[Cause]

I'm starting to think I may be an asshole. I don't want to be, I don't mean to be, but am I?

Everyone at work knows me. They greet me by name, they say hello. I'm polite, I say hello back of course but I have no idea who these people are. Who are they? How do they know me? Why do I not know them? Sometimes I put it down just to the fact that as the new guy (though we are closing on two years) its easier for them to remember the one new guys name than it is for me to remember the names of everyone I was introduced to but the scale of it is truly mindboggling. The scientists, the engineers, the artisans, the cleaning staff they all know me by name and I am convinced I have never met some of them before. In some cases I was told someone's name a year ago and now don't remember it but its too awkward to ask again. In some cases its just an absolute mystery, I once got called to another lab who had a mysterious package with my first name on it and they thought it may have been for me, it wasn't, but until that day I didn't know that department existed so how they hell did they know my name or how to find me. Turns out when I was in masters one of them was doing their phd at my university.

I do tend to not put too much effort into mastering new people names when I expect Ill never see them again but maybe I need to rethink this attitude. Its truly bizarre to walk down the corridor and be greeted by name by someone and just have no clue who they are. I'm starting to feel like a right c%$&


Though this does remind me: Once when I was in highschool I had a truly bizarre moment where a guy approached me at a restaurant (I was sitting with some friends) and started a conversation with me. I had no idea who he was but didn't want to seem rude so I just played along. Eventually he asked me my star sign and I realized he didn't know me either. To this day I don't know if I was being hit on or if it was some bizarre prank. If he was hitting on me the guy had balls.

Similiarly once a friend and I were just walking through a shopping centre killing time and waiting for our moms to fetch us. Suddenly this hot girl approached us and started walking with us. Discussed how she had been to a pride march earlier that day to support her friend but told us she was straight. Kept walking with us and talking with us etc until we said we had to leave. Once she was gone my friend and I both turned to each other and at the same time asked something alonf the lines of 'How do you know her, she was hot. You should go for it'.

[Abyss]

BfuckinK, on 30 June 2019 - 03:00 AM, said:

Abyss, on 30 June 2019 - 02:49 AM, said:

Macros, on 27 June 2019 - 10:01 AM, said:

exhaustion.

I haven't been this tired in a long long time.

i think the last time I had this much grief on the run in to finish on a job was the villa in France

I said I was sorry Mac.

I got that far and I admit I began to get in full BK mode but then I read the rest of the post.

I do not know what any of that means.

[Mentalist]

Cause, on 01 July 2019 - 09:38 AM, said:

I'm starting to think I may be an asshole. I don't want to be, I don't mean to be, but am I?

Everyone at work knows me. They greet me by name, they say hello. I'm polite, I say hello back of course but I have no idea who these people are. Who are they? How do they know me? Why do I not know them? Sometimes I put it down just to the fact that as the new guy (though we are closing on two years) its easier for them to remember the one new guys name than it is for me to remember the names of everyone I was introduced to but the scale of it is truly mindboggling. The scientists, the engineers, the artisans, the cleaning staff they all know me by name and I am convinced I have never met some of them before. In some cases I was told someone's name a year ago and now don't remember it but its too awkward to ask again. In some cases its just an absolute mystery, I once got called to another lab who had a mysterious package with my first name on it and they thought it may have been for me, it wasn't, but until that day I didn't know that department existed so how they hell did they know my name or how to find me. Turns out when I was in masters one of them was doing their phd at my university.

I do tend to not put too much effort into mastering new people names when I expect Ill never see them again but maybe I need to rethink this attitude. Its truly bizarre to walk down the corridor and be greeted by name by someone and just have no clue who they are. I'm starting to feel like a right c%$&


Though this does remind me: Once when I was in highschool I had a truly bizarre moment where a guy approached me at a restaurant (I was sitting with some friends) and started a conversation with me. I had no idea who he was but didn't want to seem rude so I just played along. Eventually he asked me my star sign and I realized he didn't know me either. To this day I don't know if I was being hit on or if it was some bizarre prank. If he was hitting on me the guy had balls.

