There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

There's a popular hairstyle here that seems to only be attractive to the less salubrious denizens of Scotland. Namely the cretins who I see puking outside my flat at 10 in the morning, peeing in the alley behind my flat, and chugging White Lightening cider in the Meadows at 10:30 in the morning while screaming into their phone something completely incomprehensible. And apparently it has a name- the Undercut Pony.

Today was the kind of day that makes a nice person like me want to strangle kittens into wet, bloody pulps out of angst and anguish.
It started out with the bus. Despite being to the bus stop 5 minutes early, the bus itself was 5 minutes late. No biggie, my job is only a 10 minute ride away anyway. I should get there bang on time.

And yes, at exactly 8:30 am, I arrive at the Booking Office, ready to start the day.

You're Late.

First bloody words out of my supervisor's mouth.

What? Um, I start at 8:30, right? I mean...come on...I rely on public transport to get to work and made it BANG ON TIME.
You start work at 8:30, yes, and I expect you to arrive at work 10 minutes before you start. Now hurry along to Reception because you're late.

Um...Hold up here. Is this normal? I mean, in my previous jobs, as long as I was there on time or up to 7 minutes late, I was still considered ON TIME. So are you going to be PAYING me for my extra 10 minutes?

Thus, I hurry along to reception to fine that NO notes OR referrals have been pulled for the day or the following day. Jigga wha? It is ANOTHER person's job to get all the notes for the week, it is yet ANOTHER person's to get all the referrals. MY job is to sit at reception, log in patients, process paperwork, and make sure that the mail is properly distributed. Well not so much anymore.

One guy is off taking exams at uni, the other is coveting his wife or something, so it's me. I get the joy of doing 3 DIFFERENT people's jobs, all of which require me to be in 3 different places. And naturally, since I was thrown in the lurch, I have no idea where this stuff is. So I'm taking the inititiave, I'm looking up where these notes are supposed to be, tracking down who to call, and running around the Hospital like a monkey searching for a crack banana to get as many notes as I can. Oh yeah, while also checking in patients, doing paper work, and running out to meet the mail van to see what the other hospitals are sending over. Superwoman? Psh, not even she is as kick ass as I am.

However, all the running around meant I didn't get to eat lunch until 2:00. ALSO, it meant that the nurses were yelling at me and getting on my case because the notes for today weren't there. Even though that's not my job.

PLUS today was 'Take out your fustration on the Receptionist' day. I got about 50,000 phone calls from angry, disgruntled patients who had been trying to phone through to the booking office for the past two weeks to fingure out what the heck was happening with their appointment. Like me, whenever they tried to phone over, they were met with a busy tone. Or it rang out. So naturally, they decieded to phone me because I was where the procedure physically took place. But all I can do is transfer them back to the Booking Office. And when I tell them that, they say they give me 3 hours of complaining and explaining, and I have to sit there and try to get through to them that I am just as helpless as they are and can only transfer them over with the same number that they have. Out of all the the calls today, 4 of them have decieded to physically show up at the Booking Office and demand an appointment. I say, 'Good Luck'. The booking office is locked and hidden and full of angry wasps of retarded.

Solution: Go home, pour wine, drink, repeat.

Like the rest of the world, Britain seems to be throwing itself behind the idea of eco-friendly, earth saving initiatives, like using cloth tote bags and energy efficient light bulbs. But they are still not quite sure what recycling means.

I remember when I was studying abroad here as a third year student, we were given three blue recycling bins in addition to our trash can. Good first step- learning to separate trash and recyclables. However, only the trash was ever removed from our university dorm, meaning that in order to recycle any of our stuff, we would have to do it ourselves. This wasn't so much of a problem because lucky enough for us, there was a recycling station only a block away. And by recycling station, I mean a series of large bins delineated for clear glass, green glass, brown glass, paper, and clothes. The British (or at least the Scots) still haven't discovered that Aluminium and certain plastics are also recyclable.

Anyway, after uni, me and Scottie moved to the Tollcross, where I'm sure the closest recycling centre is still way the hell up in Marchmont, a good hike away when you're loaded down with countless glass bottles. Since Scottie and I don't really drink alcohol a lot in our flat, we didn't really have to deal with recycling anything, although it killed my a little bit and made my soul cry to toss the odd glass jar or coke can away.

When I came back to do a Masters, I was in disbelief. This time around, I was shocked to see a lot of recycle bins in the back next to where we have our trash bins. It was amazing! Even though our only recycle options were paper and glass, it was still better than nothing, and I made sure to have everything sorted. I think I even increased wine consumption with the joy of knowing that Mother Gaia was smiling at my recycling efforts.

Then I came back to the UK after my victorious battle against idiots at the LA British Consulate. After celebrating wit copious amounts of wine, I went to deposit the bottles in the recycling. EXCEPT THEY WERE LOCKED. Out of 5 glass recycling bins, all of them were locked. Apparently one restaurant owns a key. No one knows who owns the others. And it's not like CA, where you can save up your recyclables and cash them in for moolah. Nope. You either recycle them or you don't. Since I didn't want to throw my bottles away, I stacked them on top of one of the locked recycling bins, in the hopes that someone would see how stupid it was to lock recycling bins.

So now, a select few get to feel all high and mighty and lord over the rest of us because they hold the fabled keys to keeping the earth clean, while the rest of us are forced to see the bins, but not use them. How, Scotland, can you espouse green living, when you don't even provide ways of recycling to residents who are so green (or poor) they don't even own a car?How can I get in the 'I have a key' club? And why don't you know that aluminium is recyclable!?!