Today, I went on one of the program-sponsored activities. We walked over after work to St. James Park, to this large pavilion framed by the original entrance to the An awesome British guy sat right in front of our group, and he kept us entertained with trivia and anecdotes. My favorite story of his involved the Queen, last year, went to tour a shiny new auto plant. Before she attended, as is always the case with her events, some staff and security went to examine the facilities. Upon investigating the lavatory, however, the lady-in-waiting became highly concerned. It was a restroom with electronic everything – the touchless sensors for hand washing and soap and such. The Queen has never used this high-fangled technology. “She always tosses her handbag into the sink,” said the lady-in-waiting. “If she does that here, it will be ruined.”
Wanting desperately to please the Queen, the auto plant tore out all of the sensors and reinstalled traditional Victorian plumbing, so she would be comfortable. The day of the tour came, the Queen took a break to use the washroom…and then didn’t come out.
After waiting a while, the lady-in-waiting went to investigate. The Queen had gotten stuck, locked inside. See, even the locks were of an electronic variety, and she couldn’t figure out how they worked! The plant spent 15 grand (pounds) to refurbish everything, and forgot the bathroom locks. Thankfully, the Queen was highly amused by this turn of events.
Today at work, Sadiq discovered I type quickly (which he doesn’t), so I’ve now become his dictation-taker for letters and memos.
I also have a new project! I was horrified to discover, today, that our office’s “Database” consists of a large set of disorganized excel spreadsheets. How inefficient! I proposed that I would fix it by creating them a real Access database. David, my office manager, didn’t even know Access existed. Now, over the next few weeks, I will make them such a beautiful database that lots of their time will be saved! Yay for K204!
4 comments:
The queen has come a long way since 1944, when she was a teenager during WWII. My father has a veteran friend whose unit was visited by then Princess Elizabeth, her sister, and their mother. They told the American troops they were living on the same clothing rations as the rest of the British people--one new pair of shoes per person per year. Princess Elizabeth probably took better care of her handbag then, since she couldn't have replaced it! Mom
Your random stranger guy reminded me of when some friends and I were sitting at that monument to Queen Victoria near Buckingham Palace. (We had gone to Hyde Park that evening because a band was playing, we didn't/couldn't go into the concert area but we sat outside where we could still kind of hear the music and just hung out eating and drinking cider. After the concert ended we followed this huge rush of people eventually splitting off to sit near Buckingham while the crowds thinned). So we were there and this random drunk Irish guy comes up and starts talking to us. And he was hilarious talking about his crazy friend he couldn't find and his crappy phone which didn't work. He had this most exaggerated Irish accent we could barely understand him. He was half cursing, half pacing, and trying to ask where the tube stop was. I think we managed to point him in the right direction, but not before forever altering my assessment of the Irish.
OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! why would you sing my country tis of thee!? that is so rude! Learn some manners!
I didn't sing it! I didn't sing anything! I just heard the music and automatically --thought-- those lyrics.
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