Modern soliloquy - hair colour at the coffee counter.

"What would you like?" the woman at the coffee counter asked.

"Regular cafe latte, take away thanks," I replied and handed my money over.

"Love the red hair!" she exclaimed.

Before I could thank her for the compliment, she went on: "I used to have a gorgeous bright red like that. But then, you know, the maintenance got too much? It was just impossible to keep it looking good. You know? How do you find it? It was just too hard for me. And - at the time - I was going to a hairdresser way over in the eastern suburbs, so it was a long way to go as well. But that's another story. I loved it, don't get me wrong - and yours looks really good, but I just couldn't do it any longer. I felt like five minutes after I left the salon it looked excellent, but after another minute it looked all dull and faded. I'm sure you've had that problem. Although it doesn't look like you have. How do you keep yours looking so good? I got sick of trying to keep mine looking good, so, it was about a year ago now, I decided to go back to this horrible brown colour."

Rock star redder than ever!
© 2014 divacultura

If someone else hadn't arrived behind me to buy coffee, I'm pretty sure she'd still be telling me the history of her hair colour.

I was fascinated. People do this to me all the time - launch in and tell me something from their life in DETAIL. They ask questions that I know I'll never have to answer. I've also noticed that these exchanges start with a compliment being paid and quickly spiral into a complaint fuelled by jealousy or frustration of some kind. It's almost as if they're just thinking out loud.

Then I wondered, if Shakespeare was writing today would Juliet have a soliloquy about her hairdressing difficulties? Hamlet might wonder about the wisdom of expecting privacy on line ("To be on Facebook, or not be on Facebook, that is the question...") Ophelia would be blogging somewhere or on an online forum for people with a mental illness.

My lesson from today, is when I get tired of red hair, avoid the horrible brown colour as the next choice!

Sucked into the call centre vortex

Every two years I have a conversation that I swear never to have again. I had it again yesterday. My mobile phone provider offered me the chance to upgrade my phone and get a better deal. Great, I thought. It will be okay. They've had two years to act on the feedback from the last delivery debacle. Oh, wait, that's what I said to myself two years ago.

The phone and the plan are both great. All the details were quickly sorted out. Then came the dreaded question: "What the is the address for delivery?"

I held my breath and gave my GPO Box which I rent from Australia Post and is completely secure.

The predictable reply came. "I'm sorry we do not deliver to post office boxes. You need to give me your home address."

I inhaled through gritted teeth and prepared to give the standard explanation.

"Who does the deliveries?" I asked.

"Australia Post," came the reply.

"My post office box is an Australia Post box. The parcel will be delivered and signed for by counter staff. You will give me a tracking number, so we will know where the parcel is at all times. A card will be placed in my post office box. I will open my post office box, discover the card and take it to the staff at the counter. The staff will locate the parcel, check my ID, scan it and ask me to sign. They will then give me the parcel. What is the security risk?"

"We don't deliver to post office boxes because they are not secure."

"Please explain to me what happens if you try to deliver to a physical address and I am not there to collect it."

"We will attempt delivery. If you are not there to receive the parcel a card will be left on your front door, and the parcel will be taken to the nearest post office," he explained.

"What happens then?" I asked, knowing the answer.

"You will need to take the card to the post office, hand it over to the staff and they will give you the parcel. You will need to do this within seven days or the parcel will be returned."

This felt like a really hard game of Spot-the-Difference.

We argued back and forth and I was ready to scream the next time the polite Indian man told me "don't worry Tanya, we will get this sorted out for you".

I considered having it sent to one of the workplaces where I work, but was worried as colleagues have had deliveries go missing. That seemed like the best option. I gave the address and specified that Wednesday was the only day I would be there to collect it.

Last night I received emails and texts confirming all the order details. The delivery address was basically my name and a suburb. While I have respect for Australia Post, I don't think that even they would be able to deliver the parcel with only that information. I clicked on the tracking number and the Vodafone website said that it was "on it's way" and "on the truck". I clicked a further link to the Australia Post website and was greeted with the news that the tracking number was invalid.

I became angry.

I called the "customer care" centre at Vodafone. After twenty minute of being on hold while the guy tried to figure out what was going on he suggested that I call Australia Post on Monday and ask them to change the address!

"Why would Australia Post change, over the phone, the delivery address of an item requiring personal deliver and signature when they have no way of verifying me? And anyway, how are they going to find the parcel when it has an invalid tracking number?"

"Well all you need to do Tanya, it is very simple, don't worry, is just give them a call on Monday and they can fix it for you."

"This is not my problem. This is Vodafone's mistake. I don't need to do anything."

