point, "Is she a Christian Spiritual Healer type or one of those new age sort?" Thing is, to get "words" like that is either she is really a Godly-Christian or cult-type healer? She refrained from asking Sam her curiousity and went on with the therapy. But 'the word' and the emotional-diagnosis Sam made kept lingering in the employee's mind. She knew Sam was right but she blatantly refused to come to terms with it. Quite disturbing. She closed her eyes and Sam continued with the therapy.

Sam went on to the employee's head and placed her fingers at certain points at the neck area and then up the head. The pain then! Excrutiating. The nausea came back again and this time the employee asked Sam about it. In simple words, the employee has a messed-up internal system and this leading to that blah blah.... the body was just reacting to the therapy thus the nausea. Right. She always knew that her internals are messed up but she never wanted to hear the truth. And now here it is, slapped right at her face.

The worst of all pains came when she arrived at the shoulder. The moment she touched it, the employee knew how tensed she really is. Crap. Perhaps a couple of full body massage might just sort this problem out.... and perhaps less flying as well.

Therapy over.

The employee thanked and paid Sam for the service. She made another appointment with Sam. If this will help release all that flipping pain she is suffering, then yes, anything to alleviate the pains. But perhaps mainly because the employee was curious about the spritual nature of Sam's treatment.


Friday The 13th for the Ready-To-Quit Employee (Part II)

Employee looked at her watch. Shit! This took a good two hours! Oh no! Has Federer's match started? It was the semi-finals against Argentine Coria. A must-watch match. Shit shit shit....

She immediately took out her phone and sent a SMS to her cousin to report match status. The first match was just starting the second set. Great. Could possibly make it back in time to catch Federer's match if blessed with smooth traffic AND IF the dumbass employee DID NOT miss her turn AGAIN. Ha! She IS dumbass... so of course she missed her turn, ended up south to the land of nowhere. To top it off, she met with every red light possible! Talk about luck failing on her....

She noticed two missed calls on her phone after the reflexology session. One was an unknown caller and the other... THE BOSS. She cursed at herself for leaving the phone in the car. She decided to call the "unknown caller" first whom she intuitively guessed it was THAT buyer of the cancelled order. And... she was right! Apparently he was confused about the orders and would like the employee to go through it with him. Puuurrrllleeeaasseee... like the confusion was anything new. She told him that she would call him in 20 min as on the road did not have the order details on hand. Goodbye.

Then she called her boss. He wanted to check on the other two reinstated orders and whether the factory could commence production. YES! She had been saying that like since... MONDAY! And what day was it? FRI-FUCKIN'-DAY! She felt like most of the time, she was talking to air. She decided to break the news to her boss then about the loss of her 'baby' and seemed aloof about it.

"Tell him you want to resign... tell him... TELL HIM!", a little devil kept screaming in her head. Instead, the best she could muster up, ""Erm.... ok... I don't know what to say. I'll call you later to talk about this. Bye bye."

Wuss.
The biggest wuss in the world.

Phone rang. It was Little Missy (LM).

Employee : "Yes!"

LM : "Sorry.... but you have this GAP jean here (whatever that reference # is) that has all the squiggles and stuff... do you want all of that on your sample?"

Oh yes. Those overdue samples.

Emp : "What did I write on that paper there? I am sure I told you take out all that squiggle"

LM : "OK... and this other one... it is a TOPMAN jean.... you say you want the back knee crease but the picture looks like it does not come from the same sample"

Emp (close to really screaming now) gritted her teeth : "Yeeessss.... it is a different sample. Did you look at the tech-sheet? I should have written the sample reference. But if there isn't, I only bought 10 MENS JEANS. I AM SURE YOU CAN GO THROUGH 10 SAMPLES AND FIGURE OUT WHICH ONE IT IS."

LM : "Errr... I'll try. The samples are everywhere now (roll eyes AGAIN. Tell me something new). But I'll try."

Emp : "OK! Let me know IF you have problem finding it, call me again. I am sure you can even locate it from the DIGITALS I gave you guys. I am driving right now so if anything, I can only get back to you when I get back to office. And listen, your uncle (THE BOSS) is calling on the other line. I've got to go. Goodbye."

-- Switch Line --

Emp : "Yes.. Hello...."

Boss : "And you were saying earlier about losing that program...."

And that was that. The next half of the way was spent discussing with the boss the finer details of that bad news. And throughout the conversation, the only thing the employee heard was, "Quit... quit... tell him you want to quit...."

By the end of it all, it was still no-say about resigning from the employee.

Bloody wuss.

Home at last! The employee quickly switched on the TV and the first point was just played. Good. She didn't miss too much. She went behind her desk, yanked out her spreadsheet and called the buyer. After going through one-by-one of the orders (and she missed the first few games in the process which pissed her off further), the buyer finally conceded that a mistake was made and the order was anonymously cancelled. The employee told him to reinstate the order with immediate effect and the the buyer tried to pull a fast one by requesting an order cancellation in a not-so-subtle manner, "And how far has your production gone?"

That was it!
No mercy!
He had triggered the final panic button and all hell broke loose.
I bellowed like I had never bellowed to any customer that I am sure the entire neighbourhood could here me.

Emp : "I give up! You go call MY BOSS and talk to him direct! I refuse to get involved with this ANYMORE."

At that point, offense was not a question anymore. See if the employee cared! She was all ready to quit her job anyway.

So the buyer fumbled alittle and tried to draw a compromise by asking me to roll out the order. No can't do. The screaming match (hosted by primarily the employee and the employee herself) continued and the employee gave him the biggest bollocking she could muster. Fuck it fuck it fuck it. Give these assholes an inch and they take the entire estate away from you.

The employee knew she was fighting a losing battle. She had worked with these assholes for too long and knew what the outcome would be. But she still had to conduct her fair share of screaming match. After all, it had only been two years of tolerating bullshit to the extent of being accused by her boss of being "too lenient with the buyers" after the recent cancellation of those two orders.

The buyer knew the employee was not budging this time and requested to revert on Monday.

Whatever!

After hanging up the phone with the buyer, she went on an anger rattle with her boss and once again, she was made to look like an incompetent idiot. The only thing was, the words "I QUIT" still refused to come out of her mouth. She just ended with a loud bellow of, "OK... I don't want to talk anymore. I'm seething with anger and until I've calmed down and can talk more coherently over the phone without shouting at the top of my voice, I'll call you back. Byeeee!"

Boss laughed and we hung up the phone.

The employee boycotted work as she tried to cool down and stared blankly at the Federer-Coria match. Idiot Federer lost his serve in the second set and the employee screamed, "Come on! Don't make my day worse than it already is. Damn it!". And in his usual as-easy-as-comeback-is fashion, he charismatically broke back and took Coria to a tie-break and won the match.

Game over.

Back to stinking work.

She sighed as she sat in front of her laptop, picked up her phone and called back to the factory, made some enquiries and promptly typed out her emails to her customers. Work goes on. Life goes on.

But of course, that little devil in her mind still continued to remind her that it is time to quit her job. Yes lil devil. I hear you. But first, this wuss needs to learn how to say, "I QUIT".

******************

I spent the rest of the evening playing Spider Solitaire and no, the game did not improve... until much later in the night (close to bedtime) when I started to finish a couple of games.

So tell me?
How can I not believe in my ridiculous superstition?
Is it all in the mind?
I think not.
Coincidence!
How can I forget that key word!
Of course! It is all just sheer coincidence....