Diary of Mac the Macaque

 I was born on Saturday 23rd October 2010. It took my creator one week to create me, just like the biggest human’s fairy tale said about human and their creator. Although she did not plan it this way – she thought it would take her much longer than a week to create me.

On my first day on Earth, my diary is already quite full. I am very excited hearing all the exciting journeys that my creator Adeline and her husband Andy plan for me. Here are some of their ideas:

Monday 25th October. Adeline said she is going to sneak me into her handbag and take me to her job in the court room. Imagine that, being the first monkey ever to sit in a live court room! She said she wants to try to take a picture of me there, but she has to check all the legal stuff first as cameras are not allowed in the court room.

Tuesday – or the day after if I get too tired on my first day out. Andy might take me to his exciting job as a cameraman. He said he will let me sit on the dashboard of his cameraman van so that I can see where we’re going, then he will introduce me to Jojo his cameraman friend and Julie his director friend who also likes to create creatures like me. Oh, I hope Julie will have her cuddly friend with her so that I can flirt!

The next day after going out with Andy the cameraman, I will come with Adeline again to her office. This is the other office, not the court one, she said. Adeline said that I will brighten the mood in her office because there are many miserable people there. She said I have to be especially nice and be as funny as possible to a man in red who comes in the morning bringing the letters. She said the miserable postman will need my cheering up the most. Secondly, she asked me to my funny self to a guy who hates cheese – although I don’t know how am I supposed to recognise him if Adeline is not around. For the rest of the day, she ask me to sit quietly on her computer screen while she works.

Andy and Adeline have a teenage son called Jacques. He is nice for a teenager. I was scared at him in the beginning; because I heard that teenagers are scary creatures who hate cute cuddly creature like me (my friends in cuddly creature heaven told me so before I was born). However, Jacques proved that my friends are wrong. He is a nice gentle teenager creature who smiles at me. He even let me tried to ride his creation that has battery and wheels! I did not drive it well though, because I was too big for his battery-powered creation.

I overheard Andy and Adeline’s conversation about taking me to Jacques’ school one day (but pssst…. I have to be quiet about this because they don’t want to embarrass Jacques). They said I can come to the next parents’ evening to see Jacques teacher. Jacques’ teacher is a very clever human, his name is Doctor something. I heard that when a human has a Doctor in the beginning of its name, it means this human studied for a very long time and knows so many complicated things. Jacques’ teacher knows a lot about how the physical world works, he even has a theory on how the whole big universe started. Wow… how I wish I were that clever.

What is also exciting is that going to Jacques’ school means I can see pictures of clever and famous people who used to study there. Andy said he will take a picture of me with Michael Wood the famous historian – his picture is on the school’s wall, so I will have to hang on to his picture frame while Andy takes my picture. There are other famous scientists, journalists, and all seriously clever people that I will see in Jacques’ school.

Since I was born in October whilst the weather is cold, I have to wait for a few more months before my first camping trip. Yes, Andy and Adeline said they are going to take me camping and take a picture of me in their big tent! I cannot wait for that. And who knows, they might take me to fly one day. I heard that human sometimes ride these huge iron birds that take them somewhere far far away from their home. I heard that these iron birds are also human’s creation. How wonderful! I think these human are really clever creature.

This is only my first day on Earth, so I will need lots of rest and sleep. I will write again soon.

Mac

My Cunning Plan (How to Deal with Miserable People Part 3)

Earlier I was puzzling, thinking, and stressing about some miserable people at work. My good friends sent me some suggestions that are very helpful and uplifting, that thanks to them, I regain my crazy bonkers self back. Now I have a cunning plan!

Let me start with my new hobby – be patient, reader, I will get to my cunning plan. About a month ago, one Saturday in late September, I started knitting. Yes, knitting, as in the activity of an old woman in a rocking chair with her cat chasing her ball of wool around.

This started when I did not get the job I wanted. I applied for the position of Press Office Assistant at the City Council, got the interview, but by the end of the week got the news that my application was not successful. It felt like being dumped by a boyfriend – with cool and don’t care stage, then denial, then crying out loud. I needed a bounced back plan.

