Should I ever cross paths with the SPOTD that designed the calendar program in my PocketPC then I shall most likely spend one hour punching them in the face. Why the sudden irritation with the device I carry with me always? Daylight savings.

Today marks the changeover date for daylight savings and when I turned on the PocketPC today a message appeared to advise me the clock had been automatically updated and that I should check the clock settings to make sure it was still correct (I assume just in case it turned backward one hour instead of forward). Anyway, the time was right but now a lot of my meetings are not.

I’ve been scheduling meetings in the device for coming weeks and apparently the SPOTD in charge of the software design thought “hey, perhaps if a person has made an appointment for 3:30pm then they actually meant for it to happen at 4:30pm so I’ll move their appointments forward one hour at the same time as daylight savings occurs”. Brilliant strategy. Except for one thing - I didn’t want all my meetings to jump forward one hour. Last week if I teed up a meeting at 9am for next week, I didn’t really mean “let’s make it 10am because of the time change”. I meant “9am, independent of whether daylight savings changes between now and then”.

Great plan, dear SPOTD. I’ve just lost an hour of my life adjusting many meetings backward one hour to get them to the originally scheduled times. I’ll be taking that one hour of my life back by repeatedly beating you in the face if we meet.

Categories: SPOTD
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Today’s SPOTD was actually several days ago but only discovered today. I recently used a raincheck ticket at my local Coles supermarket since, well, they’re a terrible supermarket and always run out of food on the shelf by about mid-week so you need to get a raincheck in order to get the items you want. This is, after all, the same Coles that led me to receiving payment for ranting about how terrible they were (see a previous SPOTD report - 3rd March 2005). Anyway, the raincheck was obtained a few weeks ago and I bought six of the items at the reduced price this week when doing my groceries. Alas, I only thought I was getting them at the reduced price…

The checkout operator looked at the raincheck ticket presented to her before scanning any items and then entered a key sequence into the console that we interpreted as “the next six items are at a reduced price”. However, as discovered when looking at the receipt today (a few days later) I noticed that had not happened at all. Evidently I’d made the foolish assumption that she might be competent at her job but it seems she scanned the first item of the six as “6 items at $2.50 each” then the remaining five items as “full price as well as the other items” which meant that even though 6 items crossed the scanner we were charged for 11.

Due to the timing of the grocery shopping being at the end of the day and the pressure of others in the line behind us, I didn’t notice the ~$30 discrepancy in the bill (it was a big bill anyway!) and paid. Coles now owes me $28.95 which I am certain will lead to fun getting back…

Categories: SPOTD
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Two middle-aged women travelling home on the tram tonight. From their conversation I discovered they worked together in some form of casual employment and that seemed to be the only reason one was talking to the other. One of the women was a brainless twit and the other woman did particularly well to restrain herself from punching the SPOTD in the face several times. I know I was tempted and I was only the eavesdropper… I was not initially taking much notice of the two women until my brain registered the comment “Is your brain turned on today?” for the second time then I quickly grabbed my PDA and started taking notes. The conversation drifted across several topics and rather than give the dull bits in between I’ll just provide the highlights.

On the topic of how far away Perth is (SPOTD’s boyfriend lives in Perth):

Woman 1: Perth is a lovely city. I’ve been there twice.
SPOTD: Oh, is it expensive to go there?

Woman 1: About $600

SPOTD: What?!? Why so much?

Woman 1: Well, you do have to cross the Nullabor.

SPOTD: The what? Whassat?

Woman 1: The Nullabor. You know, the desert.

SPOTD: Desert? What’s a desert? (pause) Oh. Wait. (another pause) What’s a desert?

Woman 1: Seriously?

SPOTD: Is it far?

Woman 1: Yes.

SPOTD: So, it’s a long way then?

Woman 1: Yes. It takes five days to drive there.

SPOTD: Sounds pretty far then.

Woman 1: Uh, yes.

And no, I do not know why the SPOTD has a boyfriend of two years in Perth but has no concept of how far it is nor the airfare price.

On the topic of holidays (the second time it came up in the conversation within five minutes):

SPOTD: So, are you going anywhere on holidays?

Woman 1: Cairns. I told you that five minutes ago.

SPOTD: Oh.

Woman 1: I told you. You weren’t listening to any of it, were you?

SPOTD: I was thinking about the Nullabor.

Woman 1: I hadn’t told you about the Nullabor at that stage.

SPOTD: Oh. Yeah.

Woman 1: Is your brain turned on today?

On the topic of family:

SPOTD: Does your son help much?

Woman 1: Yes, he lives with me.

SPOTD: Oh, that’s nice. So he, like, helps around the house?

Woman 1: Yes. He’s really helpful. He took the clothes off the line for me tonight.

SPOTD: Oh - so does he visit you much?

Woman 1: He … lives … with … me. I just told you that. You weren’t listening again, were you?

SPOTD: Um, nah. I was just, um …

Woman 1: You’ve not listened to anything today. Is your brain turned on?

SPOTD: Yeah!

(2 minutes later)

Woman 1: My son usually drives me to work. This is the first day I’ve taken the tram. I usually get driven - so much nicer.

SPOTD: Does he live far away from you?

Woman 1: He … lives … with … me.

SPOTD: Oh yeah.

On and on this conversation spiralled until finally Woman 1 escaped into the distance. Whether it was actually her stop or not is a matter for debate - she was clearly reaching her threshold with the SPOTD so she may just have gotten off and waited for the next tram.

Categories: SPOTD
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Today’s SPOTD was the checkout chick at Safeway supermarket who, though I had neatly separated the groceries on the rolling checkout belt, managed to rearrange everything such that she ended up putting heavy items on top of lighter items. Not content with just ignoring the effects of mass she also managed to bend items as much as possible.

A loaf of bread lying down had another loaf of bread placed in the bag such that it went up and draped over the first loaf. She then proceeded to place ~1.5kg of fruit and vegetables on top of the very squashable loaves and was surprised when I immediately repacked the bag to try and save the bread. Evidently she noted either my rolling eyes or the sigh that accompanied the headshake so made the comment that she was packing multiple items into the plastic bag since it was important to reduce plastic bag usage.

She did not take kindly to my comments that (1) failing to use brain cells doesn’t mean you’re helping the environment or (2) if Safeway was serious about the environment they wouldn’t initiate demented procedures like changing from lettuces presented as is to now selling them each individually wrapped in a plastic bag. Obviously this particular checkout chick was not responsible for that decision but she could have used her brain to realise that bread is very likely to be flattened by the substantial weight of other grocery items.

Categories: SPOTD
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Walking home tonight I noticed there was a piece of fishing line with a large hook attached lying in the street. Figuring that this was a rather odd thing to have lying in the street and since it was right outside the kindergarden I figured it would be an appropriately community minded act to pick up the hook and line to ensure others didn’t get hurt.

“Look,” I said to my beloved as I reached down and picked up the hook, “some idiot has left a fish hook in the street - someone could easily be stab-AAAAAAARGH!”

Yep, that someone was me. I hadn’t noticed another piece of fishing line coiled in a different direction to the piece I’d seen and suddenly I was picking up a piece of fishing line I was standing on so when the slack ran out I found myself with a fish hook stabbing me in the finger. Fortunately it didn’t stick in properly and after disinfecting the entry point it looks like no permanent damage was done. Other than my pride, of course, which was damaged by winning the SPOTD award.

Categories: SPOTD
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