Just wondering....

Yesterday I was with a friend, who also works in television, and we were discussing how assuming is the worst thing that you can do in our industry.

We came up with a line that we think is worthy of a plaque:

'Assumption is the Mother of all Fuck Ups.'

What I want to know - is this something can be applied across the career spectrum - or is it particularly relevant to our industry?

Anyone?

He's still got it.

One of the things I have enjoyed about moving to Auckland as I have seen more of my family in three months than I generally would have in two years.

Last night I was at a family birthday party to celebrate my cousin's daughter turning 13. I mean how did that happen? One minute I'm teaching her how to crawl, (apparently my crawling improved tremendously during my lesson) and the next she's casually telling me about how she managed to talk to Justin Bieber when he was here last week.

But this is not another how-come-everyone-else-is-getting-older-while-I'm-still-21 post. This is to tell you about my favourite line of the evening.

It was my 82 year old uncle telling me that he and my aunt were driving somewhere this week and that they had to pull over as he got a call, 'It was from my agent, wanting me for an audition.'

I'm sorry, but how outstandingly cool is that ?

I do have to be careful though, last time I talked about him being 82 he emailed me demanding a recount, claiming that he was only 72.

To which I simultaneously sneezed and said 'Bullshit!'

Broad sweeping generalisations.

I've now lived in Auckland for four months. I used to say to myself that you weren't allowed to put a stereotype on a country/city/people until you'd lived there for three months.

I trashed this theory three months after I formed it when I moved to Tokyo and realised that the stereotypes I'd held before I'd moved there were completely correct.

Having now lived in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch each for longer than three months I now think I'm allowed to make broad sweeping generalisations about about each city.

If you were to consider them as aunts, Christchurch would be the rich aunt. She's the successful lawyer married to the successful lawyer. Great to go and visit, always guaranteed beautiful food, lots of treats, a million thread count sheet. But (just quietly) you're always a little bit pleased to leave.

Wellington is the funky, urban, slightly bohemian, brainy aunt. She's very cool, has a killer dress sense, is well read and interested in lots of things. Sometimes her conversations go a little bit over your head, she can get a little bit intense but you're always guaranteed a good argument over dinner, should you choose to pick one.

Auckland is the beautiful, good times aunt. She's a gym nut, is permanently tanned, drives a two seater and will proudly tell you about her latest botox. She's a hoot to spend time with, but if you spend too much time in her company she can tend to to wear you out.

The conclusions I can draw from these observations ? Possibly that I'm rubbish at broad sweeping generalistions.

And that I'd like to spend time with all of the aunts.

How to feel like an underachiever in one easy sentence.

I went to Wellington yesterday for a party which is the reason I'm really looking forward to an early bed tonight.

You'll be pleased to hear it was filled with spectacular amounts of silliness, helium balloons and air guitar. But that is not what this post is about.

Before the party my cousin and I went to the supermarket to buy another case of wine just in case the 142 boxes they'd already purchased weren't quite enough. (I had to get take four boxes of Heineken and a box of champagne out of the shower before I got into it, this morning).

It was at the supermarket we bumped into someone I used to work with.

The conversation went something like this:

'So you up from Christchurch?'

'No, down from Auckland.'

'You up there? What are you doing?'

So I caught him up with what I am currently doing and who I'm working for.

'Oh me old mate, Insertnameofboss. I was having a glass of wine with him last week in Cannes.'

'What were you doing at MIP?' (World's biggest television conference.)

'Collecting an Emmy.'

Yeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuppppppppp.

You can't really top those three words, can you ?

It's almost the same as if you were a swimmer and you bump into a fellow swimmer you used to train with. You ask what they've been doing in the interim and they tell you that, while you weren't watching , they'd won gold at the Olympics.

Mental note to self:must become more ambitious.

Don't yoof say the darndest things?

On the production I am working on at the moment we have our token gen yer.(Funnily enough she went through broadcasting school with the Student. I actually suspect she is the girl version of him and they came out of some cloning machine in Silicon Valley).

She breaks my rule of You Should Never Eat Things Larger that Your Head on a daily basis, is whippet thin ( see: Silicon Valley), has turned the scowl into an art form and regularly comes up with lines like 'Why don't you go away and come back ten percent cooler?'

She also has developed a habit of coming up to me and whispering quietly things like, 'You do realise you're the uncoolest person in the office and that no one likes you?' To which I respond along the lines of 'Please go away and cut yourself'.

Yesterday our wee emo morphed from intern into production assistant so we took her out for lunch and gave her a bunch of flowers.

I had given her the day off on Thursday as I'd made her work practically sixty hours the week before (yeah, I haven't mentioned the part of her being worth her weight in gold but I don't want her getting the idea that she is punching well above her weight just yet).

I texted her on her day off, 'Child, do you have lunch plans tomorrow? If so, cancel them.'

She came back with, 'Consider it done.'

Then, 'Is it something exciting I'm canceling my lunch plans for? Or does it involve you?'

I texted back, 'I've hired you out to Insertnameoftelevisionproductioncompany. You're going to be a featured extra in a snuff movie.'

She came back with, 'Ha, who knew you could be funny?'

Me: 'Well, you've only got 24 hours to enjoy that wit Baby Emo, so enjoy it while you can.'

She is such a joy to have around.

I'm confused.

And, suddenly, it's four hours from Friday.

How on earth did that happen?

Last time I looked it was somewhere around Tuesday.

I have a question.

How come, when you're about seven, summer holidays last foooooooooorrrrrreeeeeeeeeevvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

As does maths class.

But when you're an adult (albeit in body, not necessarily mind) time seems to pass at the speed of light?

Unless you're trapped in a going-nowhere meeting or doing your tax?

I just can't seem to do the maths on that one.

I won't grow tall and neither, I fear, shall I grow mature.

We have had a new person working in the office I am currently working and I'm going to moot that the owners of the company hire her to hang out in the office when her project is finishes as the entertainment factor she brings in is high.

The other day she was making a phone order to get a chocolate cake sent to a friend. What I heard went something like this:

'Hello I was wondering if you would be able to - last minute I know - get a chocolate cake delivered to a friend of mine?'

Other person talk.

'You only have whiskey flavoured?'

Other person talk.

'Oh that's good, it's just it's celebrating someone being twenty years sober, so whisky is kind of defeating the purpose.'

Other person talk.

Then logistical details and summing up the conversation.

'Oh that's great, and thank you for doing it at last minute notice.'

Other person talk.

'Now, how 'bout some methamphetamine cupcakes?'

It was at that point I burst out laughing, loudly.

On Friday a courier driver came into the office with a parcel. As this woman is the first person you see when you come around the corner he walked up to her and asked if he could give her the parcel.

'Is it money?'

'I don't know' says Mr Courier Driver, 'it's for a Brian.'

'Do I look like a Brian?'

Also on Friday she and one of the bosses had had a long afternoon interviewing people on a pretty harrowing subject. At the stage when the rest of the people in the office were raiding the fridge for wine and beer they were told that their last appointment was on his way.

'Would it be immature if I hid under my desk ?' She asked.

I'm enjoying someone who makes my immaturity seem not so severe. (However I have to say that since starting work in this office I have been doing my very best act my age and not my shoe size, but I am reasonably confident I shall blow my cover any day soon.)

The other thing is, this woman is closer to my mother's age than mine, which I think indicates that the chances of me growing out of my immaturity and into maturity are fully screwed.

Oh well.