Friday Five 4-November-2022 | Oops!

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1. When have you recently had to correct one of your errors?
I constantly make typos or formatting errors that I overlooked and have to go back to fix it. When I write a Word document, I'm already planning the formatting as I'm typing, so many times if I'm making a list or some sort of table without actually using a table, I use the tabs function and in my head I'm already counting how many tabs I need. I also constantly have the formatting marks switched. People who look at me work are all "WTF? why are you spacebar-ing all the empty spaces?" and I'm all like... just keep quiet and let me count (and only amateurs use the spacebar way to adjust spaces LOL). Usually when I'm done and start clicking on the ruler at the top to get the tab anchor points in place it all works out and I have a jumbled document suddenly looking all neat and tidy *does a victory dance*.
But then of course there are times when I've missed a tab or added an extra tab so it doesn't work out and I have to go back and find where it all went wrong.

2. When did you last break something you wish you hadn’t?
To memory in the recent past I didn't break anything... and regretted it. LOL. Well in the pottery class the tail of my first cat mug did crack, but that wasn't my fault. I don't know. Quite a few years back I had a special ceramic thermos bottle thingamajig I bought in Taipei that was expensive as F and I placed it on the ground (I was doing yoga) and when Frankie walked past, he sniffed at it and simply toppled it over. And the whole thing cracked. LOL. Of course i wished it hadn't... it WAS expensive, and it had some special properties that water going in it would.... I don't know what would happen, I only know it (supposedly) makes the water better or whatever. But anyway. What's broken is broken and I've been stuck in town ever since and couldn't get to Taipei to get a replacement. Heck. Even if I did I don't even remember where that shop was at LOL.

3. When have you taken a wrong turn (literally or figuratively) and found yourself in a better place?
There have been times when I did something wrong and I thought that "oops, I'm gonna get shit for it" and in the end apparently it was the right thing to do. I can't think of specifics, but things like that HAVE happened.

4. When did you most recently return a purchase to the seller?
Um... "Returns" isn't quite exactly a thing here. There IS warranty and guarantee, so if you bought something and within 7 days of purchase something is wrong you can return it for an exchange. That has happened exactly ONCE in my life. It was for a Canon printer (Pixma 3000 I think, or some name like that). We opened it, plugged it in, and when we opened the casing, the ink slot did not slide out on its own (it's supposed to do so whenever the case is flipped open). So we just took it back to the shop, they checked, confirmed and gave us a new one.
I don't remember why they didn't try it on the spot though. If they did that then they would have known right from the beginning and spared me the trip back.

Clothes also, especially when it's a gift. You can go back to exchange the size of it.

But "returns" for being "it's something I bought but now decide that I don't like, so I'd like to return and refund my purchase," is... not a concept here...

5. From whom do you most willingly take correction?
I would say, from my ex-ex-Boss. That man has a real good sense of business and management. To be reprimanded by him is actually a good lesson.

It's only the first week of November

Thanksgiving is not "a thing" here. We know about it, but then it's not really seriously observed. Black Fridays are always Friday the 13th to me LOL. So when I first heard of a "Black Friday sale" a couple years back I was like "huh... if it's a day prone to bad luck why would people decide to go shopping? What if they get a heavily discounted item but it's faulty?"

Anyway, the point is... I also read/heard about how people complain right after Thanksgiving all the Christmas things are up.

Well.

My Starbucks today (5-November) has the Christmas Tree up already, WTF. At least they are not putting Christmas songs yet. I enjoy the Christmas tunes well enough, but not for the whole of December... hopefully not for the whole of November now.

I was reading an email about "welcome our new team members!" and saw a familiar name. Surely, that's a very common Chinese name and a very common Chinese surname, so surely it could be just a matter of people so-happen-to-have-the-same-name. Like, I suppose if you search for John Smith then there's a ton of John Smiths out there. Similar case here.

But it would be so funny if it IS the person I know. She was my assistant for a bit when I was working for my ex-boss. I was newly promoted to be an EA and I was not expected be the office manager and EA at the same time. My ex-boss was a bit of a... erm.... how should I put it in a non-demeaning way... likes quality and efficiency, but he also likes aesthetically nice things. I by no means am a person who dolls up to work, but he's happy with my quality of work. So when I had to look for an assistant, this girl was the one with some potential as she was interested in learning all the document processing tools (like, more in-depth of how use Word and Excel and such). She was a bit weak on the English front though, and she definitely also didn't doll up.

My ex-boss hated her so much that he used some stupid analogy about there's nothing wrong with the shoe, it's just that it simply doesn't fit and all that. My friend-colleague made a joke-jab at the ex-boss saying all he wanted was a nice figured girl so he can look at while Kat (me) worked all the load.

Well. The joke's on him. She worked a few months and then found a new job with the government... the clicker? In the department that oversees casinos and such. When I told him she's quitting, he was all victorious and saying what kind of job can a girl like that get? And I said "ah, the DICJ" and I smirked right back at him because what are we? A casino, LOL. I warned him, "better not upset her, lest she get her revenge in the future and has some say in there!"

In the end, I was the EA and the office manager and the inter-departments coordinator (because that office was a mixed-departments floor and needed someone to coordinate all their different requests and such). Should have played stupid and said "oooh I don't know how to do it".

Anyway, so I see on this email someone with the exact same name as that girl. They're going to snap a photo of her when she's on board and show me. It would be a funny coincidence if that indeed is her, LOL.