I don't celebrate Christmas

This always shocks people - I ignore Christmas on 25th December.  Why? I don't have any family, and I have been single since 2005.  Christmas is a time for family and for the person you're in love with.  So, I have a Christmas day in October or November with my friends.  We have an actual Christmas - presents, food, alcohol and crap Christmas movies.  It honestly works - we always have a good time.  This year (2011) was amazing.  So, my friends get to have Christmas with me, then on 25th December they are forced to deal with the usually very stressful Christmas with family etc.  I usually just get drunk and ignore it.  It works well for me, and has done for quite some time now.

On 24th December 2011 I got quite drunk.  Vodka and Irn Bru (a sweet fizzy drink for those who do not know what it is) was my drink.  Irn Bru is very sticky when dry.  Unfortunately, I dropped it on my laptop.  Totally ruined it.  I tried cleaning the keys (laptop keys are very different to keys on a PC keyboard).  Couldn't log into it - in the vernacular it is absolutely fucked.  So, on Boxing Day I had to fork out £400 for a new laptop - pro's and con's!  The new laptop has more memory, more RAM and a better processor (quad-core processor???).  I backed my laptop up a few months ago, so I do not think there is too much missing - and I will be able to retrieve it when I pay for the keyboard to be fixed on my laptop.  So, for once, I actually bought myself a very expensive Christmas present - doesn't happen often :)

So, 2011, what has it been?  I started a training contract (the training period for solicitors).  I qualify on 4th July 2012.  I am still single.  I have fallen in love with this guy, but he has now gone away for a year (working at a ski resort, then travelling around East Asia).  I work stupid hours, but am learning more as I do.  I've started working in a new area (to me) of law.  I worked in consumer credit before - total nightmare area of law.  I have now also started looking at a new and developing area of law (interest rate swap hedging policies).  That is very exciting, for me at least.  I give up smoking (again) in January. But, I now live in a small little town, and I am missing Manchester a lot.  I have a zero social life here, and it is now getting me down.  I have received the most ludicrous complaint (see my last blog - complaint about my "condescending signature" ha ha ha).  So, on the whole, my life has shrunk down to just work and no play in 2011.  I am determined to change that in 2012.

So, the whole point of this blogg was to show that not everyone has Christmas in the conventional way (though I am one of the most unconventional people I know).  I also wanted to reflect on 2011.

I wish you all a very prosperous 2012.  Let's hope that the world is a more peaceful place this time next year.

A good start - a complaint

Most people blog complaints.  I thought I would start with a complaint made about me.  A very amusing complaint.  I promise this is true, this is a true complaint that a client made about and against me.  I think it is that funny that I have started this blog with it :)

I am a trainee solicitor.  I bring claims against mortgage brokers for negligent advice.  We get all kinds of clients - people just after money through to people whose lives have been absolutely devastated.  In the first instance we must send out a client care letter - it is a requirement of the solicitors' code of conduct.  With this particular gentleman we sent the CCL.  We did not get it back, so a standard letter was sent out chasing it.  So, this chap emails me and, among other things, complains about my signature.  I did not quite understand this, so emailed back saying if he wishes to make a formal complaint about my signature I would certainly pass it along.

He emails back saying it is an off the record complaint, but (this is the good bit) my signature is condescending and he objects to this condescension.  I must admit, I laughed so hard at this - a signature can be condescending? So, I emailed back and said (slightly sarcastically) that I had informed my manager and complaints' manager about it, that they would keep it under review and they would take action if my signature was condescending to any other people.  Anyway, he keeps going on, and then says, an email or two later: "Did you even sign [the letter]?"  Well, I didn't - which at that stage was the rather ironic point to the whole debacle.  It was a letter printed by someone else, they signed it and sent it - I didn't see nor did I sign it.  So, upon receipt f my email, this chap goes up the wall and states that this beyond the pale so wants to make a formal complaint.  Why? Because the signature (the condescending one) did not have "pp" next to it. (PP is used to denote that the signature is made by someone on behalf of the named writer).

I can honestly say that this cheered me up.  Quite how this would upset someone as much as it upset this chap is beyond me.  I take my job very, very seriously.  I work 50 - 70 hours a week.  I take my duties extremely seriously.  I take my responsibilities to my clients as equally seriously.  I have clients whose lives had been devastated by advice they have taken from professional mortgage brokers.  I have clients who have lost everything, and it is for them that I work stupid hours.  And the response? Someone getting exceptionally wound up over a signature.  It really does put everything else into perspective, doesn't it?