Monthly Archives: October 2010

Happy Saturday

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I had my 36 week ante-natal check up yesterday and had an unexpected ultrasound and was so happy to see my little baby doing so well in there.
I’m also happy that the obstetrician predicts another smallish (6-pound) baby and a few days early. Obviously nothing is carved in stone but it’s all good to hear what I want to hear anyway.

As I left the hospital this song came on the radio – I love love love this song, it perfectly suited my awesome Friday mood and I had to do a little car seat dancing while on the drive home.

As an aside… can any woman alive in the 80′s tell me they did not have a huge crush or Morten Harket?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914?fs=1]

You’re Fired!

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Picture by Nadir Hashmi on Flickr

When we were still in the planning stages of our recent wedding, we played with the idea of Darren and Millar wearing hats.
That idea was scrapped mainly because Darren does not suit hats. At all. Don’t know why. Some people just don’t.

 Anyway. We were looking for a child’s size fedora. We searched everywhere but they were all too big. Then we went into what looked like a specialist hat shop. A boutique milliners establishment. The kind of place you go to get your wedding hats, race day fascinators and what-not if you are into that kind of thing.

Anyway – we were looking around and the person working there asked if she could help.
 This is the conversation that followed:

I said “yes, we are looking for a child’s size fedora”

“a child’s size what?”
“fedora”
“fedora?”
“yes, a FEDORA”
“Sorry, I don’t know what a fedora is”
“It’s a hat”
“what does it look like”
“ummmmm” searching my brain “like an indiana jones hat?” wrong wrong wrong but you understand that I was put on the spot here.
I should have said Michael Jackson hat or gangster hat. It didn’t matter.

The point is, the person working in the HAT shop should perhaps know what a FEDORA is.

I thought perhaps that fedora was not a common word in Australia and maybe it was called something else but no. Every other clothing store that had these same hats called them fedoras.

So I thought… you’re fired lady. I expect that response at Kmart but not a freaking HAT shop.
This is just one example of the many strange experiences I have had while shopping or interacting with anyone in customer “services”. Those moments where I wonder if I accidentally walked into the wrong store and started talking about ottomans at the butcher shop.
Have you ever had an experience like this? Where you think:  “how did you get this job?”,  “why are you working here?”,  “am I speaking a different language?” or just plain old “oh my god I can’t believe you haven’t been fired yet, let me save your boss the conversation – get out.”

Or am I expecting way too much from frontline staff?