Friday, March 15, 2024

TYPIST-IN-CHARGE, Episode 16. Education, Head Office, Wellington, New Zealand


 Hi there

Episode 16, TYPIST-IN-CHARGE


1st Floor and Ground Floor Typing Pools, Education Head Office, Government Buildings, mid 1970s


Being Supervising Typist in charge of seven typists in the ground floor typing room at Government Buildings brought home to me that being in that exalted position was not all a cake-walk.  I realised, even more so than when I was at Health Regional Office, that the typists I was supervisor of could sadly never be my close friends.  I was the boss and there would always be a divide.   I would be partly responsible (with top supervising typist,  Mrs Rowley) for writing up their annual reports, partly responsible (with Mrs Rowley) for discipline, and wholly responsible for making sure that the work got out on time.  Mrs Rowley did all the interviews for vacant positions and I was glad for this.  I could never ever visualise myself as an interviewer; the thought scared the pants off me.

There was a typist that had joined our little bunch a few months before:  Annette.  She was in her late thirties, dressed gypsy-like, with raven-black curls hanging past her shoulders.  She was a vibrant, smiley, talkative soul, with the kindest of hearts and she loved the world.

On 4th of July morning she came rushing into the typing room screaming at the top of her voice.  "It's Independence day!  Freedom!  Freedom!   I'm free!  Free!"

Annette's divorce had come through.  She had been married to a not-very-nice man.  There was a boyfriend in the wings who, for months had been waiting patiently for Annette's freedom day.  He came rushing into the room behind Annette, and they danced around together.  This young man was in his early twenties.  The love and pride for Annette shone from his eyes whenever he looked at her.

We typists crowded around the pair.  We were so happy for them.  "You're invited to our wedding," said Annette.  "You have to come."

And we did go to that wedding.  Annette was in two-toned blue, a beautiful long evening dress with flounces and ribbons, and she wore flowers in her hair.  Flowers were everywhere around The White Heron Lodge in Kilbirnie where the two were married.  Because Annette had been dieting furiously to fit into her dress, the meal at the White Heron was diet-orientated too.

While they were on honeymoon, work carried on in the typing pool.  We closed ranks and took on the extra work that Annette would have done.  And this was the great thing about typing pools:  ranks close when a typist is away.  If a boss's secretary was sick, everything in that area stopped.  Or it was brought to a pool for us to add to our already heavy work-pile.

Whether a typist was in Room 305 or Room 206 pools, or the ground floor pool like I was, it didn't matter when ministerials were given to us; they were top priority.  Any letter signed by the Minister of Education was to be treated as gold.

"So much red tape," sniffed Maureen.

"Nope."  Megan smled wryly.  "It's green tape now, remember?"

 "I can't say 'so much green tape'," Maureen argued.  "It doesn't make sense.  The underlying meaning of Red tape means there's so much piffle to get through.  Green tapes means ....  green tape!"


above: a sheet of A4 ministerial letterhead.  And some green tape.  A4 sheets took the place of the longer foolscap-sized sheets that had previously been used in govt departments.  Not so much was tied up with any tape by this stage, except perhaps big files in Records Division.


After a time, we typists in the ground floor room were shifted to the 1st floor, a back room that looked out upon the annex behind the building.  

One morning, Annette was deep in thought as she looked out the window. "We're in Government Buildings, right-?"

 " -Not to be confused with Government House, " I contributed helpfully.  Government House was where the Governor-General lived.  He ruled New Zealand's dominion as the queen's representative.  

 "Its the largest wooden building in the southern hemisphere, right??'

" So? "

 "So-". She loosely gestured toward the annex.  "the fire escapes are made of wood.  They'll pretty much be the first to burn."

 It was a subject to think about.

Many years back the annex had been erected as a sort of fill-in temporary place, not meant to be a forever structure.  When I had first arrived at Education, way back in the early sixties, there was a canteen on the ground floor of the annex.  It was for the workers of Government Buildings.  Within a very short time, the annex served as the place where the Golden Kiwi Lottery winning numbers were drawn from a large barrel, and with the aid of a long ladle to scoop out numbers.  Mrs Rowley allowed new typists to go and watch.

