KEY POINTS:
A reader from Manukau was at a petrol station filling up his BMW, wearing black dress pants, pale blue shirt, black tie and a black, fleecy waistcoat with grey trim. "A middle-aged man slips in alongside me in his Jag and says, 'Fill'er up, mate - premium'. I
told him I didn't work there and hurried off. The next day, at Foodtown after work, I'm standing in front of the sauce aisle frantically looking for something, working the shelf like a jigsaw, when another shopper taps me on my shoulder and asks me where the flour is kept. Again, I told her I didn't work there and hurried off. I'm wearing a dark navy blue shirt with a cream polka-dot tie. A week later, I'm at the toy aisle in The Warehouse, looking for a present for a 5-year-old. A mother of two asks me, 'Will you be restocking those again soon?' I'm wearing a crisp, white, short-sleeved shirt and blue tie this time, and the uniforms here are red. As a Pacific Islander in a management role with an $850k house, beach house and married to a lovely European Kiwi, with two beautiful Samoan/European daughters ... I finally worked out what the issue was ... never wear a tie to work."
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Michele Boston writes: "I have a Telecom phone and my husband a Vodafone. In the past texting between them was pretty much immediate, but now it can be fast or painfully slow, taking hours (the record so far is eight hours). Before we worked out we were on competing mobile networks, the poor man was constantly in the dogbox for not getting back to me quick enough."
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Yesterday Sideswipe reported that one of the new lecture theatres at Auckland University's Business School had been named the Fisher & Paykel Appliances Auditorium. Another student says "the air conditioning is on from before the 8 o'clock morning lecture, and all the way through the day. Some students have started calling it 'the Fridge"'.
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The picture of the 11 road workers standing around was a cheap shot, but was more a dig at Auckland's roading woes. One reader says: "Sometimes activity B can't start until activity A is finished ... It's also harder to take a picture of 11 guys sitting on the dole." And Peter Malcouronne hopes "in the interests of balance, you'll take a similar photo down at the Viaduct around the corporate lunch 'hour' (11am-3pm) and watch as our captains of industry (on 10, 20 times the earnings of your average manual labourer) 'network' and contribute mightily to the nation's productivity".
