Louise Masks Up

 

Be like Louise, who can see the CoVid-19 Tsunami about to break onto our shores and became an early adopter of our washable and reusable face masks. Louise works at my old company National Positions. It has been a long time, about 5 years ago, wow.

Kelly

In walked Kelly this morning into National Positions. Who was this Kelly? Well it turns out he is our Graphic Designer who has being working here for the past few weeks but off site at a client. Wow things are sure changing staff wise at National Positions.

Kaya Orchids

It is already the middle of the week, and the sun is struggling to break through the clouds. The citizens of Jozi where starting to see the wild animals gathering in pairs which was a worry.

On Friday, Carl, was presented a lovely daughter, Kaya, thanks to his wife. At least now we know that he is a real man, even though he carries those arty bags around to many a raised eyebrow. Anyway here are the lovely orchids on his desk.

Mara, not the Bitter

Mara, started with National Positions last week. Although her name means bitter, after some digging, I found even older meanings of the biblical name Mara which is derived from myrrh, a strong smelling and bitter perfume used primary in ancient times in the process of embalming. For the ancient Egyptians, Mara means "truth of the sun"; in Gaelic, Mara means "of the sea".

The death perfume and embalming comes through strong, in Slavic countries as it is the name of evil spirits; the Hindu goddess of Death is also Mara and in Buddhist mythology is associated with evil; she also comes up in Scandinavian folk lore as a ghost and even a type of goblin who brings nightmares. Mara has even reached Latvia as a dark goddess but that may have been from the Norse connections. Even the Russians claim her as the unwilling queen of the underworld.

Dark name or not, Mara to me is strong name, bitter yes but strong and full of grace.

Content Team Minus Litha

It is Friday already. What happened to this week? Here is the Content Team minus Litha. Get low and dirty with client's content are Noma, and Marco, well and the missing Litha. Enjoy your weekend, dudes and dudettes.

Tuesday Bakang

Well what can I say other than I feel that I am on the road to recovery. This is a heavy week at work with month end reporting due. So blow my nose and get cracking. I have to teach Bakang, shown here, the ropes on reporting so that he can alleviate the work pressure.

Haight-Ashbury Paisley Gregor

Gregor came to work this morning wearing a paisley shirt as if he stepped straight out of the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco. Well he can be forgiven since he is from the City of Angels. Here I managed to photograph him doing his Thinking Man impersonation. Hip as it may be, I kind of like the shirt.

Nikki

The light at the end of the tunnel is getting huge, still hoping it is not a train but if it is, will it stop to let me on-board to steam ahead to a brighter future? As may some of my readers know it has been a terrible December and January, where I found myself on rock bottom. Along the rocky bottom, only chocolate kept me sane. With these new developments there may be a something positive to blog about in a near future.

Back to earth, here is Nikki, the latest addition to National Positions, joining as the Client Services lady.

Kirby Monday

Monday morning starts with Winnie cranking up the vacuum cleaner. The old vacuum is on the blink so out came the Kirby. Nothing sucks like a vacuum on a mission.

Big Clean

At the office, to make more room for the expansions, the boardroom division was taken down which made a considerable amount of drywall dust. Here is our CEO, Richard, manning the vacuum cleaner with the amused Bakang, Marco, and Noma looking on.

Work Happens

In the so called naughty corner, work continues to happen even though the atmosphere in the office has become very heavy and not very satisfying. Well that is how things go sometimes, I have to just hold my chin up and take one step forward at a time.

The only thing keeping me going is the great grace that placed me here for a reason and I am still breathing.

Here is Bakang, Noma, Litha and Marco all little busy bees. Work Happens!

Back To Work

It is back to work I go, I owe, I owe. Yip I have being back at work now since Monday but my loss yesterday over saturated my hours with grief. When I received that phone call about 10am yesterday, I was so shocked that couldn't even talk to the vet at all. I had to walk out of my open plan office outside where the tears and howling started. Why did this have to happen? After pulling myself together, I made a few phone calls and left to fetch Skye. On the way across the city, my shock turned to anger. I wanted to blame someone. I don't have much memory of the conversations I had with the vet but I do recall something about Skye having a heart attack because of fluid around his heart. I have blamed my work, the vets, and myself. But who else can I blame other than myself?