She also allowed interested typists to race outside to the narrow (land) island in front of our building whenever gardeners were pulling out last season's flower plants - roots and all - and giving them out to passers-by.

Annette, lover and protector of all things earth-grown, would return to the typing pool covered in dirt, and triumphantly clutching three waste-paper bins crammed-full of half-dead blooms. 

 "Do you have a big garden?" asked Helen, our teen newbie.

 Megan laughed. " Annette and her hubby - '. Annette giggled. "They don't have a garden to their flat."

" I give the plants to anyone in my street who wants them, " Annette said.  My last end-of-spring rescues bloomed wonderfully this year. "

After the excitement of Flower Garden Time and other such exciting Education Department activities, we 'girls' would - between the typing of annoying ministerials and all that form-filling for Stores Division -  go back to contemplating the annex, the only view from our windows.  Drat, having to give up our large and sunny ground floor room with a view, just so as one or two higher-up officers could be accommodated in style.

The annex was temporarily used for official enquiries.  Now, my memory isn't that great but I can recall there was an enquiry over several months relating to either the Erebus Air New Zealand flight that downed over the South Pole...or .... the sinking of the Wahine inter-island ferry in Wellington Harbour.  My memory isn't too spectacular in my old(er) age....

There was another annex to the south side of Government Buildings.  It was known far and wide as The Tomato House.  There were lots of windows and in the summer, as you can no doubt figure out by the name Tomato House, the heat was unbelievable.

During my time, both The Tomato House and the back annex were bull-dozed down.  The narrow-ish road between Government Buildings and the law courts was widened.  

In the 1st floor pool we often typed results onto School Certificates.   School Certificates were considered all but essential if a young person left school.  A pupil had to pass in four subjects but was allowed to sit five, just as a sort of security blanket.  In my last school year, there weren't enough teachers in New Zealand.  Our headmistress had asked over assembly if anyone knew a secretary who could take over the shorthand, typing and commercial practice classes which shows how desperate schools were in those days.  Neither could Wellington East Girls College get a geography teacher  So, bingo, there was me not able to sit typing, Geography, or Office Practice.

"You can sit Art," said my teacher.

"Huh?'  I could hardly draw a straight line which I proved when I was all but forced to sit School Cert Art, and got something like 17 marks out of a hundred, even though I'd smuggled in a copy of the design on my bedroom mattress of a duck flying through some reeds.   I thought it would make a great lounge curtain pattern!  If the design had been good enough for mattress manufacturers it should have been agreeable for the markers of School Cert Art 1959...

Anyway...  back to the typing pool, mid nineteen-seventies, and the typing of School Certificates -

We typed results onto the actual certificates if there had been a recount.  Blank School Certificates were given to our pool.

Seeing those certificates was too much not to play around with for our junior typist Helen -

She waved a certificate in the air. "I've made one out for my boyfriend," she said.  "He gets 150% for his rugby knowledge, 100% for kissing, 50% for helping his mum, and 10% for his ability to whisper sweet nothings in my ear..."  *


end



*Singer, Brenda Lee, has a lot to answer for.


######







Sunday, March 10, 2024

What's in Las Vegas' Future?



above: Las Vegas..  I took this photo of the outside of the "New York New York" Casino Hotel.  Note the roller coaster.  And the Statue of Liberty.  Inside the building was a replica of a New York borough, with deli shops and food carts.



Hi there

As you know, I've been to Las Vegas quite a few times.  

Las Vegas changes to meet what it considers that the visitor to the city wants to see. It changes its spots a lot.

The days of Frank Sinatra, his Rat Pack, and visiting glamorous celebrities - Lana Turner, Betty Grable, Bogart and Bacall, etc - was over years ago.  Heavens, even the naughty hotel-owning gangsters stepped away from Vegas.

To stay current the hotels discovered, one after the other like lemmings, that a change of tack would bring in the punters.  How about theme-ing our hotels after countries, they collectively thought - 

Luxor, Rio, Paris, New York-New York, Riviera, Tropicana sprung up.   Caesars Palace had gone Roman,  Why go to real life cities around the world when, inside a Vegas hotel , a visitor could dine at a side-walk Parisian cafe, complete with twinkling stars in the fake sky above, and a guy in a striped shirt playing an accordian?  

