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Visit from a Type A

posted at 1:35 pm
on Oct. 7, 2005

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They say the key to blogging is to be personal and interesting.  Here goes.

So, this building’s elevators have mirrors on three walls, and on the ride down today, I noticed the LONGEST eyebrow hair I’ve ever had.  It must have been, like, inches long (that’s like a decimeter, my Canadian comrades).

What’s that? Too personal, not interesting?

OK, so this woman came to look at our current place recently.  She was quite the piece of work, and I’m going to change just a few details because she didn’t know she was being blogged.

She’s been in Vancouver about 10 days.  She works for a foreign embassy, and will be here about two years.  She’s trying to find a place right away, because she’s worried that her three-month time limit to be reimbursed for finding a place to live might mean she’s got to start paying for her own temporary accommodation if nothing suits.

Of course, once she chooses a place, she’ll get about $3000 CDN in living allowance.  So that will be a relief.

She used to be stationed in Pakistan, but she was reassigned to some place a little more politically calm, because she got a “local brain virus” that “wiped out a lot of her short term memory from that time” and “almost killed” her.

She was extremely worried that not all her furnishings would fit in our place.  She said the landlord told her our apartment was about 1300 square feet.  Of course, the same landlord originally told us this place was about 1200 square feet, and I think it’s probably 1000 square feet.  Conclusions: some landlords lie.

Back to the lady.  She said she needed to take it easy, but she also wanted to take French lessons so that she could go live in Paris next.  And she was interested in taking pilates.  And cooking.  She was “a little Type A,” as she admitted to us.  Oh, and she said she’d really like to be working in the Middle East, because that’s where all the embassy action these days is.

Overheard

“Oh boy! Another great opportunity for personal growth!”

...who said it?

“I’m not bitter about what happened to me as a child, and my mother was instrumental in keeping me from being so. ... She taught me to be grateful for my life regardless of what that entailed, and that’s directly related to the image of Christ on the cross and the example of sacrifice that he gave us. What she taught me is that the deliverance God offers you from pain is not no pain—it’s that the pain is actually a gift. What’s the option? God doesn’t really give you another choice.”

...who said it?

After over a decade of user testing, it is clear that the way we search the web is similar to the way we would search our home for valuables as it was burning to the ground. Frantically.

...who said it?

“We must shift the focus of companies back to the customer and away from shareholder value ... The shift necessitates a fundamental change in our prevailing theory of the firm… The current theory holds that the singular goal of the corporation should be shareholder value maximization. Instead, companies should place customers at the center of the firm and focus on delighting them, while earning an acceptable return for shareholders.”

...who said it?

“We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.”

...who said it?

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