Saturday morning, my husband took me for a walk around the canal near where we live. As walk around feeding the ducks, we saw a boat with signs saying, “We sell wool”. I always liked looking at colourful wools and I never been inside a canal boat. So we walked in. The boat was full of jumpers, tea pot holders, scarf and wool for sale. A chat with the nice lady and her husband later, I said, “Oh…how lovely! I always wanted to learn to knit.” Then there it goes, my new hobby was born.

Now, I knit. I am addicted to knitting as it relaxed me. I do not care about the job I did not get, because I knit. Miserable people at work upset me, so I got home and I knit. My husband wants to watch motoring programme on TV that I am not very interested in, I knit. I love it!

With my new hobby, I now have a cunning plan to defend myself against the miserable dementors at work. I decided that I am going to knit some cute finger puppets and take them to work. The plan is, whenever someone said something miserable or whine and whinge, my finger puppet will appear from my pocket and save the day!

And oh, I forgot to mention earlier about the grumpy postman who came to our office every morning. He always gave us too many letters – half of them are actually for the office next door, but he is just too lazy to walk and knock on the other door. When I said, “Excuse me, these two letters are not for us, it’s for them next door.” His grumpy face got grumpier and he always said something rude to me like, “It is on the same floor, isn’t it?! Why should there be too many different offices on the same floor?!” (Jeeezz… I did not design the offices! Do not take it on me, lazy a**e!)

When my finger puppets are done, Mr Grumpy Postman will be the first to meet them. I think one of them will say, “What’s with the grumpy face? When the wind changes, your face will stay like that forever. You don’t want that, do you?”

As with Mr Smelly cheese, I think my finger puppet will say something to him accordingly.

It’s good having a new hobby that is happy and cheerful!

Dealing with Miserable People - Part Two

Last night I posted a question of how to deal with miserable people. Thanks to so many happy and caring friends on the social network I am on, I received quite a few suggestions.

Rio, my friend from secondary school (which is what, almost 20 years ago?) said, “Send him (the smelly cheese guy) to Somalia sot that he will become the cheese (to eat).”.

My happy bubbly friend Cat wrote, “All I can advise you is get out of there asap! Some people are happiest when they are miserable. There’s no darn thing you can do to change that because they don’t want to change unfortunately.”

Jojo, a wise friend with some very good philosophy on his social networking site wrote, “Just smile and always be happy! Life is so short! I am not sure why people are the way they are but they must be unhappy in their lives somehow. I have hope in all people that they can change. As long as we never become miserable ourselves because of their attitude, we have nothing to worry about. So keep cooking your smelly cheese… :-)”

Then Donna, a friend and ex-colleague from the aviation magazine I used to work for came up with this, “Bring durian next time!” Durian is a fruit from South East Asia that is like its name, full of spikes. For South East Asian people, durian is like Marmite: you either love it or hate it!

Not a fan of durian myself, I like the way it was described on a travel programme on BBC Radio 4, “It tastes and smells like kissing your dead grand mother.” Now I can really imagine having this fruit at my office. Maybe I can stand the taste with a thought that it will kill all the dementors in my office!

I thank all my friends who with their supports and advises, made me laughed until I almost fell from my chair. I guess one of the many possible ways of dealing with miserable people is to laugh out loud – although today I found out that laughing is now forbidden in my office (to cut the long story short, a very nice manager of mine had a funny ring tone on her phone that every time it rang, I laughed out loud. Then someone shush us.)

So, today I decided: If I could not laugh with them, then I shall laugh at them. Hahahahahahaha……. After all, the way to beat the dementors according to lovely Miss J.K. Rowlings is to keep your happy thoughts….

How to Deal with Miserable People?

This is not a self-help article on how to deal with miserable people. This is a question.

I have a problem. I am sharing an office with a bunch of miserable people. Not all of them are, just some of them. These miserable bunch is like a group of Harry Potter’s dementors who suck all the happiness and good energy from whoever pass them. I am not exaggerating.

Let me spill the detail. Today I made a cheese and onion toasties for my lunch. They are yummy. I used mature cheddar cheese that was left from our dinner the night before. Then a miserable guy from this lot – there are about four miserable people there – came to the shared kitchen and said, “Ah, so you are the culprit!” He never spoke to me before, normally when I said good morning or hi whenever we passed, he just walked as if I were a transparent ghost.

