Somebody Had To Say This....
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4. Be prepared for SO. MUCH. MORE. bureaucracy than you had ever anticipated. Queues: accept them. Also accept that everything after you get to the front of the queue seems completely illogical. Because it is.
From Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a Big Continent':
There are endless forms to fill in, each with pages of instructions, which often contradict other instructions and almost always lead to the need for more forms. It is like this with every encounter you have with every branch of the American government. After a while you begin to understand why flinty-eyed cowpokes in places like Montana turn their ranches into fortresses and threaten to shoot any government officer fool enough to walk into the cross-hairs.
In my professional life, I have to deal with one particular strand of American bureaucracy via a game of Chinese whispers with a local agent. It certainly isn't good for my blood pressure. Oh, and the 'A4' thing? WTF?
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You should definitely judge them (loudly and often) on their white socks, though. Otherwise they'll never learn.
Funny, that takes me back to travels in former communist Europe, where earnest young men in white socks approached you saying 'change money maybe?' Guess it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for that to be happening in the USA these days. Or perhaps they'd be Canadian Mounties in Chaps.
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4. Be prepared for SO. MUCH. MORE. bureaucracy than you had ever anticipated. Queues: accept them. Also accept that everything after you get to the front of the queue seems completely illogical. Because it is.
Oh and also? During the first couple of weeks? Every time you see a queue, join it and then ask what it's for.
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Oh, and the 'A4' thing? WTF?
Isn't that an iPad?
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The possibilities for giving people crazy ideas about New Zealand are probably endless.
Just turn up and ask where you can stall your sheep and take it downhill from there.
1. 'Twat' is a much worse word over there than it is here. (Not that you would ever use such a word anyway, Lucy. And nor did I. Ahem.)
See also: tramping. Does not mean the same thing in America as hiking. If you say you're taking your sheep tramping, the humour possibilities are practically endless.
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Oh, and the 'A4' thing? WTF?
Its the most stupidist sized piece of paper ever invented.
Letter.
Too wide, too short. ...for anything.
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Oh,,,and don't mention you play the position in Rugby known as ....hooker.
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Wow, no love for Letter paper at PAS. I can't say it's really affected my life at all. File folders are generally big enough for both/either. I didn't pack ring binders (no space left after all the books and art and kitchenware). Even printing documents from home is not the problem it might once have been: modern COTS software generally does the necessary conversions painlessly and automatically. (And if you're using something more esoteric, you probably also know how to boss it around.)
On the other hand, if your note-taking/keeping habits rely on a steady supply of 1B4s, I recommend bringing them from home. Exercise books here seem to have much flimsier paper.
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Its the most stupidist sized piece of paper ever invented.
Letter.
Too wide, too short. ...for anything.
Metric System FTW.
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Its the most stupidist sized piece of paper ever invented.
I'm used to this stuff from work. Always makes the photocopier throw a fit. Hit size override to A4, proceed as normal, rinse, repeat...
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Bloody Imperialists...
I hate the way Word defaults to US Letter size
and what about that Foolscap...
- are lawyers the only ones still using that?I - I think I'm going out of my head...
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Back in the day we used Teletype machines with a roll of paper = minimal waste.
Now Days in order to print a message TTY/Fax/email you're printing an A4 minimum.
I guess the printers purchased shares in the paper manufacturers and increased profits through waste. -
A2 Brutus...?
Nowadays in order to print a message TTY/Fax/email you're printing an A4 minimum.
You should be able to use an A5 sheet for small messages - though you'll probably need to guillotine the A4 in half yourself...
(By the way what's a TTY?)
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'fake and gay'
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TTY = teletype. I would have thought you'd be all over those bad boys, although to be frank I don't exactly know why.
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By the way what's a TTY
A whippersnapper eh?
Well.
A TTY is short for Teletype.
Chug chug chug doog doog*
Now all you folk complaining about not getting your full 10 MBytes of Broadband should now sit up and listen.
When I was younger, there was a time when all you did with a phone line was talk and if you were a flash buznuss, you had a telex. These things worked at 110 baud. That is 110 BITS per second. The odd order of mag less than wot you got now.
TTYs were able to keep up with that rate. Each letter came out on the continuous paper roll at about 2 or 3 characters per second.
Thus endeth the history lesson.
* type a letter, type a letter, type a letter, carriage return, line feed.
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Oh,,,and don't mention you play the position in Rugby known as ....hooker.
So I'm not allowed to tell people why Sean Fitzpatrick is one of our national heroes? Because that was definitely on the list.
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Did you see the Starbuck's handgun item on the news? The coffee's bad, but is it that bad?
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The Bishop on Close-Up with his sidekick, Lewis.
Lewis is to Tamaki what Stringer Bell is to Avon Barksdale.
(Have just belatedly finished Season One of The Wire)
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Lewis is to Tamaki what Stringer Bell is to Avon Barksdale.
(Have just belatedly finished Season One of The Wire)
Does that make John Campbell Omar? (Helps to have seen last night's Campbell Live )
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Does that make John Campbell Omar? (Helps to have seen last night's Campbell Live )
Good point. Campbell is getting a bit cut throat on this:)
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The Bishop on Close-Up with his sidekick, Lewis
I always find the double act a bit creepy with those two. I guess the brooding minder is there to stop the Bish having a rush of ego and blurting that he gets paid a quarter of what the Telecom boss gets. Didn't work, but.
I'm sure their god would love a man of pride and hair gel as much as one with lush possessions and a firm sense of entitlement. And that John Campbell chap is clearly acting out of self-interest, corrupted by envy. Sinner.
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Sean Fitzpatrick is one of our national heroes?
Well, could be but he was number 2. Thats the number the hooker uses. Some countries call that position The Rake. But that too has other ...ahem..meanings.
Lots of guys over there called Randy. That's a good one too.
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Anyone here from Christchurch? Want to buy a bridge, or some shares in my deceased millionaire Nigerian grandma?
Way off topic, I know, but somebody had to say it.
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Yeah. I have a ghost investor who'd like to buy shares in your deceased Nigerian grandmother's spirit. Preferential shares.
Will pay in genuine afterlife Ruberian nuples- or a simulcra suitable for this world, if required.
(You are from the SPCA, aren't you?)
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