But, sigh, after a while, a change was needed once again.   And so, Vegas became family-oriented.  It was roller coasters and castles.  And evening pirate battles on the high seas of a casino garden.  And puppeteer shows, and ventriloquists, and circuses.  And real-life white tigers in one casino, lions in another, Flamingos in a third.  A promised Egyptian crypt adventure was a must for families, Walking past a shark in a large aquarium was soooo scary.  And, hopefully, as kiddy-winks slept, the parents would gamble.

Then, oh dear, Vegas changed again.  The difference crept up on visitors without many of us truly noticing.

Stage show musicals were in, family-orientated fun was no good if parents were required to walk their off-spring through the hotel casinos without stopping at the slot machines.  

So, for a glorious couple of years,  I all but bathed in stage musicals.  I loved "The Lion King", "Jersey Boys", "Saturday Night Fever", "Phantom" (of the Opera), and others.  Because two shows a night had to be fitted in, the hotel/casino showing "Phantom" was required to get permission from Andrew Lloyd Webber to cut "Phantom of the Opera" down to an hour and a half.  Lloyd Webber, apparently, loved this cut-down version.  And by the end of the second show, it still wasn't too late for some gambling.

"Priscilla Queen of the Desert" is one of my favourite  stage musicals.  I've seen it several times.  I was so excited that it was going to Vegas, and I booked in advance of my holiday.  Before I'd even landed in the United States, and when the show had only been going a few weeks, it got cancelled.  Those (and I'm quoting from the movie here) "c**** in frocks" just did not appeal to the typical American visitor.

Across the next few years, stage musicals disappeared, bachelor and bachelorette parties were encouraged instead.  There were wild weekend parties and club nights, and music, and high-end strip shows like "Chippendales" and "Thunder from Down Under" for women patrons, and casino female strip shows for men.  During college (university) breaks, Vegas was saturated with young people looking for fun.  Of an evening, jandals, shorts, boob tubes were worn and yard glasses of booze allowed to be carried on the streets, and into shop and casinos.  What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, yeah?  I so missed seeing Vegas visitors in sparkles and glitter.

And nowadays....?  I hear that Vegas has gone sporty....  With a plethora of boxing matches, and the encouragement of sports conventions.   There's car races, and newly-built sport arenas that can handle rugby and rugby league.   Athletes of all sports are being begged to compete in the city.  Hotels are sporty-themed, with most buffets disappearing to make room for huge sports betting outlets,  bars, and pay-as-you-go foodhalls.

As my four readers know, I'm going to Vegas this year.  Darn-it, I'm not a sports fan.  Still, I guess I better pack a track suit.  Or two....




Saturday, March 2, 2024

That special age

 Hi there


Next month I will be that special age and, by law, I have to renew my driver's licence.  This means I had to go to the doctor to ensure I was fit to drive.

I thought there'd be an eye test where I'd be looking at a chart.  And, yes, I was right...  I did look at an eye chart and I passed, yippee...

Then the practise nurse gave me some mental tests -

"Whaaat?"  My goodness, was I being tested for ... dementia?  Alzheimer's?  My mental acuity?  I was petrified. I'd naively thought I'd be identifying right-of-way diagrams of crossroads.

"I'm going to give you a list of ten items, and I want you to repeat back to me all the items you can remember..."

And, again, whaaaat?????  Where was a car diagram when I desperately needed one?

I repeated back seven from the list.  The nurse was pleased with me.  As she read out each word, I tried to associate it with something.  

Tree -  There was a tree hanging over the nurses' window

Bird -  I thought of a bird on the tree

Ticket -  A show ticket

Health -  I had a bad leg

Apple - First letter of alphabet

Ink - I write letters

Nail - my fingernail

The nurse did tell me that the following day after one such test, a subject lady had rang her up and shouted a missing  word down the phone at her.  I considered it the greatest victory to remember seven items.  I had thought I'd come up with one or two.

Nurse also did a diabetic test on my finger.  She seemed surprised that I tested clear.  She always looks surprised when I pass this test for diabetes.  

She took my blood pressure.  "It's a little high," she said.

"I'm terribly nervous," I said.

