Start the world, I want to get on

Back from my training course and slowly trying to catch up with the world - it's incredibly selfish of it not to have stopped for that one week.

Rather than allowing us to sleep through four days of lectures, there was an exam script which we had to fill out over the week - six modules in all, apparently the equivalent of a (crummy) A-level - with essay questions such as: "Explain how to best develop a good working relationship with your team, your colleagues, your manager, and your customers." "How would you analyse a report to determine the key information, in order to best assess priorities?" "Why is personal development important for members of your team? How would you deal with a performance problem in your team?" "Explain why it is important to balance performance objectives against resource availability."

Oh, the fun we had. We did learn a few things, though. We learned that 300 operations per week on the NHS go wrong (which generally means something being left inside someone). We learned that McDonald's is a pinnacle of world class standards and excellence, and that the potato market is an incredibly complex one. We learned that Parker Pens are not, in fact, in the pen (or ink) business.

We learned that cutting out the middle man is called disintermediation.

I got back on Thursday, a fair bit poorer for food and phonecalls and disconcertingly unable to type properly after a whole three days without a keyboard. There weren't too many mishaps during the week, apart from inadvertantly boarding the wrong bus on Tuesday morning - it took me a while to realise this because this bus shared the beginning of the route that I should have taken. I eventually discovered I was on the wrong bus, leapt off and crossed over to the other side of the road in order to wait for a bus coming the other way. When it did, ten minutes later, it was the same bus that I'd just leapt off, with the same driver, giving me a strange look as I climbed back on again (who'd have thought?). I believe I kept my head down after that.

In any case, in about ten weeks I should be the prou— the, erm, owner, of a certificate proclaiming my worthiness in the role of manager (my line manager told me that I'm destined for management - something that is probably, I concede, depressingly true). Yay me.

Of presents, and socks

Knowing that I'm a huge fan of the two Godfather films, Kevin bought me the trilogy boxset on DVD, complete with stunning bonus materials and such (partly as a bribe in order to blackmail me into not whingeing unfairly about the course last week. What can I say, it worked. How easily I am bought...). Unfortunately, this is going to make it so much harder for me to deny that Part III exists - it's awful, awful, it completely ruined the perfect tragedy of Part II's end scene for me, and once I saw it I spent months trying to blank it from my mind. Doubly damning is the fact that I've spewed so much venom in Part III's name in front of Kevin that he's now curious, and intent on seeing it. And although it's on television next week when he could watch it without me, I'd feel compelled to ridicule him for watching it on Channel 5, poor quality and with adverts galore, when I have it on DVD. So I'm going to have to suffer the anguish - again! - and watch it with him...

And speaking of anguish, this brings me rather neatly around to the subject of Kevin's socks. (Forgive me for blogging about your socks, dear. But, well, I just had to.) There was a quote in last week's episode of Six Feet Under which gave a rather good overview of the issue at hand:

"I'm trying to pair up my socks."
"But they're all identical."
"That's the dilemma."

You see the problem. Kevin spends time in the mornings comparing lots of individual socks from the large sockpile in order to find a pair. The fact that all his socks are indistinguishable merely increases the difficulty of this task. Being a bright spark (and having a mother who, years ago, implemented a similar scheme for me), I suggested sorting them all out into pairs, all at once, and then sewing a small piece of coloured thread to the top of each sock with a distinct colour for each pair.

This idea was not welcomed joyously and jubilantly as I had hoped.

Kevin explained to me that his socks frequently go missing for periods of time and subsequently reappear, and they don't have the decency to do this in whole pairs. Thus there are times when the sockpile contains many individual socks, and not one pair between the lot of them. He is therefore sometimes compelled to take two different (indistinguishable) socks which don't make up a pair, and to convince himself that he has a whole pair, thus sparing him an anguish lasting all day long.

Were I to brutally commandeer his sockpile and sew in the coloured threads, he would no longer be able to labour under the pretence that he was wearing a pair of socks. He would instead have to suffer the indignity of mismatched socks, even though no one but him would know. (I think Kevin may be slightly geeky. Don't tell anyone though.)

So, now... to sew or not to sew? Sometime over Easter I may launch a sneak attack on the sockpile, armed with needle and threads. Be warned, Kevin's socks. I am coming for you.