I said, “Excuse me?” Then he said, “Your cheese smells. I could smell it even from when I got out of the lift.”

Ah, so he is a cheese hater, I thought. So I kindly – with a smile – asked, “So you don’t like cheese? What a shame. Cheese is nice!”

He said, “No, I like cheese. But your cheese smell!” (Jesus! What a miserable sod!)

Just before he left the kitchen I said, “Why don’t you get an oxygen mask.” I’m not sure whether he heard my suggestion or not. I don’t care. He hates my cheese so I can’t help but dislike him.

What I wanted to tell him but did not have time to think it over was this, “Look mate, I came from a third world country, I’ve seen real hunger. So I never wasted food. Last night’s left over is my lunch. Besides, my stomach can take any expired food and it never failed me.” I did not say this. Instead I just left the office and sit in the sun for half an hour.

About a month ago, an old lady from the same bunch suddenly told us off. We – some colleagues from my team and I – were chatting casually about some current affair news It was the palarva in America caused by a crazy Christian who declared 9/11 as a Quran burning day. We were lightly discussing about flag burning in demonstrations – American flag is very popular for this purpose that one of my colleague had an idea to open a business of “easy burning American flag” – and how one culture to another view this kind of expression.

Then this woman – who was normally very chatty, many times she stopped by our desks to chat about many things and no one could stop her talking – suddenly said, “Excuse me, if you guys want to chat, could you chat somewhere else. I am working.” Huh?!! I could not believe my hearing, but apparently I wasn’t hearing voices because my big big boss was there and she opened her mouth so wide in amazement and said, “Did she just told us to shut up?”

The same old woman once followed me around from the kitchen to comment about my team – something that is none of her business at all. This was one Friday afternoon, about quarter to four. My two colleagues just left the office – they were actually going to our other office across the road. I was washing my cups in the kitchen and it was too late to avoid her. She came to me saying, “Adeline, what is wrong with your team? This is a quarter to four and people already left!”

While trying to run away, I said to her, “Maybe they are taking flexi or going to the other office, I don’t know. I am not the manager.” She followed me around and said her words about 10 centimetres from my ear (and she is LOUD), “But this is still office hours!! Bla….Bla….” I ran faster and stopped at my boss’ desk saying, “Ask him. He is the manager, I’m not.” My poor nice boss who were concentrating on some work got up and asked me, “What’s the matter what’s the matter?” By this time, the old woman had already walked away back to her desk mumbling to herself. I was left speechless and could only said, “It is none of her business. It is none of her bloody business.”

Yesterday I got a task from my line manager to print some forms. There are a few different forms that are colour coded, so I needed to load different coloured paper into the joint printer. I could sense trouble soonest I got hold of some pink papers. The dirty looks that was aimed at me was so strong that they could kill a passing fly or bee! A miserable woman – and this one is the champion of all miserable people for the reason that I will tell you next – rolled her eyes so widely that I was worried they might popped out of her eye sockets.

I could not be bothered loading the paper tray with pink, yellow and green papers with three-four dementors hovering around me waiting to make a kill. Oh no, it’s not worth my life! So I told my boss that I will do the task in the morning in our other office, away from the dementors.

Now the champion of the miserable people. First of all, the face. I can’t really blame anyone for having a miserable face, because it might be that it was just nature’s freak or genetically mutant face. However, her attitude totally reflect her miserable face. A few weeks ago, our automatic office door jammed. It kept on refusing to open, no matter how close your fob was to the door panel.

I arrived at the office that morning, being locked out and waiting for the door to open (saying, “Open Sesame!” but with no luck), until Roger the nice guy from that lot came to the rescue. He yanked the door from inside, pulled it close before pressing the button again. Magically, the door opened!

So later that day, when the door became moody again, I jumped to help out people who were stuck outside. I did exactly the same as nice Roger did. There were two people outside: the miserable champion woman and the smelly cheese guy. While I yanked the door toward me, she made a frantic motion outside and shouted, “Stop! Stop! Don’t do that, it would only make it worse.” Still, I managed to open the door. Then guess what she said as she walked in? There is no “thank you”. Oh no! She said (with a very grumpy face that will certainly scared the police horse), “You should not do that!!!! You only made the door worse!!!”

