Beam me up Scotty! My first blog ever!

Day 1. Captain’s first blog.

Kettle is boiling water for my first cup of coffee and I’m here wondering, “How the hell does it know when the water is boiled? It’s not like I can see a temperature gauge on the side of it so how does it know? This bloody kettle is smarter than me to rahtid!”

I’m sitting here at my desk, a full hour and a half before work hours actually begin… its 7am here in Jamaica, 2am somewhere else in the world and I’m at fucking work. Unbelievable! But I’ve been doing it every day since I started working here 3 weeks ago (today’s my 3 week anniversary!).

Why do I do it? I love my job. Even though I have ‘manager’ at the end of my title, I get to wear what I want to work, which gets the corporate types jealous in their spiffy little uniforms. I get to take lunch when I want for as long as I want, which usually means eating at my desk taking bites in between writing emails, answering calls, signing invoices and requisitions, viewing quotations and checking out car parts online that I can barely afford much less order but I have big dreams so screw me! And in between all that I get to attend management meetings twice a week which usually turn into a colorful display of the English language combined with Jamaican patois [see inserts below]:

CEO: “Craig, what the fuck?!? Seriously, how di bumboclaat u mek this happen (again) this week?” 

Craig (staring at notepad filled with potential lines for latest blog): “I ordered the parts, I cross-referenced the part numbers and I confirmed everything with the supplier. We had several long emails back & forth, I scanned diagrams & circled exactly what I needed, I took a photo with my BB and emailed it with my finger pointing at exactly what part was broken and the supplier still sent the wrong part.”

CEO: “In other words… you fucked up didn’t you?!? [short pause] YOU fucked up.”

And somehow at some point in all of this someone manages to crack a joke and we end up laughing at the end. Yup, I look forward to those moments twice a week.

Hold on, water’s finished boiling. Coffee time!

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So I got up and put in 2 teaspoons of coffee, filled my red cup (yes its red, it’s different and it’s me) with water then reached in the fridge only to pick up an empty can of condensed milk. The “WTF?!?” came out a bit louder than it  should have. It was one of those “Nooooooooo!” moments. You know like in that scene of a movie where the hero is on his knees, shirt opened, sweat and tears streaked across his face, arms raised above his head and just as he screams “Nooooooooo!” it starts to rain? – That was me. But then I found another can hidden a little further down and I was ok.

After countless spoonfuls of this sweet goodness I’ve decided I need a bigger spoon but I’ll be ok for today at least. I got my coffee, it’s free and stored in my office so I can survive another day. With JA$70 worth of coins in my pocket and thinking about going to raid the coin tray in my car, I better survive today!

I’m slightly stressed out even though I cleared all my paperwork by working till 9pm the night before. The supplier who screwed me over the day before is still giving me a bullshit excuse. I hate excuses, especially when I have to in turn try to give them. Let’s face it… an explanation for anything that went wrong is an excuse for why it didn’t happen. At least to me it is. So don’t give me one of those blah, blah, blah versions, because that’s all I hear, while I think about the best color ink to sign your next memo in.

I think I’ll go with blue.

The caffeine is working, I’m feeling my buzz already... Beam me up Scotty! Hopefully today will be a good day. I just wrote my first blog ever! Back to work ppl! Back to work!