Then:    "Imagine yourself in a supermarket aisle," said the nurse..  "How many products can you name in a minute....  Go!"

I visualised myself walking around the Miramar New World.  I came up with 29 products.  I guess in the cocoon of my home, I would have got more but, hey, nerves, yeah?

The highest a small number of people before me had got was, apparently 30.  I preened....

Next....

"Can you repeat back to me any of those ten words that you remember from earlier," Nurse said.

What!-What!-What!-What????????????????????  The ten-word test had been a good twenty minutes ago.

Luckily - phew! - I got the same seven I'd told her earlier.

Nurse all but patted me on the head.  "I'm impressed," she said.

Shining with happiness, I was escorted into the doctor's surgery.  He tested my heart and lungs.  "Perfect" he said.  Wow, Mary Poppins was only 'practically perfect'.  But I rather suspect, it was a word my doctor used a lot.  I remember he'd called me 'perfect' a few years' back.

After queryng me about my health, he plonked one finger on his nose and with a finger from the other hand made a wide circle around his face and chest.  "Close one eye.  Don't look away from my nose but tell me if you can see my other finger every time I move it.... Can you see my finger now -"

"Yes, " I said.

Now?"

"Yes."

Now?"

"No."

"Now?"

"No."

"Now?"

"No."

"Now?"

"Yes....  Yes...   Yes...

Oops, looks like I wasnt that spectacular with peripheral vision.

Still, he passed me.  Forty-one dollars later, I was on my way to the Automobile Association ($21) to get my new licence.

The following day, in my car, I scraped a motorist's side-mirror.  Oh dear.




Saturday, February 24, 2024

Writer's Block

 Hi there

The idea is to write a blog every week, usually Sundays,  sometimes Mondays.  And since 2009, I've pretty much kept to my plan.

But every now and then,  ... Um......   Er ...... What the heck can I write about???????

Brain freeze.  Brain block.  Writer's block.

I remember once sitting in front of my computer and casting my eyes around the room looking for something, anything, to write about.  I saw my watch.

So.. I wrote about my love for cute watches.

You can always tell when my mind has gone blank.  I'll ramble about the beach, or shop assistants (they never let me down), or coathangers, or go on about a holiday for weeks far longer than I really should be rambling on about it.

I guess I'm lucky in that I can see humour (British spelling) in lots of situations.  Whereas when friends say to me,  "Ooohhh, you shouldn't write about that", I don't mind at all telling the world about my true-life embarrassing encounters.  

....


Hey, guess who got brain freeze today......?





Saturday, February 17, 2024

Shop Assistants. Again

 Hi there

A few weeks ago I was in historical gold-mining Arrowtown, South Island.  Leaning heavily on my hiking stick, I hobbled into a shop that was aimed at high-end tourists, especially those searching for merino and possum products.

 "And how has your morning been?" asked the shop  assistant dutifully.

 " Terrible, " I said.

 "That's good," she said.

 Huh...?

... I promise shop assistants in New Zealand aren't all robots.




Saturday, February 10, 2024

My holiday continued

 Hi there

Well, here I was, staying at the Lake Hawea Hotel, with nothing to do.  Okay, I appreciate that millions of people consider sitting on a hotel balcony, looking out at the delightful scenery, with a book on your lap (in my case, make that a Kindle audio book), and a drink beside you (Diet Coke), would have the makings for a pleasant holiday.  But it just wasn't me.  My leg was hurting every time I moved it, and I was so upset that I couldnt go hiking or swimming.  On my last day in Hawea, I couldn't stand it any longer, so I went through the pain of getting into my car and driving the fifteen minutes to Lake Wanaka.  

It was a beautiful, hot (27c) day, and people were kayaking on the lake.  I jealously fumed that I wasnt kayaking on the lake with them.  Another item on my 'want' list that I couldn't do.

Still, I had the most delicious lamb shank lunch at  the Waterbar restaurant.  Thank goodness the restaurant had a ramp for me to use to get up to their front door.

Except for me glancing at the kayakers as I drove into the village, I didn't go over to the lake; it would have been too much of an effort to cross the road.  I did sit outside the Visitor Information Office and read the list of tours one could go on.  Sigh, every one included me having to step down, or step over something, or climb steps, or hike up a hill, or, well, you get the idea ....  grizzle, grizzle, moan, moan, feeling sorry for myself....

