Burrowing Mammals

As promised, this entry signifies the completion of the five tasks I set for myself in the previous entry.

I telephoned the chief pilot of an airline where I want to work. I'll be talking about that company a lot, so we'll call them Aardvark Air. (The airline has nothing to do with that tubulidente species, I just need something to call it. I think I'll anonymize all airline names as burrowing mammals.) I made about eight tries at calling him, but despite advice from his assistant (no, the advice wasn't "buzz off") I didn't manage to talk to him. I'll put that back on the list for next week. There's no great expectation of a job there this season, but it's good to keep in touch.

I visited Air Badger, to, well to badger the ops manager and assess my chances of being hired this spring. There was no one in the reception area, but I could tell there was someone in a office around the corner. I spent a few minutes admiring the decor and then poked my head around the corner to say hello. Here's where I showcase my poise and wit. In the space of our short conversation, I (a) twice accused the chief pilot of hiding from me (b) admitted to being confused by the layout of the building and (c) failed to get the person's name. I did however leave a resume, which I was assured would be delivered to the Air Badger chief pilot. It didn't look like the person was annotating the resume with "confused and paranoid."

I also dropped by the office of Civet Airlines, where I actually know someone, but, judging from the fact that the door was locked, it was a bad time.

I printed off some information for a presentation I have to give next month, then browsed the web for a while, being hauled back on topic with this paper about speaking styles. (I have no idea how I got there.)

Speakers adjust their speech primarily towards that of their audience in order to express solidarity or intimacy with them, or conversely away from their audience’s speech in order to express distance.

I completed a first draft of the presentation, with a yet-to-be-determined speaking style.

My logbook is now completely up-to-date. I have neatly entered the aircraft identifier, pilots' names, origin, destination, and flight time for a month and a half worth of flights. I have even verified the numbers against both my paystubs and my pocket calendar, and totalled up all the pages. I got so enthusiastic enough about accomplishing tasks that I then updated my pocket calendar with my scheduled flights for February, and did some banking.

The physical exercise part of my pledge was a bit of a cop out. Aside from that walk to the bank, I settled for a hundred push-ups, while watching TV. But that should take care of the fortune cookie.

On the minus side, I wasted at least an hour finding names of burrowing mammals that start with every letter of the alphabet. I master procrastination techniques others don't even dream of.