Highlights of the week ending 17/4/05

Started off the week at the conference of a certain horticultural industry. In my conference bag, I received a slightly sexist stubby holder (remind me to show you when you next come over for a beer). The conference had a partners program, and the conference organizer struggled over which language to use (politically correct vs pre-women’s lib) when advertising it’s itinerary to the group at the opening of the conference – ended up being a mish mash of “we’re glad to have the ladies, I mean “partners” along and we have a really great program for them” (read: the lovely ladies will not want anything to do with this nasty science, tractors and chemical stuff, so we’ve provided a girly, fluffy side-program so that the men can focus on the farming stuff and have a big blokely pow-wow instead of adding to the program material relevant to the part of the business that the females usually provide).

Someone made the point of coming up to me just to tell me they think I am doing a good job (this is after a senior staff meeting were I’d received a grilling of questions). This was a pleasant surprise/relief.

Had my quarterly hair cut, and everyone commented on it.

Cooked a mean minestrone.


This could happen to you/hard luck story

A friend of mine recently received a call in the middle of the day from her land-lord’s solicitor saying they were standing in their lounge room, and was there anything they might like to collect before they changed the locks?

And yes - they had paid rent on time, and had not done anything wrong. How did this happen?

It seems Landlord had gotten behind on their mortgage payments, and property had been claimed by lending institution. According to Land Agent, all they are legally obliged to do is:

1. send out notice of eviction by mail 7 days prior (with no obligation to ensure it actually reached tenant)
2. stick notice on door 7 days prior (again, with no obligation to ensure that it doesn’t fall off or actually reaches the tenant)

Obviously, neither of these notices reached my friend or her partner before the eviction date. Their life has been turned upside down, they have access to their belongings only by prior appointment with unsympathetic Land Agent, and are forced to find a new residence within 2 weeks. All this, and the Land Agent is getting narky with them for being upset (which is only understandable), and a solicitor is making things difficult for them re: giving them access to their stuff which they haven't had a chance to move out, because they didn't get any notice of their eviction. But when it comes down to it, it's their word agains the land agent's.