How may I help you?

So there I was today at the bank waiting for my number to appear on the screen and for the electronic voice to direct me and my number to a teller. Which bank was I at? I'm not saying but Sydney readers may recognise the heading of this posting as the form of words this bank once used to greet customers in the days before screens and electronic voices provided a less personal greeting.

Whilst waiting I perused the range of available tellers noting that only one male was amongst them. But he was enough for my antenna to beep SAMAQ in my head; ie Somewhat Attractive Mature Aged Queen. My intuition seemed immediately confirmed when I noticed his eyes carefully appraising his next customer as that young man approached his counter. My gaydar clearly was working.

And I continued to wait my turn. I was waiting to deposit two cheques. One cheque, made out to my name, into my account and one cheque, made out to my mother's name, into her account. Should all be easy peasey I thought as I wondered whether the screen and electronic voice would allocate my number to SAMAQ.

And so it came to pass as screen and electronic voice summoned me to SAMAQ's presence. No appraising eyes scanned me as I approached SAMAQ but I wasn't disappointed as I didn't really expect him to be waiting for an EOMAQ; ie Even Older Mature Age Queen. SAMAQ proceeded to tap away at his computer processing my cheque with quiet and effortless indifference.

Then SAMAQ turned to my mother's cheque. At that point I apologised for not providing her account number but I added, somewhat dangerously, I assumed he could confirm this from the bank's computer system.

At this point SAMAQ transformed into MAQWA; Mature Age Queen With Attitude. MAQWA informed me archly that my mother's cheque couldn't be deposited into my account; only into her account or a joint account. Now the deposit slip I was submitting clearly stated that the deposit was for her account by name and I could have been equally arch in response by drawing this to MAQWA's attention but I held my discipline and simply said 'yes, I do want it paid into her account'.

MAQWA now pounded his keyboard with pouty irritation as he took on the onerous task of obtaining my mother's account number from the bank's computer system. This took all of several seconds to accomplish at which point he hissed back at me that 'she has two accounts'. I hesitated momentarily to absorb this news, which was all that MAQWA needed for a sneer to appear across his face until I realised and commented 'well, one of of those is her account and the other is the joint account with me.

MAQWA's sneer disappeared as he said 'yes, that is correct'. My head was now saying to him 'look dummy, I've told you twice now, once in writing and once orally, that I want the cheque deposited to her account so why mention the joint account' but my discipline held again and I said 'into her account please'.

MAQWA completed the transaction with every inch of his body language shouting 'why do I get all the loony customers?'.

My discipline held to the end when I told MAQWA that 'I will make sure I have my mother's account number with me in future' whereas what I was actually thinking was 'next time dickhead I will bring the number to save you the trouble of putting yourself out to assist a customer'.

How may I help you indeed!

Feeling thirsty?

Mission accomplished

Now to tie up some loose ends as they say in Bureaucracy land.

My battle with Telstra is over and, I believe, won.

The Department of Fair Trading telephoned me last Thursday to acknowledge my complaint and give me instructions on steps to take before they could formally speak to Telstra on my behalf. I followed those instructions immediately and within two hours of that call from DFT I had received calls from Telstra and Foxtel arranging my requested Pay TV upgrade with the appointment even arranged for the day and time of my preference. I didn't post about this progress at the time for fear that I would jinx it happening.

But happen it did yesterday and all within half an hour too. Based on that one experience it seems that Telstra will jump when DFT comes a calling so I would recommend anyone taking that route if they have a complaint against Telstra not involving telephone or internet services.

Are you being served?

I stopped by the bakery on a sudden urge to have a lamington. For any overseas readers, a lamington is a peculiarly popular Australian cake of such vulgarity that no self respecting European patisserie would care to even check the recipe. Needless to say I am sufficiently vulgar to be addicted to lamingtons.



There was a male/female couple and one other man already in the bakery on my arrival with only the one person attending to us. I waited patiently as the couple were made and served their coffees and a cake each, at which point they departed the store. Then I continued to wait patiently as the other man purchased four different types of pies and four different types of tarts. Whilst the man paid for his purchase another male/female couple entered the store and to my surprise the shop attendant moved to serve them next.

Apparently I was invisible to the attendant and to the recently arrived couple who did not bother to check whether I was standing there waiting to be served.

In years gone by I was so meek that I would have said nothing but times have changed. In the most arch tone I could muster I called out "Excuse me". The couple realising what had happened were appropriately contrite but the store attendant seemed quite taken aback. She apparently had no awareness of what was happening on the customer side of the counter.

I had only intended to purchase a single lamington when I entered the shop but I settled my fit of pique by purchasing three lamingtons, two apple slices and a loaf of bread. I doubt, though, whether I will feel I got even once I step back on the scales.

Bosses, Bossiness and Buckets

Our new Volunteer Manager at the hospital, Ca, started in the position today and joined us for lunch in the staff cafeteria. Didn't get to chat with her very much but there is plenty of time for that ahead. Ge told us that my coworker in Medical Records, Fn, suffered a fall whilst visiting her family in South Carolina USA and has fractured her collar bone and broken ribs. She is trying to rearrange her return flight to Australia which is likely to be pretty uncomfortable with those injuries. She was to have returned to work on 18 February but clearly won't be able to now.

The cafeteria was packed, no doubt because it is bucketing down with rain today. The rain hasn't let up all day and the drive home was in murky conditions with lights on.

Whilst at lunch we talked about an item that appeared in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph gossip pages. The 'Guess who don't sue' column contained the following item;

Which blonde power businesswoman ran amok at XX Hospital turning people's televisions off and the like as it interfered with her peace and quiet?

Je knows the inside information and it turns out it is the same woman who had me losing my cool the other week. I didn't feel so bad about calling her rude once I learned how bad that woman's reputation is.

Losing my cool before turning hot

My friends often comment on my relaxed and even temperament. I rarely get angry but today was an exception. We had a most demanding woman making enquiries at the hospital today, simply riding roughshod over a number of staff members in the process. I couldn't believe her rudeness and I told her so. Her relaxed reaction to my criticism indicated that this was not the first time she had received it. I was told later she is connected to a well known business family in Sydney and that she raises large amounts of money for charity. Money may purchase her influence in the community but in my opinion it doesn't buy her good character.

I remained hot under the collar for an unnecessarily long time after the encounter and eventually found a way to unwind by giving a quick suck and wank to a guy I occasionally see around the traps who I luckily ran into a short time later at my local shopping centre. Thank goodness for sex.