I was so shocked that I could only whispered, “Thank you for trying to help by the way.”

Oh my God, good gracious Lord….! What is wrong with these people?

I am thinking about getting a laughing gas (N2O or Nitrous oxide) and gas the whole office with it. The problem is, our office is not air conditioned. Although I don’t mind becoming the victim myself, but I think the whole office is rather too big for it to take into effect.

I am also thinking about “Dodol Aceh” or Acehnese sweet, that would certainly make people giggle with no reason. Unfortunately, the main ingredients for this delicacy is now a controlled substance Class B. Hmmm… I have to find some other ways…. Where can I get stink bomb? Local jokes shop? Hmmm....

Anyone has any idea of how to deal with a bunch of miserable people?

Riverside Housing is discouraging residence to cycle and killing the wildlife

Residents in one of Riverside’s property in Potato Wharf/Woolam Place, Manchester, are concern that the property management is disregarding its own Environmental Policy that claims to care about the need for “concerted action to combat the detrimental effects of carbon emissions”.

Riverside prefers car than bicycles

In early August, residents received a note saying that all bicycles should be removed from the common area and should be “stored within your own flat or chained externally.” Four residents emailed its Resident Relation Gayle Shackley to ask for a solution since there is no place to chain the bicycles safely outside and it is impossible to drag a bicycle up the stairs to second and third flour.

The reply was appalling. One, she decline the proposal to install bicycle storage in the car park area stating that there is no space. Resident and leaseholder Bosco Fernandez came up with this proposal, “I wish to clarify that we are not requesting you to replace any existing parking bays with bicycle racks or lockers; we would like you to consider installing storage facilities behind the parking bays under the two arches at Potato Wharf that are closest to the gates. These arches have unused areas between the bays and the rear wall. The free area in the arch closest to the gate measures 12m x 3.3m and the free area in the adjacent arch measures 7.2m x 3.3m.”

In reply to this proposal, Riverside’s Gayle Shackley wrote, “If cycle storage provision results in cyclists having to wheel their bicycles between 2 parked cars as the only means of getting their bicycle out, it leads to potential damage to those cars.”

On the whole, Riverside is just not willing to give any solution to residents who want to cycle to work or within the city centre, even though it was clear in their Environmental Policy that “Nationally and globally there is a growing awareness of the need for concerted action to combat the detrimental effects of carbon emissions and their impact on climate change. This is relevant to all businesses including housing providers and impacts on various aspects of business practice including development of new properties, procurement of goods and services, building facilities, transport and waste management.”

A number of residents were also concerned and expressed this by emailing Riverside. However, the response was that, “Since you are not a leaseholder, we are not going to deal with you.”

Killing the wildlife

On Friday 3rd September, residents came home to see that the only green patch in front of the Potato Wharf apartments is gone. Without acknowledging the residents, Riverside cut all the lavender and lilac bushes and all the ivy climbers that made the wall green, and with this, destroying two sparrow nests and a blue tit nest in the bush.

Residents are now waiting to see their next move, whether or not they will replant some flowers or any plant in the flower beds. After all, flower beds are intended to house plants.

With the very few chance to observe wildlife within the city centre area, residents with bird feeders had been enjoying the company of a number of blue tits, great tits, sparrows, gold finches, green finches and even the rare bullfinches that categorised as Species of European Conservation Concern by the RSPB.

These birds are now homeless and probably dead thanks to Riverside.

Residents’ actions

With all the anti-environmental actions that Riverside committed, residents of Potato Wharf and Woolam Place are now in correspondence with their local councillors. So far, Councillor Marc Ramsbottom has encouraged residents to check with Manchester City Council planning policy regarding the environment. According to Councillor Ramsbottom, even though private housing management such as Riverside are not directly under City Council regulation, there are guidelines regarding environmental policy that they should not disregard.

A number of residents of Potato Wharf and Woolam Place will soon be meeting their councillors to discuss this matter.

In the meantime, discussions with Riverside are stagnant as Riverside refused to communicate with non-leaseholders and has been declining all proposal visible.