Similiarly once a friend and I were just walking through a shopping centre killing time and waiting for our moms to fetch us. Suddenly this hot girl approached us and started walking with us. Discussed how she had been to a pride march earlier that day to support her friend but told us she was straight. Kept walking with us and talking with us etc until we said we had to leave. Once she was gone my friend and I both turned to each other and at the same time asked something alonf the lines of 'How do you know her, she was hot. You should go for it'.

I'm absolutely terrible with names. I have remember faces, and often when dealing with clients I could tell you their entire life story, but I will have no clue what their name is.

The way I avoid awkwardness is by being completely up front about it and asking the person's name againan while apologizing and saying I remember the face, but not the name. You can turn it into a small talk piece, since usually everyone knows someone whose memory is horrible for some specific thing and nothing else.

[Cause]

Two things.

1) My post about this somehow never posted so I have to write it again

2) I'm starting to get a lot of: 'When will you come back to south Africa' and 'Don't you want to be part of the solution in South Africa'.

These questions annoy me, because they imply I'm abandoning South Africa and running away from its problems when I have a duty to help it. I'm not sure that I do and If I do South Africa tries hard to make it clear its not sure it wants my help. I applied for three jobs including the one I have now. I applied for a lecturer position at a correspondence university (UNISA) and for a research position at two labs at the NICD one researching HIV and one Ebola (current job). UNISA just came out and told me, we like you for the job but HR says we have to wait 3 months to make sure we cant find a black candidate first. They eventually did get back to me after 3 months to offer me the job but I had found one already. The HIV lab interviewed me, then called the head of the lab to interview, who called the labs co-head to come interview, who then had the team id be walking with interview me before finally giving me a tour of the lab and introducing me to every person there. I thought this was a good sign. Never heard from them again, until a year later at the movies (turns out a friend of mine was friends with one of the team and I didn't know) where the guy tells me they really liked me for the position but HR said no. Which brought me to the job I do have, which hired me a week after my interview. Turns out they had been looking for a qualified candidate for over a year. The law is that jobs must favour the black majority (80%) > Indians (10%) > Whites (10%). Women get preference over men, disabled people get preference over women. However its not jut about selecting between two equally qualified candidates its about the demographics of the entire work force. HR at UNISA didn't want to hire me because government institutions and government linked institutions (UNISA) follow a policy that the work force must match the population demographics as close to possible. So if ten percent or more of the work force is already white they must avoid hiring more white people. We live in a small world today with a global economy, why must I deal with this and hiring ceilings if I can go elsewhere.

In any event I don't see how me staying and working as a biochemist is going to fix the rampant corruption of the ruling party which destroys everything it touches. South Africa may fix itself but only after experiencing enough pain that they realize they will need to make the hard choices instead of postponing them indefinitely.

[Abyss]

Groove is messed because despite, or perhaps due to, a fun Canada Day long weekend, I am hungover, underslept, undercaffinated, hungry, and expected to perform minor miracles that depend largely on other people who are probably on vacation but didn't leave their phone or email alerts on.


It is days like these where i realize that I could resume become a serial killer so very, very easily.

[Malankazooie]

[Maark Abbott]

Caught my thumb between two weights whilst doing some gym stuff earlier. Ow

[Gorefest]

Did they make you pay for new weights? Or is the damage not too excessive?

[Maark Abbott]

Gorefest, on 03 July 2019 - 12:37 PM, said:

Did they make you pay for new weights? Or is the damage not too excessive?

Hah! Puny American weights cannot do lasting damage to me.

[Malankazooie]

I'm not a particular fan of this. There are a few members on the USWNT team who can be assholes. Alex Morgan is one of them.



Rose Lavelle though! Hot diggity, she is my new obsession! She sorta flew under my radar prior, but dayuuuum she's shining bright like a diamond in this World Cup. Every time she has control of the balll you can't keep your eyes off her. And that nutmeg she executed on that England defender was outright nasty! Siiiiiiick!