"Well if you're not there, they will take it to the nearest post office for collection, don't worry."

"If I'm not "where"?"

"At the delivery address?"

"And what is the delivery address?"

...

"That's the problem isn't it? The parcel will not be delivered. It will be returned to sender. What you need to do is cancel this order and order me another phone for delivery with the correct address."

"Certainly, Tanya. That will take 10 business days..."

I try not to yell at call centre people. I've worked in one myself. I will confess that this morning I yelled. Nothing makes me as crazy as people who don't listen and aren't customer focussed. They were making this all my problem and it was not my problem.

"I started paying for the phone yesterday when I placed the order. Why do you think that I would be happy to wait for at least another three weeks to get the phone? That's ten days for you to get the phone back and then a week for another order to be placed and it to be re-sent. That is not what is going to happen. You're going to fix this."

"Don't worry Tanya. I will put you through to the upgrades team and they will be able to help you."

"Why didn't you do that 25 minutes ago?"

"Hello! Upgrades. Vipin speaking."

Suddenly I had been put through and it happened too quickly for a handover to have been done.


I told the story again.

"Oh well we can not add more information to the delivery details because our system doesn't allow the space."

This wasn't getting any better. I believe the hysterical, laughter may have entered the conversation at this point.

We went through exactly the same conversation as before. I was put on hold.

After 55 minutes on the phone Vipin offered to call Australia Post and change the delivery details to the complete address on Monday and confirmed that he will also call me on Monday to confirm arrangements. How they're going to find the parcel, given the tracking ID is invalid is beyond me, but I had nothing left.

Why was that not the solution offered in the beginning? I'm trying to have faith that the problem will be fixed, but I have no confidence. The only power I have is to take my business elsewhere. That will involve lots of paperwork,  more money and probably the same issue around delivery. Apart from this biennial problem, I'm very happy with the service and value. Why can't they get this right?

What's your strategy when you get sucked into the call centre vortex?

A wig is not a hat - rules for modern living.

There are some strange people out and about at the moment. I have two pieces of advice to offer. If heeded, I believe much trouble in the world could be saved.

1. A wig is not a hat.

It seems obvious at first. A wig is not a hat. As far as I know this is a statement of irrefutable fact, yet I have seen at least two people in the last two days - representative of both genders - who are labouring under the misapprehension that the opposite is true. They believe that a wig IS a hat. They must, otherwise, they would not be walking out of the house with that...that...arrangement sitting on their head.

I've looked a few times, maybe I've even stared. I should disclose one assumption that I'm making: that the thing on the head, which is hairy, is a wig. It may not be. It may be an actual hat which some milliner with an outrageous sense of humour, duped this poor woman into purchasing. Perhaps it was heavily discounted and in the bargain bin because to anyone else, it looked like a wig. Or like something scraped off the road with a shovel.

How can I describe the effect of the piece? Well it hangs before the face, like hairy drapes blowing in the wind. The rest of the outfit was very smart - crisp white shirt, houndstooth checked trousers with a black patent pump, but the smear of red lipstick was a little off. It wasn't quite the clown mouth, but one more lap with the Retro Red and the effect would have been more Ronald McDonald than Anna Wintour.

The woman in question engaged a staff member at Flinders Street Station in a conversation about how she had tried to buy chocolate, but the vendor said that its purchase price was 70,000 (what, I didn't quite hear). She went on at length to the man in the orange high-vis vest whom I suspected of not actually listening, until she posed the ultimate question: "How are you supposed to get ahead when that's the price of chocolate?"

I stopped myself from running over to her and answering: "Go into the chocolate business! And get that thing off your head! A wig is NOT a hat! That's how you get ahead!"

Although maybe she was actually asking how you are supposed to get "a head". Perhaps she was unaware that she already had a head, but then the wearing of the wig as if it was a hat would make no sense, as a head is an essential part of such an exercise.

2. A baby's jumpsuit is not a hat.

Again, this seems to be self-evident, but with another hot day forecast in Melbourne, I feel compelled to make this proclamation. On our last hot day, I spied a man wearing an electric blue, baby's jumpsuit on his head. It was very strange. I assume it was some kind of heat combat unit, but am mystified as to how this would work.

3. Leggings are not pants.

Again, I don't understand why there is any confusion about this.

Given all the uncertainty over head coverings, I have turned to the dictionary for the final word.

Dictionary.com says:

Wig:  an artificial covering of hair for all or most of the head, of either synthetic or natural hair, worn  to be stylish or more attractive. [emphasis mine].

Hat: a shaped covering for the head, usually with a crown and brim, especially for wear 
outdoors.