The next day I drove the couple of painful hours to Queenstown where I would be staying for a week.  I am very lucky that Manchester Unity of which I am a member, has holiday homes around New Zealand because Queenstown is a very-very-very expensive place (especially for kiwis) with accommodation for a single night in a basic-no-view no-frills studio motel room being about $NZ250.  My MU holiday home is about $NZ460 a week.


above: view from the balcony of my Queenstown two bedroom unit.


above: Queenstown, evening, from balcony.  Lake Whakatipu.  Red sky at night ...


I arrived in Queenstown on a Friday.  That night I should have been going up the gondola to a buffet dinner at the Skylne Stratosphere restaurant but had cancelled because I didn't think I could get on and off the ever-moving gondola with style, elegance, or footwork.  From my unit balcony, I could see the gondolas going up and down the hill to the restaurant, and that annoyed me..

I did manage to drive the half-hour over to Arrowtown and have lunch at the New Orleans pub, a roast lamb lunch that was so divine that I was in dining heaven.  I was in the heart of sheep country so naturally there would be lamb on menus.  But even though I was in Arrowtown I couldn't walk my favourite loop track so more resentment and frustration coming from me in waves.  Neither could I walk the lovely Queenstown-to-Frankton track.

But the most heartbreaking part of my whole trip was not being able to go on the Glenorchy Paradise Ziplines.  They are just out of Queenstown and the Neon streaming show "Men in Kilts - New Zealand", showed the two actors from "Outlander" doing the 8 ziplines. Between craggy peaks, over waters, across open land...   I so wanted to do those ziplines.  It was the main reason I'd booked to holiday in the South Island.   I was desperate to do them.  It was my reason for living (okay, who is being a bit dramatic, here?)  

Apparently, there would be what was described as an easy to moderate 500 metre walk on a bush track to get to the first zipline.  I presumed there would be a step or two going up to each stage of the operation?  And also a walk down a hill at the finish. 

I wouldn't be able to do it.

stock photo.  Paradise Ziplines, Glenorchy. 

On my very last night in Queenstown, I managed to get into the gondola and made it to the buffet restaurant at the top of the hill, that hill that I had glared at everyday of my holiday because I thought it would be a no-go to get that meal I'd been craving.  I also wanted to and oohh and aahh over the spectacular views.

The actual gondolas were new, with a lot of seats (maybe eight ?).

"I don't know if I can get into a gondola," I whispered to the guy standing by to help people like me.

"You can do it," he said.  And he gripped the gondola to slow it down on the pulley/rotater/cable thingee that keeps gondolas continually moving in a huge loop from the bottom of the hill to the very top and back again. Wow, I'd met my own personal Hercules.  I stumbled into the gondola.

Within a couple of seconds, a father of a family unit of four yelled out to me, "Can we share this gondola with you,".  He made to step forward.

"No!"  I felt terrible as he backed off in confusion.  Goodness, I was so rude...

At the top of the gondola, after one of the workers helped me out of that always-moving cab, I stayed back and waited for the family to get off the next gondola.

"I'm so sorry I barred you," I said.  "But. I'm injured-" I waggled my hiking stick as evidence.  " With the four of you and with how slow I am, I may not have had time to get out.  I might have ended up back at the bottom of the hill."

"That's okay," he said.  "We understand."



above: me in a gondola cab.  Flying solo.  Evening


The buffet meal was lovely.  I had four creme brulees, perhaps the main reason I always try to get to this buffet whenever I'm in Queenstown.  Unfortunately, there was a lot of construction going on outside so visitors couldnt do the nice hill climb at the top of the gondola.  Oh, and here's a side-bar (or a middle-of-a-paragraph-bar), there is road construction everywhere in Queenstown.  It's been going on for a couple of years and will go on for a few more years.  If I come back to the area again in the near future (I've got to do those ziplines), I think I would stay half-an-hour away at Arrowtown and just go over to Queenstown when I felt like it.