[Gorefest]

I, too, thought it was quite amusing. Nothing wrong with a bit of playful banter in a competitive sports environment. As long as they can take it on the chin as well as dole it out. Hopefulky we will find out on Sunday 😉

[Malankazooie]

The overreaction is what I find amusing about it. You'd think the people who are offended want a congressional hearing or something about it. I just think it's a bit in poor taste (so on my groove scale, probably a 0.5 on a scale that goes to 10). Mocking another team is not a good look, especially coming from the strong favorites going in to the World Cup. I'm all for celebrating after scoring a goal though.

[Tiste Simeon]

It's cool man we British can take a joke...

[worry]

The booms here started at exactly 12:00 AM on July 1st and have not let up.

[Mentalist]

worry, on 04 July 2019 - 04:40 AM, said:

The booms here started at exactly 12:00 AM on July 1st and have not let up.

Your neighbourhood was infiltrated by Canadians?

[worry]

Haha my neighbors celebrate Canada Day every year, whether they know it or not.

[Macros]

The tea sip is just banter lighten up world

[Maark Abbott]

When people actually care about sports :jebaited:

[Macros]

But I slept in for work.
First time in a long time

[Cause]

The brother in law is back (the alcoholic drug addict).

He occasionally comes over and sleeps in a makeshift room downstairs because he apparently has no where else to stay. Now he is the father of my nephew, and my mom and sister feel some guilt or sympathy for him that makes them allow this but it infuriates me and I try to talk them out of it all the time. For various reasons:

1) We now run around locking our valuables up when we leave our house because he cant be trusted not to steal and pawn them. I have to lock my bedroom door when I leave for the day, my mother locks hers when she leaves for dinners etc. We should have to live like this in our own house.

2) A while back I bought chocolate bar-one ice cream sauce to try. It was expensive but local restaurants use it to make some of my favorite desserts so I thought I would give it a go. It straight up vanished. I could not find it anywhere no one claimed to have eaten it. Mystery but I figured it got thrown out by accident or something. So last weekend I bought it again, finally tried it (its actually nothing special) but when I went back for some more a few night later it had vanished again. Finally dawned on me what happened. I have no idea why but the brother in law is just eating it straight from the bottle. Now its ice cream sauce (its expensive for ice cream sauce, 7$, but cheap in the grand scheme of things) but whats annoying is that I'm back to living in a house that when things go missing I cant be sure if I have lost or misplaced them or they have been stolen. It just happens to be ice cream sauce this time and not my late fathers watch. My mother says I was being ridiculous because he denied it and no one needs to steal chocolate sauce

3) When I brought my dogs in last night instead of running straight for my room as they normally do, they ran straight for his 'bedroom'. I don't speak to him anymore, I'm quite clear that I don't consider him welcome in my house (as clear as I can be without speaking to him), so I have never been in their but I had to chase my dog. My dog was drawn in their becauase of course it was a pigsty with food everywhere and the beagle can sense in guarded food in 1 part per billion. However what drew my eye was the almost empty 1 litre bottle of alcohol that he seemed to forget to hide. I actually don't know where he was last night but thank god he wasn't in the room at the time. I don't think my sister or mother are surprised, I'm certainly not, but this only makes the fact that they let him stay in our home all the more absurd to me. Oh I also found my bottle of honey-mustard sauce, so I'm not ridiculous. I have no idea why but he seems to be eating sauces on their own.

Now it might seem heartless that I just want him gone without helping him but I did try. I took him to rehab 3 times, helped pay for it. Drove him to meetings that he never actually went to. Drove him to hospital and staued with him when he relapsed. When he moved out and said he was sober I said simply if he couldt manage to get sober when he had the moral and financial support of his family how could he do it on his own. Confronted with a beer in his room he will just say that if we don't trust him how can he get better. I would help him if he wanted help but if he is going to deny theirs a problem still I would rather he live somewhere else regardless where that is. I now prioritize my health and more importantly my sisters help over him. I'm just hoping my mother and sister see that keeping him around is not health. I wish my father were still alive because he would not tolerate this shit in his home.