Those last few words in the definition of "wig" should clear it up for ever: "worn to be stylish or more attractive". I know they don't though as most times the wig fails to deliver. I will concede that a hat made of hair could also be a wig if the reason for wearing such a monstrosity was unclear. At this point I feel compelled to disclose that I own a wig. It is bright purple and I sometimes wear it to parties with the intention of being stylish. Mostly I don't wear it because I find it is hot and itchy.

Oh lord! All I can conclude is that if people are staring, chant the mantra "a wig is not a hat" and cover your leggings - they are not pants! Oh, and go into the chocolate business. (Unless "chocolate" is a slang term for whatever the kids are taking these days. In that case do not go into the "chocolate" business as I don't advocate the drug trade as a viable livelihood.)

Do you own a wig? Do you wear a wig? Is a wig a hat?

The world's most frequent and pointless conversation.

"Hello? Hello? ....Are you there?"

...

"No, I'm on the train."

...

"On the train!"

....

"No...I said I'm ON THE TRAIN!"

...

"Are you there?  Hello?"

...

"Hello?  hello?...Are you there?"

....

*Grunts*

*Sighs*

*Phone rings again.*


"Yes.  No.  I don't know what happened."

...

"You dropped out."

...

"I'm on the train."

...

"About ten minutes."

...

"Sorry?"

...

"Are you there?"

...

"Hello...hello?"

...

"I couldn't hear you."

...

"I don't know what happened."

...

"I'm on the train."

...

"No...what?"

....

*Grunts*

*Sighs*

*Phone rings*

Rinse and repeat.


This represents the content of an estimated 98% of all mobile phone calls taken and made on public transport during peak hour in Melbourne.  (Based on random methodology of eavesdropping on the 20 people sitting near me.)

What's the point?

The sound of procrastination and tax avoidance

Did you hear that sound today?  It was the sound of people (ie me and at least two other people I know) procrastinating.

The subject of procrastination was the completion of the BAS for the ATO which tracks how much GST has been collected by your business.  That amount is balanced against how much GST you've spent on business related purchases.  Then you balance that against your sales for the quarter and discover how much you need to pay the ATO or how much they need to pay you.  They've never paid me anything.

There are far too many acronyms in that paragraph...*

Despite having systems to make the process easier, when I receive the envelope with the notice, I dutifully mark the due date in the diary and then proceed to avoid it until the day before it is due to be submitted.  Then I spend a whole Sunday resenting the fact that I have to spend a whole Sunday on tax and then I nearly run out of time because cleaning the bathroom is suddenly a very appealing activity.

That's what procrastination sounds like - the bathrooms in the homes of small business owners being cleaned.  The oven suddenly looked like an appealing prospect for attention at about 11:30 today.  Or I could have alphabetised my spices.  Or cleared the spare room.  Actually with four BAS's to complete in a year I should be able to sort out my spare room...Even an emergency trip to the dentist would have been fun.

Usually I'm not one to procrastinate; I just do whatever needs to be done.  When it comes to anything to do with tax though I have a mental block.  Thank goodness I do have some kind of system or it would be hell.  I have noticed that the due date for completion of the BAS corresponds to desk cleaning and filing day.  Something should be done about that.

It's not that it's difficult.  It's just that I could be doing more interesting things.  Like vacuuming the ceiling or cleaning the skirting boards.

Bernard Black, proprietor of the bookstore in the comedy "Black Books" gives tax avoidance a new meaning in the very first episode.  He is supposed to be doing his tax, but is gripped by creative procrastination - he pairs an enormous pile of socks, covers himself in post-it notes, answers the door and invites the Jehovah's Witnesses in for discussion and a cuppa.  I know exactly how he feels!

What's your preferred procrastination activity?

*BAS - Business Activity Statement
ATO - Australian Tax Office
GST - Goods and Services Tax

Another epic journey - or where the hell is my credit card?

I've just arrived in Sydney.  By "just arrived" I mean I walked into my hotel room about an hour ago.  I arrived in Sydney two and a half hours earlier having left Melbourne 90 minutes before that. You see I had to hire a car and drive way out west.  In the dark.  It nearly was too - I couldn't find the headlights.  Every time I thought I had them the windscreen wipers would start or the boot would fly open.  Luckily I discovered these things before I pulled out of the (very snug) car space. I needed the navigation system just to find my way out of the car space.  It doesn't work without a "clear view of the sky", which is very hard to have when you're on the ground floor of a multi-storey carpark.  I trusted my instincts and followed the arrows.