The following day, I got priority boarding on the plane taking me home to Wellington.  The Air New Zealand pilot told us that the weather in Wellington was "horrendous".  He followed up with, "With any luck, by the time we get there in an hour, it will only be ...awful."

It was a white-knuckle landing...

Saturday, February 3, 2024

Wow, talk about catastrophe!!!...!!!...!!!

 Hi there

Goodness knows where to start...  Well...  yesterday I returned from two weeks' holiday down the South Island of New Zealand....  I had been looking forward to this holiday for a whole year.  There was so much I was planning to do .  Unfortunately, three days before I was due to fly to Christchurch, I hurt the gastrocnemius calf muscle in my leg.  I was in pain.  My friends all shouted, "Cancel your holiday!"  But, no, no, I'd had the gastrocnemius explosion (some people describe it 'like a firework) in my leg twice before.  I was a pro at handling pain.  I wanted my holiday.

There were so many things I intended to do -

.  Climb Mt John at Tekapo - didn't end up doing

.  Swim Lake Tekapo -  did once, to my sorrow

.  Swim Lake Hawea every day for five days - did once, to my sorrow

.  Kayak at Lake Wanaka - didn't end up doing

.  Buffet meal at top of the gondola ride, Queenstown - did do, eventually

.  Do the multiple ziplines at Glenorchy (Queenstown area) - didn't end up doing

 By the time  I flew into Christchurch airport, every movement was hell on my leg.  I'd hired a car to drive from Christchurch to Tekapo for a two night stay.   Driving was okay, but getting in and out of that darn car turned out to be the curse of my entire holiday.  You know those videos we've all seen of a silly dog trying to get a long horizontal stick through a narrow doorway?  That was me, trying to get my leg into the car. 

I had booked an en suite cabin at the Lakes Edge Holiday Park, right next to the start of the Mt John track. Wonderful view, but I couldn't appreciate it because I couldnt even get up the first of three steps to the cabin.  And it was only about a hand's height.   So much for climbing Mt John.....


above: me, at Jack Rabbit Cafe, Tekapo.  Sitting down.


above:  view from my cabin over Lake Tekapo


But if I couldn't climb a mountain I would at least swim in Lake Tekapo -

To get to the lake I had to hobble and slide and lose my footing across a plethora of stones and pebbles and gravel to get to the water.  "Ow, ow, ow, yipes...".  

The return journey back to my car was even worse.  I thought I would faint through the pain.  But then I realised I'd left the car key on the water's edge, so I had to hobble back down again...  And back to the car again.  All the time I was slipping and sliding, and ending up deeper into the gravelly lake-edge  pebbles.  It was sort of like forcing my way through heavy deep treacle.  Or quicksand. 

But had I learnt my lesson?  What do you think?

Two days later, I arrived at Lake Hawea, the jewel of my holiday.  There is nothing really at the village of Lake Hawea, except a hotel where I stayed, and a cafe.  The previous year I had called in to Lake Hawea for the day.  I picked up a sparkly pebble from the beach (yes, yes, another pebble-y beach) and sat it on my kitchen window sill.  Every time I hovered over the kitchen sink I thought "Nearly there, Lake Hawea is coming, wait till January ..."

I stayed at Lake Hawea Hotel for five nights.  On that first day I hobbled, and limped, and cursed, and slipped down the pebbled bank to get to the water at Esplanade Beach.  I was almost in tears.  After my swim, and trying to get back up that bank, I couldn't do it.  I really did cry, tears of frustration. 

A woman who was sitting on the beach came to my aid.  She asked her son to give me his hiking stick (I was now working with two hiking sticks, whoopee).  The young guy carried my bag, and helped me up the stoney bank.  And guess what - ?  it turned out the woman was the neighbour of my best beach friend from Hataitai Beach. This woman, too, was on holiday. Talk about coincidences.

But because of two days of limping over stoney, pebble beaches my leg was shot...  I had to stay in my hotel room for the next four days.  I sat on the balcony and looked at the view which was lovely but didn't make up for losing out on all the swimming which was the reason I had booked for Lake Hawea.


above:  Lake Hawea - a fave scene -  from the balcony of my room at Lake Hawea Hotel.  The view from Esplanade Beach is even better


Part II of the holiday from hell will be coming soon