Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Neighbors Stories

If you asked me what I like about moving into this house, I would say it's our neighbors. Both my left and right neighbours are very nice, but the one i'm going to tell you about are the older Croatian couple. They are a nice couple and very friendly. You know what, the husband is the one moving our front and backyard while my dad is not here XP

We didn't ask him of course. After we came back from holiday, the wife told us when it's time to mow the lawn, just ask her husband to do it. It's not girls' job, she said. Of course we just laughed it off, but then not long after when I got home, I noticed my front lawn was flat! My lawn is full of weeds so you do notice when suddenly it's flat. When we asked the neighbors, and thanked them, the husband asked said, "yeah, I wanted to do the backyard too but it's locked. So tell me when you want me to mow it". We told him don't worry, we'll do it ourselves but he insisted. Then, he did it then and there XD since then he's been mowing our lawn every 2 weeks :P

Plus, on taking the rubbish day out day, we noticed that by the time we got home the day after, the bins have been pushed in next to the house. Initially I thought it was one of my sisters as I'm the last one to return. However, later on my sister asked me if I did as neither her nor her twin did it. When we confirmed with next door, yeah it was them.

We met them tonight on our way home and ended up talking for quite a while. It's nice to hear their stories about the old times..

They told us in 70s, when they first arrived in Australia, the husband first pay was $50 a week and the wife's pay was $34 per week and it paid for rent and food for them and 2 children! 700 ml milk cost 20cents and a baguette cost 5 cents. Milk really doesn't have much increase. You can still buy a litre for $1 now. While baguettes hmm.. quite an increase. You can leave money for bread and milk delivery in front of your door safely, but outside generally wasn't as safe as now. There weren't much take away places, just fish and chips, burgers and such. You couldn't buy lunches on Saturdays because stores closed at noon! Getting a place to rent was hard if you had kids because landlords worried kids would damage the property. They said people with 2-3 kids usually lied and said they had 1 kid only if they wanted to rent. Childcare of course were not many, so the wife worked in the morning and her sister worked in the afternoon to take turns watching over the children. They had a tough life back then.

They said they had to work hard in a farm when they were in Croatia. They said it was a small village where they lived, probably 50-60 houses. Everybody knew everybody. When they took their children back there for holiday, their eldest was surprised, "Why don't people knock when coming to other house?? They just opened the door and walked straight in!". It's a pity now that that village isn't like how it was before. People don't know everyone anymore and it has grown too.

They were all good story and I guess, worth my blood being fed to mosquitoes listening to it :P

Sunday, November 15, 2015

When Someone Quits and You Know Who Doesn't Like It - Part 2

Hellooooo, your long awaited story is back! I know you guys have missed a certain someone in my office. Just admit it, someone I know keeps asking about him every Friday morning...MUAHAHAHA :P

So, someone in our company has resigned this week. I was pretty upset when I heard the story. Pavarotti has been working in our company for 6 years. He's one of my 'generation' and we've been working closely together for the past 6 years. We've mucked around and bitched about people in our company, so yeah it was a bit sad. I've eaten his snacks and stolen his teabags too. But it's good for him and I'm very happy for him.

You all know how Superexcited has issues with people quitting. Be it one of his favourite or one that he doesn't like. Tell you the truth, I still don't know which side is better. So when Pavarotti resigned, he gave his famous lecture. The content of that lecture I don't know, but don't expect something as easy as "I'm sad that you're leaving, we will miss you, but we wish you well". Expect something more like, "How dare you to go behind my back finding jobs. You are supposed to give us 3 months notice. I always give and give and give, but people never give anything back to me". Something along that line. Anyways, Pavarotti successfully resigned. Well done.

The next morning, Pavarotti went to Superexcited's office to ask if he could take lunch at 1:30-2:30 instead of his normal 1-2 lunch as he has a baby appointment. Superexcited's reply was, "What? You quit yesterday, and now you're asking me for a favor?". What.A.Jerk.

The rest of the conversation went like this:
Pavarotti: "No, I'm not asking for a favor. I am entitled for 1 hour break". Superexcited: "Yeah, you're asking for a favour! All these 6 years, you always come to my office asking for a favour. You never give anything back to me!".
Pavarotti: "I work my ass off these past 6 years for you!"
Superexcited: "I pay you for it!"

In Little Miss Nice's words, "What a BABY!"

What about all those overtime? We don't get paid for overtime and he always comes to the office WAY earlier than the office hours! All of those goes unnoticed, oh sorry, should be forgotten and unappreciated.

The whole conversation happened in his office with the door opened, so one of our colleagues heard the whole thing. He was actually about to turn down a job interview, but upon hearing how bad Pavarotti was treated, he decided to go for the interview. Not sure how it went though. If he got it and is going to leave, everybody is going to laugh. That's really Superexcited's fault.

I wonder how it's going to be in the other department. They only have about 7-8 people. Pavarotti already resigned, another one has resigned too according to my source (eventhough the person still have few months to go), little miss nice is going to start looking for a new job, and if that one person got the job, that would be 4 gone out of 7. Little Miss Nice wondered if Superexcited's going to finally realise. I really don't think so.