I am trying to keep myself busy while at work but the time I spent with Skye seems the focus now. Looking through my blog post over the last few weeks, one thing is apparent, most of them are of Skye. Now I better put up another type of a back to normal post, although nothing is normal anymore without Skye.

Back at the office the content team is Delia-less, and today the team of Noma, Marco and Litha, dived straight into the deep end to strategise the few months ahead. While on the technical side, that’s me, I have been uber busy running reports which have helped me from crashing and burning into depression.

Empty Desk Syndrome

Arriving at work after the long weekend and seeing Delia's desk empty really made my heart heavy.  The day dragged on; there was no more laughter from the naughty corner. It feels like our office has become all insipid and sterile so I just put my head down and worked. This bare soul of an office has a new name, the empty desk syndrome.

Tschüss

It is time to sigh and say goodbye, to a good friend Delia. So long, farewell, au revoir, auf weidersehen, time to say goodbye, till we meet again.

Here is the content team, from left to right, though good times and bad, we have such memories, Litha, Louise, Delia, Marco, Noma and Bakang.

Tschüss Delia.

Marco Toilet

After all the sorrow over the last few days, let's get serious! Now why such a heading, Marco Toilet along with Marco having that look on his face? It can't be a new version of the game Marco Polo. Well the story goes like this, Marco decided that he needed to use the bathroom and when he locked the door behind him, the key broke and he found himself incarcerated inside the toilet cubicle.

I am not sure how loud he shouted for help or how hard did he bang on the door because we heard nothing back in the office, nor did any alarm bells ring that he was missing in action, excuse my pun, so no search parties were sent out.

Marco, states that it must have been between 15 to 30 minutes before anyone heard his cries for help and came to investigate. Here is the recently released prisoner pointing to the offending toilet door that had him under lock and key.

National Positions' Year End

National Positions' Year End lunch was postponed last week due to the sad news. This afternoon we all gathered at JB's Corner in Melrose for our last hurrah before everyone disperses for the summer holidays.

Looking back, I am still wondering what happened to this year. I just blinked and now it is gone. With all the ups and downs, I am surprised that it has become just a blur. Back to our lunch, it was a joyous get together but sad at the same time as Delia is leaving us in a few days’ time for the stormy Cape. In today's photo, is Carl, Litha, Bakang, and Noma.

Wheel Bearings

Last week sometime my pickup's wheel bearings starting moaning and I was hoping to limp it along until my leave which arrives in 18 days time at which time I can repair it myself. But this morning on the way to work it suddenly got worse so I had to turn around and head back. I spoke to the mechanic who repaired my car last time to see if he could squeeze my pickup in but no he was too busy. This means that I had to do it myself so I bought the spares and headed home.

On arriving home I saw my landlord's mechanic on the property and asked him if he could do it for me. Perfect timing but I ended up late for work on my Vespa. Anyway arriving at work, I found that we have a new colleague in the Content Department. So this is why there is a photo of Marco instead of something from my bad start to the Monday.

Father and Daughter

This morning, Richard's daughter Isabella arrived and I couldn't resist a Father Daughter photograph so now on this Friday I give you Isabella and Richard. Okay it is Friday, and inspiration is push aside as weekend takes over.

What Do We Have Here?

When Noma walked in this morning all glowing, it was because her boyfriend, Richard, liked it and put a ring on it. Now put your hands up if you happy for Noma Jean. Richard liked it and put a ring on it. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Zombie Apocalypse

My leave has being approved to join the Zombie Walk in a week's time. These walks are organised on Halloweens Day by Empire Tatoos for a number of years now and they present a perfect opportunity to shoot some Zombies in the head, well with the camera that is.

Well my leave form is signed, so I better pack my camera bag and baseball bat for the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse.