Whines and complaints

Sometimes sucky things happen. It's a fact of life that can't be avoided. It doesn't necessarily help to whine about them, but it may help.

My phone died this weekend, or at least almost died ... enough for it to be rendered unusable for all practical purposes, and enough for me to be incommunicado for most of Saturday without realizing it. That's not such a big deal, except that it resulted in me missing something super cool - lunch, a guided tour of the Viking Ship House and dinner with, among others, James Randi. Yes, seriously. Instead I spent the day in a 300 year old basement. A basement full of chocolate, but still.

What's really annoying is that it was all my own fault, because first of all I should have switched over to my new phone ages ago, but didn't because of misplaced affection for an inanimate object, and if I had done so this would not have happened, and second, if I had tried to call one of my fellow podcasters instead of pootling around among the chocolate, I would have soon realized that something was amiss and that this was the reason why it had appeared that they had not called me. (My phone would not have worked, but we have a phone at Friends too, so.) In other words, I have only myself to blame, and of course that only makes it worse.

And what is totally annoying is that now I have lost I don't know how many people's phone numbers - the very thing I have always thought I would somehow guard myself against. Drat. Again, I have brought it upon myself. Some numbers survived, some I actually remember and some I have dug out from here and there ... but far from all, so if you have my number and you think I should have yours, please text me and include your name in the message. I need some help reconstructing my metaphorical phone book. Some of you may already have been contacted. :-)

Of course one misfortune doesn't come alone, so naturally we had to have a meeting with our new boss* at work this afternoon and it had to be seriously frustrating and ... well, I probably shouldn't go into too much detail. Except to say that the way this guy treats me really raises my hackles. I'm sure he thinks it's all fine and dandy. But he would never ever talk to me that way if I were a man. And it's flabbergasting that he thinks we can get a great dialogue going when he won't even let me finish my sentences. o_O He doesn't treat the guys like that. Not that he's super swell towards them either. But there is a difference - the guys picked up on it too - and it is because I am a woman. That seriously pisses me off.

A lot of men tend to think that Norway is a totally equal society - that the job is done here, so to speak. But it's not. It probably never will be, human biology being what it is. But it's much further from being done than a lot of you guys think. Because there are so many among you who will say things to a woman and act towards a woman in ways that you would NEVER act or speak to a man. It would never occur to you. But if the other person is a woman, it is second nature.

That's something for my male readers to think about. You may not think what you're about to say is necessarily patronizing and/or infantilizing - for instance - but think for a moment - would you really say the same thing to a man?

*Not a new presence at the company, but newly become our boss.