During the day, occasionally, V & I have email chats.  Here, I will give the one we had yesterday – well my bits anyway, because they tell of the new clocking in card that I have to use.

Several people have asked if it is true that I am now a dipendente and I now have a card to clock in and out with!  This is a seriously fucked up country.  People seem to be impressed by a project plan that I have pieced together and put up on the wall (25 pages all stuck together).  It looks like I have been working for the last few months and NOT surfing blogland.  I have no other news.

Yes, but there’s more!  Today the clock card puncher wasn’t working – because ‘today is the first of the month and it never works on the first of the month’.  But to use the clock one must, first, make sure that the slider is in the right position!

There are six possible positions.  Position 1 is first thing in the morning.  Position 2 is when you go to lunch.  Position 3 is when you return from lunch.  Position 4 is when you leave work.

Now, apparently I don’t have to clock in and out for lunch.  However, I DO have to clock in or out if I go for a coffee at a café outside the offices!  Also I DO have to clock in and out if, for example, I visit a customer during the day!!!  And that’s why there are 6 slider positions.  God knows what you do if you come in in the morning, go out to a customer, return in time for lunch, go to a café for a coffee, return back and then have to go to another customer in the afternoon!  Not enough slider positions.

Personally I think the clock will probably self-destruct.  I can’t wait to see.

I’m currently doing the other project.  That’s even bigger – but I haven’t got a wall that’s big enough to put it on.  I’m thinking of asking for my own office now that I’m level seven.  I’m sure that at this level I shouldn’t have to share!

Also I’m thinking of setting up a GLOBE organization, just like the one at Ford, but here.  What do you think?

If you get time to surf the internet, have a look for the kid that had his tongue cut off by a substitute teacher in Milan.  It was breaking news yesterday, but you can still find it today.  Apparently he runs away if he sees anyone holding a pair of scissors!

And, on that subject, I found my original source of the tongue episode and you can view it here<.  I warn you that some of the comments made are a little strong.

Last night when H arrived and V came back from walking Rufus, H asked me what was new (as I was having a quick look at the BBC site).  Of course I told them about Charlotte Church being pregnant, which prompted a discussion about that and, somewhere in the conversation she was compared to Jennifer Lopez (how? why? who cares?); and then I mentioned the tongue incident.  So I showed them some of the blogs and news stories.  We had a good laugh about it all.  I mean it’s a serious thing but, then again, so ridiculous and bizarre as to be very funny.  What’s worse is that the teacher, by many accounts, claims it was an accident!  But now I’ve found a picture and you can judge for yourself how much of an accident it can possibly be.

In the meantime, H suggested that I record our conversation.  Brilliant idea except that I’ve completely forgotten what we all said, except that it was very, very funny.  We did talk about how the kid must have stuck his tongue out with the express purpose of having it cut.  But, to be honest what on earth was the teacher doing to have the scissors so close to the kid’s mouth?

No doubt, in the next few days, when the real story comes out, it will be on the BBC site and, if so, I’ll put the link up here.