I drove and drove and drove and drove and arrived at my hotel.  I went to provide my credit card for the customary credit card imprint and it wasn't in my wallet.  Clearly the trainee who did all the paperwork for the hire car still had it.  I gave it to him so that I was covered for tolls.  Surprisingly the woman who checked me in at the hotel offered to call the hire car company.  I let her.  We could find no one to answer the phone and resorted to calling the accident hotline.  I figured I could claim a lost credit card was an accident.  Luckily I wasn't bleeding by the side of the road, because we would probably be on hold until sometime next week.  The most worrying thing was they had my phone number and I had left them 90 minutes earlier and they hadn't called to say they had my credit card.  I called the bank.  It gave me something to do while I waited for room service and figured out how to fill the kettle.

© divacultura 2013

The bank was excellent.  They put a temporary stop on the card until I could speak to the car people tomorrow and see if they did have my card.  I started to worry that in a moment of ennui I had left the card in the car or in my handbag.  I checked both.  I hadn't.

Room service arrived surprisingly swiftly.  The waitress asked me how my day had been.  I told her.  She asked if she could get me anything else: a cup of tea? a martini? a cuddle?  She looked like she meant it.  If she had been six feet tall, laughing eyes, nicely muscled and a bloke - or George Clooney -  I would have accepted.

No sooner had I ripped the skin off my barramundi than my phone rang.  It was Terrence from the hire car company and he had my credit card.  He was very apologetic.  At least I know where it is and won't be worrying all night.  I don't have time.  I have to figure out a way to fill the kettle so I can make a cup of tea.  Should have taken up that offer.

© divacultura 2013

Modern problems - making toast on a conveyor toaster.

I travel a fair bit for my work and so often find myself in hotels.  This week I'm visiting Perth and am confronted with the upward pressure that the mining boom is putting on prices as tiny little three star hotels have prices normally associated with 4 star comfort.  This time, I've struck gold in terms of the price being commensurate with the amenities.  I've been reminded of some of the challenges of living on the road.

© divacultura 2013

I've written before about that particular dilemma of filling the kettle in the bathroom sink.  As you can see from this photograph, this is one of the challenges I am having.  I might end up taking the kettle into the shower with me to fill it!

This morning I was struck by another problem which is often encountered anywhere that bulk, self serve breakfast - otherwise known as the "buffet" - is being served.  It is another one of those modern problems that I'm sure you'll recognise - turning bread into toast in one of those conveyor belt toasters.

Yes, as I write this and remember to my experience this morning, I can see the nods of recognition around the world and hear the cries of "oh yes!" also signalling recognition.

The conveyor belt toaster seems like a good idea  You put your bread in one end, it travels between two elements designed to turn both the upper and lower sides of the bread into toast.

Now, perhaps I should take nothing for granted, check my assumptions, and make sure we all have a shared understanding of the word which is central to this discussion: "toast".  By toast I mean bread that has been browned on both sides and in the process of browning has become warm/hot.  When eaten, toast is crisp/crunchy.  When spreading butter on toast, the butter should melt and you should hear the sound of the knife scraping on the crispy toast.

So, if my definition of toast is accepted as universal, then what is the expectation we share when bread is put into a toaster?  Well I don't know about you, but I expect that the bread will be turned into toast, in accordance with the above definition.

That's not controversial or contentious is it?

So I approach the bread this morning at the buffet and take a look at the toaster.  It's a conveyor toaster.  I sigh.  I place the bread at the start and send it on its journey through the elements.  Out the other end comes....no, not toast, but warm bread.  The colour is exactly the same as what went in, that is, bread colour - it has not been browned; the temperature is warm but there is no crunch or crispness.  This is not toast.  It is merely bread which has been heated.

A grey-haired woman tells me urgently to "put it through again - it needs to go through again!" No kidding!  It's not toast yet.  But I am wary.  I do want toast, but I know what happens now, I put it through again and I get two squares of charcoal and the fire brigade standing by and comments from the grey-haired woman like "ooh, you can't eat that - it'll give you cancer! Charcoal is carcinogenic you know!"

I put the warm bread through again and I get charcoal.

I speak to the waiter.  He looks at me as thought I'm speaking Martian.  He then shrugs and says the magic words which I knew he would say: "It's set for raisin toast."  So just checking in here, raisin bread will achieve a state of toast at a lower temperature and in a shorter time than white or grain bread due to its sugar content.  If the conveyor toaster doesn't take account of this, raisin bread will turn to charcoal and the fire brigade will be called every time raisin bread is put in the toaster.

