Tuesday, July 27, 2010

My 2010 experience

My 2010 experience has ended up to be one of the most randomest experiences ever. Through a friend connection I was able to work at the Fifa fan park on the Grand Parade in Cape Town as a bar lady.

I had never ever been a bar lady and for my first time I decided to take a job where I will be serving the world, so much for starting at small up coming bars! At that note I was one of 200 bar ladies and to come in every 2 days to work, where we only served Castle beer in clear cut mugs and your normal soft drinks yet, we had to get rid of the bottle caps. Apparently it was Fifa’s orders as one could do some really dangerous things with a bottle cap - I mean really like someone’s death would be due to the harsh knock on the head with a bottle cap yet, it was the 'bosses' orders.

After working for about 6 days I was called in for an interview at a PR company where I decided to take the opportunity. On the day I rushed to the interview and hoped that it wouldn’t take long as I had to work at the fan fest thereafter. The interview took longer than expected and 15minutes after, I got a call to say I got the job! Great stuff right! Well, the next day many of us were fired from our bar duties which was a real damper on the Fifa spirit.

I met so many awesome people, I asked people from New York how is it compared to Cape Town and they actually said Cape Town is better than New York, I'm still puzzled about that one but, I will find out sooner or later. The Europeans are the craziest bunch of people that I had ever seen, when England lost they bought tons of beer just to throw it over their heads, they even knew how to do the ‘waka’ dance before I did!

My experience was great and a definite first for all South Africans, although I didn’t watch any games at the stadium it didn’t bother me much as I was right in the centre of the hype and met so many foreigners – who could have asked for a better job position at the best time ever!!!!

The 10 most unexpected consequences of being online

1. Be relocated to a different page than the one you clicked on

2. End up deleting something important on your computer while trying to exit a frozen page

3. Different views on each topic – might change your own views and confuse you all together

4. No privacy online which openly makes your personal life a world matter and far from personal

5. The options ‘click here for a free download’ is not really free and takes forever to disappear

6. Subscriptions that email updates on a daily basis and doesn't give you the option to unsubscribe

7. You cannot log into Google as there are to many users - Its a world site, everybody should be able to get on

8. Find images of your wife/girlfriend with someone else who you know

9. You traced your genes all the way to the stone-age and wished you hadn't

10. Once clicking on the annoying pop-up add – it actually directs you into the page and your computer freezes - Welcome virus!!!

The elephant in the room

The elephant in the room is an expression for when a situation is of an obvious topic, which everyone is aware of yet, it isn’t discussed as it is seen as uncomfortable or a taboo topic.

I have been in many situations where the elephant is in the room, which I call a real awkward moment in time. This expression is of US origin where the meaning and exact word dates from the 1950’s where the first reference was seen in the Charleston Gazette in 1952.

An example of an elephant in the room is during class meetings, or group meetings were a decision is made and originally believed to be a great idea turns into a bad one yet, no one is willing to bring up the problem as they are afraid of the consequences. The consequence that someone is to blame and because they are a team, the person responsible would let down the entire team and as we all know no one likes to fail.

The elephant in the room is known as an English idiom for an obvious truth that is impossible to overlook and the people in the room pretends that it is not even there. The children in the group have chosen to concern themselves with tangible issues instead of dealing with the main one; choosing a different angle.

This can be really pointless at time as we all know when something is wrong it just takes a bit of a 'push' in the mature level to get up and speak your mind, i bet everybody is already thinking it.

Every day is a good day

I start my day at 06:00am every day, eyes waving heavy and I can barely step out of my bed in one piece, I decide to press the snooze button and continue my snooze just for the next five minutes, 35 minutes later I realized I overslept and jumped out of bed. (great way to start my day)

My heart out of my chest I keep telling myself I cannot be late for work as this is my first week and I don’t want to make a bad impression. This is the time where I learned that I could actually multi-task (my boyfriend was wrong) I was able to get dressed and eat my porridge in the nick of time. Brushing my teeth I ran out to ask a neighbor if I could get a lift to the station – just making the train I jumped in and kept tight to a stranger’s bag strap, while gasping for air. Moments like these I swear I would start working out so that I don’t break out a sweat by just walking up the stairs, it’s embarrassing.

Alright, I’m on my way to work and just made it on time, its 09:00am on the dot! Warbling into the office after such a run I sat down and took a moments breath, I couldn't’t believe this is basically what work is all about, rushing, getting things done, leaving home before sun – up and returning after sun – down. I couldn't’t believe this is exactly what I got myself into by agreeing to a position. Leaning back I looked at the message on the wall of my office, a weird smiley face that I drew on a piece of paper a day back with a highlighter which reminded me that although all the bad may come, by having a smile on my face it really cant be as bad as i make it out to be and on that note i told myself – today is going to be a good day.

Our greatest strengths are our greatest weaknesses

South Africa is a prosperous country, beautiful, diverse, and defiantly showed to be a spectacular host for the 2010 World Cup. All around the world we have showed continent by continent that South Africa can and has done the unthinkable, we hosted the 2010 World Cup. With all the wonderful highlights and gorgeous landmarks we attract thousands of tourists from across the globe. Yes, this is great for our economy as tourists brings in wealth yet, at the same time we attract the wrong people who do the wrong things, which tarnishes South Africa's image.

Beauty such as South Africa's popular land marks can attract the wrong crowd; a trafficking service where young children or adults are targeted. Our country is filled with beautiful women and attracts wrong men causing a ‘missing child’ line-up on most of the published media. With the influx of tourists, crime rate is high and communities are vulnerable and vulnerability one can see as clear as day light.

Yes, we are a beautiful country with a diverse nation which is our great strength yet, this is also our greatest weakness as we attract wrong crowds each driven with various motives and puts our strength, our beautiful nation to jeopardy.

Try a Cliché

What goes around comes around

Have you ever thought of cheating an examination, speaking bad about somebody or bullying? Yes, I will be honest in saying I have. The cliché of “What goes around comes around’ is taken so far back that even my greatest, great ancestors have used this example yet, although we aware that this cliché in many cases has proven to be more than factual we still do stupid things. I would say that it is similar to Karma yet, Karma is said to alter your next life and the cliché who knows can hit you in the head the next week, day or minutes after the action took place.

A cliché is a true expression, often a figure of speech whose effectiveness has not been worn-out through overuse or excessive familiarity. I would also refer to it as a dead metaphor. Karma is the effect of a persons actions that determines his/her destiny in the next life-time so If im to work hard in this lifetime I will prosper in the next - or so they say.

An example of a true cliché is that when cheating in a test and yes I know many of us have tried this before yet, what confuses me most of all is that one will always sit next to the cleverest or brightest person in class and although your copying word for word (which you eventually learn that you can get easily caught out by doing this) the person that your copying from always gets a higher mark. This is where what goes around comes around fits in and basically if you don’t work honestly – you’re destined for failure.