I design badges instead of doing more useful things (e.g. designing a quiz that will help you work out if people at work like you or not)

Often, I 'interact' with you - my loyal and adoring readers - and am amazed. You are few (between 4 and 7 a day, depending on how many times I look at this blog myself), but you are of the highest quality - interesting looking, literate, and able to provide things in the comments boxes (kindnesses, encouragements, jokes, recipes etc) that often make me scream with joy.

Sometimes my joy is so enormous that I want to thank you by giving you something; sending you things, perhaps - things you can touch and/or feel and manipulate, and that will remind you of me.

But is that right? Should I be thanking you by reminding you of me (i.e., me, NWM), or should I be reminding you to be non-working (in your hearts) by providing you with a small and subtle item that you can secrete about your person and finger gently when you are having a bad day in the office?

I was going to make a sort of necklace with my head on that you could wear (a bit like this, but much better looking, i.e. more like me), but my tiny little monkey hands aren't that nimble. Instead, I spent over five (5) minutes designing a badge (or "pin" in North America) that I think is a triumph of its genre. Here it is:














































Why is this badge nice? Here is why.

1. It is available in both the official languages of Canada: English and French.
2. You can wear it outside if you want to make a 'statement', or inside (inside your pants for e.g.) if you want to talk to yourself.

You can buy it if you like (in English here and in French here - don't forget to look at my other magnificent branded merchandise, including my new Logo for Toronto tie and shopping bag), but I am better than that. I would like to give some badges away and put them in an envelope and post them myself. I am not even going to do a competition. I am just going to send 10 of these badges (RRP $1.45) to the first 10 readers to give me an OK reason for wanting one. Not "good". Just "OK".

Come on then!!!



* Like those Japanese t-shirts that have a picture of a kitten on with strange words, e.g. "kitty says flower pring prang triumph!"

I am having quite a good time

So good, in fact, that I have time to photograph other peoples' banana splits* and superimpose cats on top of them using the power of CatPaint, "the premier cat-based image editor for the iPhone and iPod Touch".



I am still calming down. What to do next? The excellent quiz called "How To Tell If You Are A Good Boss Or Not"? "Challenge NWM" in which loyal fans and readers send in 'challenges' that I must do, as long as it doesn't involve eating insects? Who can tell.

Pip pip!

NWM


* Last time I looked a Banana Split was long and in a long dish thing, not chopped up and stuffed into a sundae cup by a taciturn McGill biology student.

I am free like a bird

Someone sent me a tiny email. "What happened, NWM? Why are you (literally) non-working once again?". I cannot really answer the question in detail, not because I am gagged by the law*, but because the details don't matter.

All that's important is that I didn't sleep properly for about 8 months, put on about 25lbs and spent quite a lot of time having conversations like this with my husband, the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist - a man famous for his world-class ability to analyse all situations (even if about 'emotions', cakes, puppies etc) with forensically objective precision.

Me: This (insert incident) happened today. I am annoyed. Is it reasonable that I am annoyed?
Husband: Yes it is. You are not mad.
Me: That is a relief.

I am not one of those ghastly drippy people who are always complaining and needing a little lie down if they have to work more than 5 hours in one day. I get on well with about 95% of people I have worked with ever. I can do quite a lot at the same time, and I do not mind making decisions about things that might be quite important, standing up in rooms full of people and talking about things to them, taking responsibility for stuff, having difficult conversations, etc etc. Bref (as they say in some French-speaking nations), I am not a bloody wetsy and am quite resilient in a work-based situation. But this particular work situation got to me, and got to me good and proper.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, when I realised that the whole hoo-ha wasn't likely to change, I thought it might be better to get the cock out. So I resigned without a job to go to and (even better and/or worse, depending on how you see it), can't work until I get my Canadian residency through my husband**, which could take 3 months, or 6 months, or a bit longer.

But it is not so bad. I'm very, very fucking lucky that I have a "wonderfully supportive partner" (this set of words is worse than Sting and Trudie talking about their house in Tuscany, i.e. they are really really bad, but I can't think of a better expression) who can support me financially ("I will pay for your bus fare, but not your shoes"), and who had no question in his mind that I should get the cock out (not literally - I am a ladymonkey, so do not have a cock i.e. knob).

In fact, it's more than "not so bad". The first time I was non-working (nearly five years ago!!) I had a big wodge of cash to pay for sweets, crisps, the mortgage etc. This time, I do not have a wodge of cash, but someone else is there to cover the bills if and when my own money runs out (let alone all the hot love and/or support I'm getting from friends, family etc), so I have the freedom that most people don't have: the freedom of being able to walk away from a well-paid, not difficult (physically or practically) job that was making me unhappy.

Someone called me "brave". There is nothing brave about this because there's no real risk involved, and no-one's dependent on me (so at least it's not selfish, I suppose). I took the decision to stop doing something that wasn't doing me much good. Instead, I have dusted off my fez, taken the absinthe out of the back of the cupboard, and tapped out my small clay pipe. It is Spring, my friends, and in Spring all kinds of things happen, including one-eyed 94 year-old Montreal taxi drivers shouting: "New York hasn't got Jack Shit Dick Malone on London, lady".

Pip pip!

NWM

Coming soon: I am less serious, and speculate on possible activities and/or hobbies to take part in over this spring/summer season in Montreal. I urge you to make suggestions, and may well open up a sort of "Challenge NWM" type affair.


* Well I might be, but I haven't checked my contract for, oh, 2 years. And anyway, I'm not that important and it wasn't that exciting.

** long and boring story: but my work permit was linked to my job, so without my job, I have no work permit and therefore cannot work. Yes.

I am on the final countdown!!

Loyal readers and fans all around the world are breathless with anticipation. Why? Because in 5 hours, I will, once again, be non-working.

What will it mean? Who knows.

I think about what I will not miss

Yes. In four days, I will be literally non-working once again. This has many benefits, but most of them - in the beginning anyway - will be to do with what I do not have to do anymore (at least for a while). For e.g:

Working in the same office every day
Disclaimer: I work in one of those 'industries' where you do not make something tangible e.g. biscuits, and where you do not have to be literally looking in the face of the people who are your clients like you would if you were, for example, working in a shop or an actor on a stage.

I have yet to understand why (and if) the logic of working in the same office every day still makes sense in this day and age, what with technology etc. It is rare that clients work in the same building as you; in my case, they often work buildings that are in a different city or country, not just down the road, so most of the time when we are 'communicating' we do it with telephones and emails etc. If we need to look at each other in the face, we have a meeting. But most of the time we do not have to look at each other in the face, so do not need to be in the same building.

Talking to and looking in the face (some of) the people who work for the same company as you can be important, but is becoming increasingly less important as most people email/IM to talk nowadays even if they share a desk in the same office.

There are also 'smart phones', which allow you to review Excel spreadsheets whilst having a fish pedicure. All this means that the old-style idea of planting your bimpty in the same office every day seems curiouser and curiouser, invented, as it was, before computers and telephones existed.

All this aside, there is time (and money) wasted travelling to work every day, let alone the fact that it is almost impossible to do any work in the office for the following reasons:

1. People ask if you "have 5 minutes" 10 times a day, and they always need 20 minutes. It is OK (especially if it is your job to answer questions, give advice etc), but it adds up in no time. Before you know it, it is 4pm and Binky in head office accounts still needs his thing. (Note: people ask you if you "have 5 minutes" even if your door is shut with a big sign that says "cock off" on it. I know. I have tried.)

2. Distractions, which are everywhere - for e.g. people talking, singing, the weather changing, needing a wee, needing a cup of tea, remembering to go and tell someone something funny you saw 3 days ago, having a stiff foot, going to get pens, going to put things in the recycling bin, going upstairs to get something and forgetting why you were there, going to get lunch, etc etc. Distractions take up about 3 hours of every day, and that's excluding the necessary social chit-chat etc.

3. Other people generally. When they are not distracting you for "5 minutes", they are doing things like being late for meetings, making you do conference calls, talking to you in the corridor, showing off in a way that makes you pretend to stand around and be amused, 'being funny' in meetings, being annoying in a way that makes you so cross you can only stare at the wall and sweat for 15 minutes and/or go for a walk round the block, etc etc.

I strongly support the notion of "working from home" being a genuinely OK thing, not something people say when they can't bear the thought of looking at Binky from head office accounts for another day. Why do I say this? Because I think it is good for the soul, but more importantly, I am convinced it increases productivity by over 523%. For example, when I work at home, I am not lying around watching Oprah and posting things like "My cough is getting worse!" on Facebook. No. I am watching Oprah (and sometimes also coughing), but I am also able to do approximately ten times more work than if I am in the office, as well as saving one half-hour of travel time and the price of a bus fare (approx $2).

Having to be at work at the same time every day

Ticking people off for not being in at 9 (or whatever it is) if they are doing their work well and on time is the sort of thing Sting would do if he was a boss. Other versions of ticking off - and this is a particularly British habit I think - include saying things like "good afternoon!" and "nice of you to join us!" when someone comes in at 9.23. Fuck. Off.

When I rule the world, I will say to the people who will be begging to work for me that I do not care what time and where they do their work, as long as they get it done and as long as they do not behave like preening cockmonkeys in the process. Everyone works differently and is good at different times of day. For e.g. I can't look at anything to do with numbers after 11.45am and I always need a nap at around 3pm, but I have been known to write entire presentations (that make sense) between the hours of 2 and 4am.

Not being listened to

I have written about this before and it still makes me very very cross, simply because it is so puzzlingly stupid. The more work I do, and the longer I do it for, and the more years that pass, the more I realise that at the root of most problems is the fact that someone didn't listen to someone else.

Having to be civil to people you think are idiots

If I worked with Sting it would be OK, because I wouldn't be afraid to tell him I think he is an idiot. (N.B.: Sting would not be my boss - he would be my 'peer'. I would not be his boss because he would have manoeuvered his way up the slimy ladder using a combination of rough North-Eastern charm and sex-favours, whereas I would have been rewarded for my genius). But sadly, I do not work with Sting, which means that I am not able to tell anyone that they are an idiot, even if it is clear to everyone else that they are.

I think that is enough for now, although I know for a fact that as this week goes by I will think of more and more things I won't miss. For e.g. here is one other thing I won't miss: the man with the wet mouth with the mop in the lift who looks at ladies' breasts. And the pavement outside the office when it's been snowing and the gritter hasn't come. And the annoying man in the shoe shop on the ground floor who shouts "I've got some lovely new Camper for you - you like Camper!", when I don't.