A dilemma?  Well I don't see the problem.  It seems to me that the hotel simply needs to be honest about what the objective of the toaster really is instead of continuing to pretend that the toaster exists for the purpose of turning bread into toast.  Clearly the objective of having a toaster is to make charcoal.  If we examine the process of creating charcoal, the various materials available and the efficiency in the process, the dilemma of what settings to use on the toaster is resolved!  Forget about the raisin bread and set the toaster to optimise creating toast for white and grain bread.  Doing this means charcoal is created on one trip through the toaster instead of two.  It's much more efficient.  Charcoal production is up.  Everyone wins!

If I want my toast to be black rather than brown, I'll slather on the Vegemite.

I hope you find this post useful.  Having clear definitions of things can avoid so many problems.  For example, I never would have faced the great Portuguese accommodation scandal as to whether a mini toast (that I would normally eat pate on) could be classed as "toast" for the purposes of charging for bed and breakfast.

Modern problems - filling the kettle in a hotel room

One of my great life challenges is to successfully fill a kettle in a hotel room.  It sounds like a simple task.  If you've ever tried it, you'll know that it isn't.  In some rooms, the task is so enormous, that I have looked behind the curtains and in the light fittings for hidden cameras.  I've checked for two way mirrors that have a studio audience and a host on the other side.

In most rooms the only sink is the handbasin in the bathroom.  It is using this basin, with its taps, that the filling of the kettle will be done.

If only that were possible.  Depending on the age of the bathroom fit-out, the water spout will be so small or snug against the bottom of the basin, or won't stick out very far over the basin (overhang?) that getting anything bigger than a thimble under the water stream is impossible.  It may be possible to wet one's toothbrush.  Just.  Forget about putting your head under the tap for some water! Alternatively, the tap may have a nice high arch, but the spout lines up with the lip of the basin, leaving just enough room to wet the aforementioned toothbrush.

The height of the kettle compared to the design of the basin and its tap will be ridiculously tall.  Sometimes it is possible to manoeuvre the kettle under the tap, but the angle is such that the water flows out of the kettle as fast as it flows in.  If you notice this happening, whipping the kettle out from under the tap will result in a wet bathroom.  Gently angling the kettle to slide it BACK,  UP and DIAGONALLY, will result in the thimble full of water that had accumulated over the last agonising ten minutes being poured straight down the drain.  The emptying part usually takes less than five seconds.

A few places I've stayed in lately have a better tap design, but have provided a mini kettle.  These mini kettles are so small that they hold about a thimble full of water.  Do you know how many times you have to fill and boil the kettle to make a cup of tea when the kettle only boils a thimble-full of water at a time?  And by the time the tea cup is full, never mind a tea POT, the cup is full of cold water and the tea has gone the colour of week old dishwater.

Other places provide a plastic jug of water in the fridge.  The problem with this is that the water in the jug usually tastes like the jug itself.  It smells like the chemicals from the plastic plant where it was made.  Who knows how long the water in those jugs has been in there!  Even if the water didn't taste like plastic, I'm too frightened to use much of the water because I know that I'd never be able to refill the jug again.  I'm sure it will be written in the fine print I signed that the leaving of an empty jug will result in the charging of a ridiculously inflated water levy.  I'm just not prepared to take the chance.

Some rooms have a bath which solves the problem of the handbasin.  The problem with this is that hotels that are swanky enough to have a bath usually have a handbasin the size of a small reservoir with a correspondingly large tap which presents no logistical problems regarding the filling of the kettle.  This is just as well because in these rooms, my time will be taken up working out my lighting zones.  How many switches can one room reasonably have?  My whole apartment seems to have only one power point;  I am single-handedly supporting the double adaptor manufacturers, importers and retailers.

In the absence of a bath, the other source of water is the shower.  I have, on occasion, resorted to using the shower to fill the kettle.  This required some pre-planning.  Stripping naked to fill the kettle seems like an extreme measure, but the one time I didn't do it I regretted it.  When those labels on the suit say "dry clean only", they aren't mucking around.  It was one of those hand held showers with a hose attached.  At the slightest hint of water pressure, the hose went rigid and the shower head flailed around, spraying water all over everything.  I spent the next day making outlandish claims that the short sleeved safari suit was making a comeback for women, particularly when worn with a sense of irony.

I needed something stronger than a cup of tea after that little episode.

Most inns will claim that their rooms are equipped with complimentary tea and coffee facilities.  Of course they can afford to give it away for free - no one can use them!  (And if you do, you'll discover the teabags are filled with pencil shavings and the coffee sachets with brown powder).  To get around this, I now travel with my own thimble and can fill a kettle with enough water to make a cup of tea in just under an hour.  It's these travel hints that are priceless and I share it now for free.

What's your favourite travel tip?